How to Manage More Connections: Dunbar's Number Guide 2026

George El-Hage 🔗 LinkedIn

Founder, Wave Connect | 1M+ digital business cards shared via Wave

I manage 500+ professional connections across conferences, partnerships, and customer relationships. This guide is based on the exact system I use every day to keep those relationships alive - without losing my mind.

Here's a fun exercise: open your LinkedIn right now and count how many of your connections you could actually call by name. If you're like me, you'll stop around 140 and realize the rest are basically strangers. That's not a failure - it's science. It's called Dunbar's Number, and learning how to manage more connections despite it has been one of the most useful skills I've picked up running Wave Connect.

In this guide, I'll break down what Dunbar's Number actually means, walk you through the 5-15-50-150 layered model that changed how I think about relationships, and share the exact strategies and tools I use to maintain 500+ connections without it feeling like a second job.

What Is Dunbar's Number?

Dunbar's Number is a theory by anthropologist Robin Dunbar that humans can cognitively maintain about 150 stable social relationships at any given time. The number comes from studying the correlation between primate brain size and social group size. Dunbar found that the human neocortex - the part of the brain responsible for social cognition - can handle roughly 150 meaningful relationships. Beyond that, we start forgetting names, losing context, and letting connections go cold.

The key word is "meaningful." You might have 2,000 LinkedIn connections, but according to Dunbar's own research published in BBC Future, the number of people you genuinely interact with - the ones where you remember personal details, maintain reciprocity, and actually invest time - caps out around 150.

And here's the part that surprises people: social media doesn't change this. Dunbar studied Facebook users in a 2016 follow-up and found that despite having an average of 1,500+ friends, users still only actively interacted with about 150 of them. More platforms doesn't mean more capacity. Your brain is the bottleneck, not your phone. 🧠

The 5-15-50-150 Model: Understanding Your Network Layers

Dunbar's Number isn't just one number - it's actually four nested tiers that describe the depth and frequency of your relationships. This framework, often called the 5-15-50-150 model (which UpHabit documents well in their breakdown), is the single most useful lens I've found for managing a professional network. Once I started thinking about contacts in tiers instead of as one big list, everything clicked.

Here's how the layers work:

Dunbar 5 - Your Support Clique

These are your ride-or-die people. The ones you'd call at 2 AM. For me, it's my co-founder, two mentors who've been with me since Wave's early days, and two close friends who double as sounding boards. You talk to these people weekly - and if you're not, something's off.

Dunbar 15 - Your Sympathy Group

Close friends and trusted colleagues. If one of them had a major life event, you'd genuinely care. I keep about 12-15 people here - key team members, close industry peers, a few clients who've become friends. Contact frequency: monthly.

Dunbar 50 - Your Affinity Group

Professional peers you know well enough to have a real conversation with at a conference. You remember what they do, maybe their kids' names, definitely their company. These are the people who come to mind when someone says "who do you know in fintech?" Contact frequency: quarterly.

Dunbar 150 - Your Full Active Network

Everyone else you'd recognize and could have a casual conversation with. Beyond 150? That's your extended network - people you've met but need a LinkedIn profile refresh to remember the context. Contact frequency for the 150: annually. For 150+? That's where asymmetrical nurturing comes in (more on that below).

Why Most People Fail to Manage Their Network

The three biggest reasons people lose touch with valuable connections are: no system, a one-size-fits-all approach, and the social media illusion. I've watched hundreds of Wave users go through this same pattern, and I've lived it myself.

Problem 1: No system. Most professionals rely on memory alone. You meet someone great at a conference, exchange contacts, and then... nothing. Three months later, you can't even remember their name. Without a structured approach, valuable connections slip through the cracks every single week.

Problem 2: One-size-fits-all. Treating your Dunbar 5 (your inner circle) the same as your Dunbar 150 (annual touchpoints) is a recipe for burnout. You can't send heartfelt personal check-ins to 500 people. And you shouldn't be sending mass newsletters to your five closest advisors. Different layers need different strategies.

Problem 3: The social media illusion. Scrolling someone's LinkedIn posts feels like maintaining a relationship. It's not. Hitting "like" on a post is not the same as sending a personal message. Social media gives you the illusion of connection while your actual relationships atrophy. 😬

So how do you fix this? Here's the framework I use to manage 500+ connections without overwhelm.

6 Strategies to Manage More Connections (Based on Dunbar's Model)

Managing beyond Dunbar's Number requires six intentional strategies: audit your network, set layer-specific contact intervals, use asymmetrical nurturing, leverage digital business cards, maintain a personal CRM, and schedule quarterly reviews. I've refined this system over the past three years, and it's the backbone of how I keep 500+ relationships active.

1. Audit Your Network: Identify Your 5-15-50-150

Before you optimize anything, you need to know where everyone sits. Here's the exercise I do every January:

1. Export your contacts (phone, email, LinkedIn, your CRM)
2. Tag each person: Dunbar 5, 15, 50, or 150
3. Be honest - if you haven't spoken to someone in over a year, they're probably 150 or below

My Dunbar 5 right now: my co-founder, two startup mentors, and two close friends who also happen to be in tech. My Dunbar 15 includes key Wave team members, three investors, and a handful of industry peers I talk to monthly. The numbers shift - and that's fine. The point is knowing who's where.

2. Set Layer-Specific Contact Intervals

Once you've categorized everyone, assign a contact frequency. This isn't about being robotic - it's about making sure the people who matter most don't slip through the cracks.

• Dunbar 5: Weekly (coffee, calls, texts - whatever's natural)
• Dunbar 15: Monthly (personal check-in, even a quick voice note)
• Dunbar 50: Quarterly ("thinking of you" message, share an article they'd like)
• Dunbar 150: Annually (birthday message, holiday note, conference catch-up)

I use calendar reminders for my Dunbar 15 and 50. For my Dunbar 5, I don't need reminders - those conversations happen organically. If you need reminders for your inner five, you might need to re-evaluate who's actually in that group.

3. Use Asymmetrical Nurturing for 150+ Acquaintances

This is the concept that changed everything for me. GTMnow calls it "asymmetrical nurturing" - the idea that you can maintain visibility with hundreds of people without individually messaging each one.

How? Through one-to-many touchpoints:

• Email signatures: Every email I send includes my Wave digital business card in my signature. That's hundreds of passive impressions per week with zero extra effort.
• LinkedIn posts: When I share something useful, my extended network sees it. It's not a personal check-in, but it keeps me top of mind.
• Newsletter updates: A quarterly update to my broader network takes 30 minutes to write and touches 400+ people.

The key insight: you don't need to personally nurture every relationship. For your Dunbar 150+, passive touchpoints are not just acceptable - they're the only scalable approach.

4. Leverage Digital Business Cards for Layer-Appropriate Sharing

Different Dunbar layers call for different sharing methods. Here's how I match Wave Connect's digital business card features to each tier:

• Dunbar 5-15 (intimate exchanges): NFC tap. I hand someone my physical Wave card, they tap their phone, done. It's personal and feels intentional - exactly what your inner circles deserve.
• Dunbar 50 (conferences and events): QR code. Quick, efficient, works in group settings. I've used this at every conference I've attended since 2022.
• Dunbar 150+ (passive, always-on): Email signature link. No action required on my part - it's just there, working in the background every time I send an email.

5. Maintain a Personal CRM (Not Just LinkedIn)

LinkedIn is great for discovery. It's terrible for maintenance. No notes field, no reminders, no segmentation. If you're relying on LinkedIn alone to manage your connections, you're leaving relationships on the table.

A personal CRM lets you tag contacts by Dunbar layer, add notes from conversations, set follow-up reminders, and actually track when you last reached out. I've tested several tools over the past two years - here's how they compare:

Prices verified as of February 2026. I've personally used all three tools.

My take? If you're already using digital business cards (or want to start), Wave gives you contact management bundled in. If you need a dedicated relationship CRM with deep reminder features, UpHabit is solid. HubSpot is enterprise-grade - powerful, but more than most individuals need.

6. Schedule Quarterly Network Reviews

Every quarter, I spend about 45 minutes reviewing my network tags. Connections shift over time, and your system should reflect that.

• Promote: A Dunbar 50 contact who became a close collaborator? Move them to 15.
• Maintain: Most contacts stay where they are. That's fine.
• Archive: Someone you haven't interacted with in 18+ months? They slide to 150+ (passive touchpoints only).

This isn't cold - it's honest. You can't maintain 500 deep relationships. But you can maintain 50 actively and nurture the other 450 strategically.

How I Manage 500+ Connections Using Wave

I don't try to maintain 500 relationships equally - I maintain about 50 actively and nurture the remaining 450 asymmetrically. Here's the exact breakdown of my system as of early 2026:

• Dunbar 5 (weekly): Coffee chats, phone calls, in-person NFC card exchanges. These happen naturally. No system needed.
• Dunbar 15 (monthly): Personal emails, quick voice notes, sharing articles they'd find useful. I have calendar reminders for each person on the 1st and 15th of each month.
• Dunbar 50 (quarterly): "Hey, thought of you when I saw this" messages. I batch these on the first Monday of each quarter. Takes about an hour.
• Dunbar 150 (annually): Holiday messages, birthday notes (LinkedIn reminds me), and conference catch-ups. I make a point to attend 4-5 industry events per year to keep these warm.
• 150+ (passive): My Wave card in my email signature, LinkedIn posts, quarterly newsletter. Zero individual effort, but they see my name regularly.

The whole system takes me maybe 2-3 hours per month in active outreach. The passive layer (email signatures, social posts) runs on autopilot. That's the beauty of combining a CRM approach with digital business cards - one handles the active nurturing, the other handles the passive visibility.