EllieA while back I made a post on X that would end up changing my life! (I know so dramatic, but seriously tho)
Let’s go back in time:
I asked if anyone was interested in having a coffee chat, and I didn’t know that after posting this I would end up scheduling about 25 coffee chats within the following 2-3 weeks. I knew it would be a bit overwhelming, but at the time I was feeling pretty motivated so decided to just go for it.
Before we get into what happened, I should probably tell you what a coffee chat is, right?
First, What is a Coffee Chat?
A coffee chat is (usually) a 30-minute video chat with another developer (or person in tech). You could be both junior devs trying to break into tech, or you could be on totally opposite ends of the spectrum.
Then, you can chat about tech, life, what you're building, really anything! And the purpose is to make new friends, connect with people you've talked to online but never face to face & network (although, I don't really like the word network anymore).
Going into the coffee chat with the intention of making a new friend is really the key point here, please don't go into these expecting the person to give you a job, rather, think "how can I help this person?"
(and no you don't really need to drink coffee, but if you do this many chats in a short time period you may want to consider it😅)
Benefits of doing Coffee Chats
Now that we know what a coffee chat is, let's get into what happened during these 2~ weeks and the awesome benefits!
Communication Skills
I remember when I first started using X (at the time it was called Twitter😭), I was too scared to even speak in a space (shoutout to Shawn Charles for telling me to grab the mic and get over that fear!). Back then, I definitely would have been scared of doing a coffee chat.
After a while, I started doing a few coffee chats (maybe 1 or 2 a month?). Soon after, I realized that I wasn't even getting nervous before the coffee chats (or even live streams).
If you're someone who's anxious or shy, this is a great way to practice communicating with other people and reducing anxiety around that. Then later on when you go into interviews or have to give presentations at work, it will be SO much easier.
Connect with the Community
One of the coolest parts about coffee chats is the fact that you get to connect with new people in the tech community.
When I was doing all those coffee chats, I had the pleasure of meeting Sophia Iroegbu during a coffee chat (one of the coolest people on X btw!). We got to talk about ALL kinds of things, but mainly we realized that we both started out in tech as technical writers.
During our chat she told me that she had written some articles for a company called Pieces. (At that time I didn't know much about Pieces). She also told me about how her technical writing ended up turning into a devrel internship at Pieces.
Now, Sophia is doing an internship at Lead DevRel as a Developer Advocate. She is mainly focused on community building and creating unique developer experiences through videos and articles.
I mentioned to her that Pieces had actually reached out to me about a social partner program, and she really recommended that I do it, and if possible I should write some articles for them.
After this conversation, I was definitely inspired (btw getting inspired is probably one of the biggest benefits of doing coffee chats).
Career Benefits
After my coffee chat with Sophia, I reached back out to Pieces about the social partner program they had DM’d me about on X, and ended up getting on a call with Rosie (Pieces' Chief Customer Officer)
Talking to Rosie was so much fun that it made me want to learn more about Pieces & hopefully work with them in some capacity.
After this, I ended up becoming a social partner and I got to have a chat with the CEO of Pieces, Tsavo! Pretty cool right?
During this chat we talked about Pieces and I also shared some of my first impressions when using the product. It was awesome to see how passionate and open to feedback he was!
A few weeks after this chat, Rosie contacted me and asked if I was interested in joining the team as a Developer Advocate. Of course, I was elated and said yes!
Literally my reaction after she asked me☝️
Moral of the Story
If you haven't figured it out already.. What's really cool about this story is that one random coffee chat with Sophia eventually led to landing an offer as a developer advocate at Pieces. And it pretty much all stemmed from that one tweet (kinda crazy right?).
So, hopefully I've convinced you that doing coffee chats is worth it and can lead to friendships and unexpected opportunities. Now, let's look into how to do a coffee chat.
How to do a coffee chat
1) Get on X or LinkedIn: Hopefully you are already on X (if not, LinkedIn is ok too).
2) Set up a Cal or Calendly: I prefer Cal personally (since you can have more than one active event type for free), setting this up will help you manage your chat schedule.
3) Create a new event:
4) Reach out: If you have some friends on X, LinkedIn, or Discord communities, reach out to them directly. The method I used was just posting a tweet and then reaching out to those who left comments.
5) Be careful with your link: Sharing your booking link publicly can lead to an overwhelming schedule and no-shows. Choosing who you want to chat with and DMing people directly is probably a better idea.
After you get a few coffee chats booked, then you need to actually have a coffee chat. That might be a little scary, right?
It might be a bit nerve-wracking, but conversations usually flow naturally (we're all in tech after all). However, if you want to be extra prepared, write down some questions or topics based on their profile. For example, if you see that someone is part of 100Devs, that would be a great thing to ask them about.
Well, that's all the advice I have. Go forth and have your own coffee chats! And if you're nervous, you can always reach out to me on X and we can have one first (I promise it's not that scary).
See ya!
Ellie
