Warning: a casual chat with a guy at a Denver startup mixer wrecked my view of networking

I was just making small talk with this founder, Mike, about his new app. He said, 'I stopped trying to collect business cards and started just asking people what they're stuck on.' He told me he helped a guy fix a shipping problem for free, and that guy later sent him 5 clients. It hit me that I've been building a list, not a network. My whole plan was just to meet X people per month. How do you actually start helping first without feeling like you're getting used?