You cannot optimize your way to the right person
You cannot optimize your way to the right person
The right people arrive through proximity.
Jason Katz June 30, 2026
Your next key person is not going to apply.
You have built the job posting. Refined the criteria. Reviewed the stack. You are running the right process for finding the wrong kind of person.
The people who actually change the trajectory of a company are rarely in your pipeline. They are in rooms adjacent to yours, doing work you respect, waiting to encounter something worth joining.
You cannot search your way to them. You have to be somewhere they might find you.
The proximity system**
Most founders treat key relationships as a one-time search. The best operators treat proximity to exceptional people as an ongoing practice.
Show up in the right rooms. Build in public. Be present in the communities where your people are already operating. Not with an agenda. With consistency.
The right person rarely arrives through the front door of a process. They arrive through a conversation that did not seem pivotal at the time.
Your job is not to find them. Your job is to keep walking through enough doors that the encounter becomes inevitable.
That is not luck. It is a system.
Proximity is not serendipity. It is the output of a repeatable practice.
What rooms are you consistently in where the next key person for your company could actually encounter you?
Onward.
Relevant
**Weak ties unlock more opportunities than close ones.*****A LinkedIn study confirmed what sociologist Mark Granovetter theorized in 1973: the people you barely know produce more novel opportunities than your close contacts because they connect you to circles you have not yet reached. The practical implication is that showing up in unfamiliar rooms consistently is not a soft habit, it is the mechanism by which the right encounters happen.
*Consistent presence in focused communities outperforms broad visibility.*****Professionals who dedicate small, consistent amounts of time to relationship-building vastly outperform those who network only when they need something. Early hires report gravitating toward founders who demonstrate deliberate presence in the right spaces, not ubiquity, but pattern.
*Visibility without trust does not create proximity.*****Reach and visibility are not the same thing; a viral moment creates awareness, not the kind of familiarity that makes a key person feel ready to join or collaborate. The founders who attract the right people are those who show up consistently enough that when the moment arrives, they are already known.
Mindset
“Find canvases for other people to paint on.”
— Ryan Holiday
Simplify. Systemize. Scale.**
I help small business owners put the right systems in place so growth feels exciting, not exhausting. Let’s build the kind of business that works for you, not because of you.
Ready to grow smarter? Let’s talk.
Hot Takes
The defining line between $20 million and $100 million
If this sparked a thought, pass it along to someone navigating the same ceiling.
Thanks for reading.**- Jason
p.s. When you’re ready, here’s how I can help.
Ready to stop working so hard in your business?** I help growing companies break free from unpredictable revenue, founder bottlenecks, and manual processes that kill competitive advantage. Using the exact same frameworks from my 8 and 10-figure exits, I build complete operating systems that generate predictable growth, eliminate your dependency, and deploy AI where it actually matters. The goal isn’t just bigger revenue, it’s systematic growth that works whether you’re there or not.