Mukund writes a great post on why “giving” and “taking” has to run in parallel. One cannot wait to be “made” before starting to give back to the entrepreneurs who are seeking gyaan.
However, I think it’s very difficult to do both, if you are busy “taking”. A startup entrepreneur’s success / failure depends on external variables where he has zero control. He is a “taker” of things material and intangibles in a continuous repositioning of risk trajectories. He continuously requests connections from people, seeks advise on scaling, chases people for funds, etc.
As an entrepreneur, you are busy building and hence busy taking — it becomes impossible to “give” back. I have been guilty of not giving back (whatever little) in the last 18 months. I outright deny entrepreneurs that I’d be able to help them, barring 10-15 minutes of a random hallway conversation. There is so much volatility in my own personal space, that the frame of excitement takes some amount of swap-time before beginning to share.
I have been AWOL from my own duties. I have failed to show up on scheduled skype chats with entrepreneurs. It’s difficult to do both, when I continuously seek out “givers” to help me out.