I was just looking at the Venture Hacks AngelList application and noticed a field called "Social proof." This field is labled as important and asks for "known people" in a company's industry that are involved with said company.<p>How does an unknown founder go about soliciting "known people" to play a role in their startup? It seems like a chicken and egg kind of problem.
<a href="http://ycombinator.com/apply.html" rel="nofollow">http://ycombinator.com/apply.html</a><p>You can also do it through friends of friends. There are probably at most 3 hops between your immediate friends and some of the people you want to reach. So just start traversing that tree, asking for intros.
Don't ask people to play a role in your company unless they're going to work for it. Once you start growing people will want to be associated with your success and you won't find it hard to engage.<p>Asking for recommendations from people who know what they're doing is an entirely different matter. I'd guess that's what they're looking for -- social proof you are reliable and not/crazy.