Today we are announcing a new product called Upstream Reconnect that solves a problem that I’ve grappled with for years.
What’s the Problem?
No matter how hard I try, I can’t stay in touch with everyone I want to.
Here’s what I mean. For example, I was super close with my co-workers at my first job after graduation. This may be a familiar story; there’s something about a first job that bonds people together.
After two years or so, people head off onto the next thing. Maybe you switch jobs too. As people leave, you vow to stay in touch.
But you don’t.
Not on purpose, of course.
Life happens. You get busy. Maybe you relocate cities. Some people get married. Others may start families. Change jobs again. You fall out of touch without meaning to.
It’s not just former colleagues we lose touch with. It’s former classmates, bosses, mentors, mentees, industry peers, people you did partnerships with, people who you genuinely enjoyed working with. People who, if you had time and bandwidth, you’d want to stay connected to.
This is where Upstream Reconnect comes in.
What is Upstream Reconnect?
Upstream Reconnect is the easiest way to discover who you’re losing touch with in your professional network.
Upstream Reconnect shows you who you’re losing touch with professionally and helps you reconnect with them before your relationship goes cold.
As of today, you can join the waitlist for the Upstream Reconnect beta here.
We have 100 immediately available spots for the beta, and will build a waitlist from there. You can move your way up on the waitlist by sharing about Upstream Reconnect on social media and inviting your friends.
Why Do I Need Upstream Reconnect?
Reconnect is a product I’ve wanted for a long time. When I first learned about Dunbar’s number, the idea that humans can only maintain 150 relationships at once, I remember thinking “I’ve met 150 people this month.”
With social media, online communities, and a vibrant social life, as professionals, we’re in relation to hundreds and thousands of people at once.
Our brains simply cannot retain all of the personal and professional relationships we have. There are legitimate friends of mine, people I truly like, that I have lost touch with.
How Does Upstream Reconnect Work?
Upstream Reconnect uses the From, To, Duration, and Frequency fields from your Gmail emails and Google calendar to measure who you are currently “in touch” with compared to who you were once “in touch” with at a set point in time.
The first time period we are curious about (and imagine you are too!) is from the beginning of COVID, March 2020, to now.
Your first report from Upstream Reconnect will answer this timely question:
“Who did I lose touch with during COVID?”
How Do I Get Access to Upstream Reconnect?
Sign up here to join the waitlist for Upstream Reconnect’s beta. Once you’re approved off our waitlist on a rolling basis, you’ll authorize your Gmail.
Shortly thereafter, you will receive the list of people you are losing touch with and the tools to reconnect with them.
After this first report from the COVID time period, you’ll receive a weekly email with the next set of relationships that are growing stale.
We understand that there are reasons why you may not be able or want to reconnect with someone. We are doing our best to solve for these edge cases. In the interim, you’ll have the option to mark contacts as people you do not want to be reconnected with.
We take your privacy extremely seriously and will never read your emails, nor can we. Data-wise, if we don’t need it to help you, we don’t even want it. You can read more about our privacy policy here.
But Isn’t Upstream a Virtual Events Company?
In short, no. While it’s true we’ve hosted thousands of virtual events on our platform since COVID started, events are only one piece of a much larger pie we will offer our community of professionals.
The next phase of Upstream is building features with high utility. These products will be able to be used solo and on your own time, when people might not be around.
Some examples of utility features we want to build are tools that help you follow up after meetings, measure the strength of your relationships, track introductions made, build relevant contact lists… the list goes on and on.
We see unlimited white space for the tools we want to use as professionals ourselves and can’t wait to build them.
Features like these will only further bolster the social experience you have on Upstream with other people. Meeting people at events (both virtual and IRL) is an essential part of being a professional and we’re excited to build out the next phase of features that professionals need.
This is all in service to becoming the next-generation professional network.
What Now?
Join the Upstream Reconnect Beta waitlist here.
You can move your way up on the waitlist by logging in with your Upstream account (or creating one if you’re not yet a user), sharing about Upstream Reconnect on social media, and inviting your friends.
You’ll get updates throughout the summer as you are moved off the waitlist.
We’re on a mission to make life-changing connections (& reconnections) an everyday occurrence. Thanks for joining us!
