02-28-2026SOLOPRENEURSHIP

3 affordable networking options that work better than LinkedIn

LinkedIn may seem like the easiest way to network, but solo business owners can create their own networking opportunities wherever and whenever they want.

[Photo: Studio Romantic/Adobe Stock]

Networking as a solopreneur can feel impossible. LinkedIn is full of the sort of hustle-culture aficionados who think yoga at 4 a.m. is something to brag about and who want you to buy their online course. Joining a networking referral group often costs money and can require a big time commitment without a guarantee of new leads. Asking friends and family to make referrals for you gives you flashbacks to that one summer in college when you got roped into selling Cutco knives.

But solo businesses are already nontraditional, so you might as well embrace quirky networking opportunities. Some of my best freelancing leads have come from Tumblr, carpooling, and on one memorable occasion, the ladies’ room at a Nick Cave concert.

If you’re struggling with how to grow your network as a solopreneur, here are some unexpected strategies you can use.

When consultant Garima Verma wanted to break into the entertainment industry as a student at UCLA, she found that going to networking events and applying to every opportunity got her nowhere. So she decided she needed to get herself into the same room with the people she wanted to work for.

“There was an event that NBCUniversal was sponsoring,” Verma says. “I wasn’t invited to it and I had nothing to do with it, but I volunteered to help set up and clean up the chairs.”

That meant she was there with the representatives at the end of the event and could get some one-on-one time with them. “I was cleaning up and ended up talking to–a little bit cornering–a couple of reps,” she says. “It’s how I got my first job in entertainment.”

Verma has carried that same energy throughout her career. In 2020, she realized she wanted to do more in the world and got really deep into the volunteer infrastructure of the Biden-Harris campaign. “I just DM’d a million people on Twitter and told them to talk to me and give me an interview for a job,” she says. “That’s how I got my first job in politics.”

Claire's went from tween mall icon to bankrupt — twice?

© Fast Company