diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index ee66483fd46..21759422237 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -61,6 +61,12 @@ If you have a Twitter account you would like us to mention, please let us know i
 
 This project uses [Poetry](https://python-poetry.org/) as a dependency manager. Check out Poetry's [documentation on how to install it](https://python-poetry.org/docs/#installation) on your system before proceeding.
 
+❗Note: If you use `Conda` or `Pyenv` as your environment / package manager, avoid dependency conflicts by doing the following first:
+1. *Before installing Poetry*, create and activate a new Conda env (e.g. `conda create -n langchain python=3.9`)
+2. Install Poetry (see above)
+3. Tell Poetry to use the virtualenv python environment (`poetry config virtualenvs.prefer-active-python true`)
+4. Continue with the following steps.
+
 To install requirements:
 
 ```bash