Ask HN: How would you overthrow LinkedIn?
19 comments
Build what people are asking for, not what you think they need. There are few people who can get away with that.
I don't hear anyone asking for another LinkedIn.
Certainly, it could be done better/faster/cheaper/whatever... but as others have noted, it has critical mass network effect. You're not going to get a bunch of CEO's to switch to something, just because you made something. It is the classic chicken/egg problem and unless you're the first to market and the biggest, you won't win.
We know that Facebook beat Friendster, MySpace and Tribe... but that is because all of those companies made grave mistakes at just the right time for Facebook to take hold. Effectively the social network critical mass hadn't been achieved yet.
It is a bit too late for LinkedIn and the audience is different there. They don't move to the hot new thing because you raised $10m and want to overthrow the king.
I don't hear anyone asking for another LinkedIn.
Certainly, it could be done better/faster/cheaper/whatever... but as others have noted, it has critical mass network effect. You're not going to get a bunch of CEO's to switch to something, just because you made something. It is the classic chicken/egg problem and unless you're the first to market and the biggest, you won't win.
We know that Facebook beat Friendster, MySpace and Tribe... but that is because all of those companies made grave mistakes at just the right time for Facebook to take hold. Effectively the social network critical mass hadn't been achieved yet.
It is a bit too late for LinkedIn and the audience is different there. They don't move to the hot new thing because you raised $10m and want to overthrow the king.
1) fire the 20 beasties.
2) hide away the 10mil.
3) report failure to the investors.
4) retire.
Any investor who thinks he's getting 20% of linked in for 10 mil is smoking something.
Not to mention that 20% of LinkedIn has no purpose or value. LinkedIn is all about 100% or nothing. (The clue is in the name).
Any investor who thinks he's getting 20% of linked in for 10 mil is smoking something.
Not to mention that 20% of LinkedIn has no purpose or value. LinkedIn is all about 100% or nothing. (The clue is in the name).
Market share as defined by whom?
As defined by me, I'd build a Bangla language focused job board. The Bangladeshi economy is both growing fast and attracting a lot of new people to software, and I don't think there's a truly well polished option in that space yet. Easier to be the first mover in a developing 170m person country then to be the hundredth in a 330m one.
As defined by me, I'd build a Bangla language focused job board. The Bangladeshi economy is both growing fast and attracting a lot of new people to software, and I don't think there's a truly well polished option in that space yet. Easier to be the first mover in a developing 170m person country then to be the hundredth in a 330m one.
Well, I was going to try and think about this, but then I saw your username. Perhaps start by not calling yourself "altdataseller"!
Is this a phishing attempt? If I knew I'd be executing not answering.
BTW $10m wouldn't even cover the first 2 year's (if being frugal) costs.
Are talking about 20% share of the non-paying users? or 20% of the premium paying customers?
I think M$ are running LinkedIn based on advertising revenue, not subscriptions.
BTW $10m wouldn't even cover the first 2 year's (if being frugal) costs.
Are talking about 20% share of the non-paying users? or 20% of the premium paying customers?
I think M$ are running LinkedIn based on advertising revenue, not subscriptions.
LinkedIn is a combination of things, all in one product:
- An online resumé
- A social graph for professional relationships
- A messaging channel with long-term stable "addresses"
- A job advertisement site
- A candidate discovery site for recruiters
- A social media platform
Regarding the proposed staffing and runway, the funding makes no sense. Ten of the "best hackers" in the world will cost you $10m/year. You've got 10 marketers, presumably a bunch of other staff, G&A costs, etc, etc, and you're giving it 10 years? I think you're probably looking at more like $500m?
- An online resumé
- A social graph for professional relationships
- A messaging channel with long-term stable "addresses"
- A job advertisement site
- A candidate discovery site for recruiters
- A social media platform
- With associated advertising business
Regarding the proposed staffing and runway, the funding makes no sense. Ten of the "best hackers" in the world will cost you $10m/year. You've got 10 marketers, presumably a bunch of other staff, G&A costs, etc, etc, and you're giving it 10 years? I think you're probably looking at more like $500m?
Build a copy site of linkedin, make it invite only to increase the hype, ask the marketers for a trendy name and put "AI" anywhere and everywhere, use the hackers to ddos, drop tables, hack accounts (beyond the current hacks) on the existing LinkedIn site (don't actually do that plz!), profit??
Keep in mind the userbase and experience will be just as shtty and corporate jerk off as current linked in but you'll get your 20% market share before the bubble bursts - and thats all that counts, right? Could probably do that in < 10 years and under budget too
Keep in mind the userbase and experience will be just as shtty and corporate jerk off as current linked in but you'll get your 20% market share before the bubble bursts - and thats all that counts, right? Could probably do that in < 10 years and under budget too
Perhaps build a local-first site for special interest groups. Then using crawler/bots to get traffic from LinkIn to your site and vice versa. I know China has huge social networks but smaller one for special interests are still thriving. From that to replace/add LinkIn features are not difficult. You have to build what people need first.
Create social networks by verticals, and later cross integrate it. Too many problems with LinkedIn - cannot find a handyman on it, plumber on it, hard to get relevant recommendations, professional networks are a chaos, no proximity features, student profiles are not that good, not personalized to industries/professions etc.
Maybe provide a new experience for professional networking that doesn't sound and look so cringe like LinkedIn.
1. Build a scraper for LinkedIn for all the data that can be accessed by users and companies with or without paid accounts. Do the same for Glassdoor, Github, so you can cross correlate the data. Don't run the scrapers yet.
2. Design a backend for all that data, and design a clean and responsive UI that doesn't rely on 50MB of data loaded with each page load. Should work very fast on web and mobile. The site should be basically better than LinkedIn. Things I would focus on:
- Better candiate showcase than just simple resume. Allow for linking of github with summary widget, allow to upload videos, allow some human reviewed content (like proof of employment, proof of salary, e.t.c), iframes displaying own user website, and so on.
- Automatic job postings for candidates that can be tied to their backend, some automated interview process that companies can define leveraging LLMs for design and verifications.
- Something like Discord that people set up for companies, with automatic discovery, good privacy, e.t.c.
- Freelance integration capability. I.e something like Amazon Turk or Fiver. In between jobs? Easily complete bounties, or have companies reach out to you for temp contract work.
3. To get people over, the idea is that you a) pay them to switch over and b) pay them for actions that cause others to switch over. This can be done in may ways. You can for example set up a token based system where users can earn tokens for doing actions, then sell those tokens to you for a given price. You can distribute tokens backed by some of your funding/revenue, and also charge some price for users to buy new tokens that correspond to be able to do premium actions.
4. Before launch, run the scrapers, set up some initial database to ease the transition of users, with all the scraped accounts being in the system as unclaimed. This will make the experience better since users can largely access the same data without having the respective entities sign up, and also encourage users to message their connections to sign up and claim their accounts (for some tokens of course).
Overall this should encourage users to transition over. You can also leverage things like posting freelance "gigs" to improve the site, which not only gives you ability to run leaner with less dedicated employees, but also to now capture the developers that write plugins for your site as users which then have experience displayed in their profile which companies will find valuable.
If you actually do this, msg me.
2. Design a backend for all that data, and design a clean and responsive UI that doesn't rely on 50MB of data loaded with each page load. Should work very fast on web and mobile. The site should be basically better than LinkedIn. Things I would focus on:
- Better candiate showcase than just simple resume. Allow for linking of github with summary widget, allow to upload videos, allow some human reviewed content (like proof of employment, proof of salary, e.t.c), iframes displaying own user website, and so on.
- Automatic job postings for candidates that can be tied to their backend, some automated interview process that companies can define leveraging LLMs for design and verifications.
- Something like Discord that people set up for companies, with automatic discovery, good privacy, e.t.c.
- Freelance integration capability. I.e something like Amazon Turk or Fiver. In between jobs? Easily complete bounties, or have companies reach out to you for temp contract work.
3. To get people over, the idea is that you a) pay them to switch over and b) pay them for actions that cause others to switch over. This can be done in may ways. You can for example set up a token based system where users can earn tokens for doing actions, then sell those tokens to you for a given price. You can distribute tokens backed by some of your funding/revenue, and also charge some price for users to buy new tokens that correspond to be able to do premium actions.
4. Before launch, run the scrapers, set up some initial database to ease the transition of users, with all the scraped accounts being in the system as unclaimed. This will make the experience better since users can largely access the same data without having the respective entities sign up, and also encourage users to message their connections to sign up and claim their accounts (for some tokens of course).
Overall this should encourage users to transition over. You can also leverage things like posting freelance "gigs" to improve the site, which not only gives you ability to run leaner with less dedicated employees, but also to now capture the developers that write plugins for your site as users which then have experience displayed in their profile which companies will find valuable.
If you actually do this, msg me.
You don’t frankly. They have critical mass on network effects for an audience that uses it as a glorified Rolodex and has little interest in features
A Rolodex with 20% of the people I need in it is useless to me.
Not a castle that can be stormed via conventional means
A Rolodex with 20% of the people I need in it is useless to me.
Not a castle that can be stormed via conventional means
I would borrow more money, buy LinkedIn and shut it down. All everyone needs is for a way to apply to jobs. Everything else is excess.
You'd need a lot more money. Microsoft paid $26.2 billion for LinkedIn in 2016.[1] You'd probably have to offer them quite a bit more than that to convince them to sell it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn#History
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn#History
Yea, clearly. I just hate the platform so much I'm ranting.
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What’s your plan and roadmap?