Have you ever played “Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon”?
It works like this. Name a movie star. It can be a bigshot, like Leo DiCaprio, or some obscure guy who had a brief spot in Wayne’s World 2.
Then, using the movie roles of that star, connect him to Kevin Bacon in six degrees or less. Let’s use Michael Keaton as an example.
- Michael Keaton was in The Merry Gentlemen alongside Larry Neumann Jr.
- Larry Neumann Jr. was in Stir of Echoes with Kevin Bacon.
- Therefore 2 degrees separate Michael Keaton and Kevin Bacon.
The moral of the story? Kevin Bacon has been in a ton of movies.
But the six degree doesn’t only work for Kevin Bacon. In fact, the “Six Degrees Of Separation” rule suggests that any person can be connected to another person in six degrees or less.
What does any of this have to do with startups?
Conspire is a firm believer in the six degrees of separation rule.
As much as we would like to believe that success is based purely on merit and skill, that’s simply not true. Merit, skill, and the general ability kick butt and take names are all crucial, but they’re not enough to succeed.
It’s all about who you know.
Success is the result of knowing the right people who can put you in the right place at the right time. Success is the result of being connected.
Conspire wants to make you a success by helping you connect with the people that matter.
How does it work?
Conspire analyzes your email activity to see who you know and how well you know them. Once the analysis is complete, it then maps out the best connection between you and any person you would like to know. Instead of sending awkward cold call emails or unsolicited LinkedIn requests, Conspire maps out a relational path for you.
Alex Devkar, the founder of Conspire, used the service to connect to a top-tier investor.
Conspire is like that friend who knows everybody.
By analyzing how often you email people, the response time, length of interactions, and other data, Conspire creates a chain of contacts between you and that person you’re desperately trying to get in touch with.
And Conspire isn’t content to only use email. The company plans to branch out into using Facebook, Twitter, and text messages in order to create valuable insights for users.
Maybe all those annoying Candy Crush invites will actually pay off.
We may despise email, but there’s no doubt that it contains massive amounts of information about who we are and who we’re connected to. Conspire plans on delivering that information.
The $3.5 million they’ve raised in funding is proof they’re onto something big.
Stephen Altrogge is a freelance writer based in Tallahassee, Florida. He writes about tech, marketing, faith, and lots of other things. He’s married to Jen and has three young girls. Every day he consumes more coffee than the entire population of Colombia. He knows more about Star Wars than any respectable man should, and he runs more than any sane man would. He once attempted to eat a 2 pound hamburger in under an hour. He failed.
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This is both extremely creepy and interesting at the same time. I could see a good use for this in outreach for SEO, guest blogging, and getting clients for freelance work. My friend would go online for hours in his link building campaigns and had a whole system for emailing bloggers. He’d have a whole 3 email spiel to ask them for a link on their blog. It could have been so much easier if he could just reach out to bloggers who he had some kind of connection with. Then again, I could just as easily see people start reaching out to me who I barely know thinking that we are “best friends”. Pros and cons to everything I guess.