Why Hiding Your Network in 2026 Is a Losing B2B Strategy

With admiration and appreciation for Jakub Kylar's personal inputs - I'm seeing more people talk about this. Making his post reason # 346237 why you often see me sharing so much on here about 𝙖𝙡𝙡 my professional pursuits - also why Alexis with his vision for Capto was so quick to tag me in the comments.

I'm standing on the shoulders of having previously worked with (often even unknown) organizations who had immensely powerful networks (both scale and influence) but chose in most cases to keep this private as their "IP".

𝗜𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿 2025, 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁:

1️⃣Jakub sets the stage perfectly, by the time your competition plays catch up you're already winning the race and can reasonably continue to do so (exception is if Microsoft decides to carbon copy you, but even Slack made it out - I digress).

2️⃣The benefits of "co-opetition" outweigh the risks and impact of "competition". Especially for early stage companies, your network of tangential allies can work for you. Capto has both onboarded and referred clients from our "co-petitors" to support the right alignment and outcomes for the end-user.

3️⃣People in and out of your client base are motivated by inclusion in the journey. You'll see higher retention of existing clients, increased referrals from all sources, and overall more engagement to support even non-tangible value like product feedback. It comes as no surprise that the trend continues to be #community.

4️⃣This is much bigger than revenue. Culturally, people don't appreciate non-transparent and non-inclusive attitudes that ultimately breed unfair treatment. Long-standing and large corporations are often guilty of having systemic programs in place to support this and their interests, but it happens at all levels. Companies that adopt the opposite will attract and retain better talent. Shoutout to Glassdoor, Salary Transparent Street, and all the other tools helping to push this along.

/rant

#happyfriday

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Originally posted on LinkedIn:

https://lnkd.in/p/ddkdUhgw