

Ask HN: Can a new LinkedIn competitor survive? If yes, what strategies can help? - usablebytes


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novourchin
A LN competitor should do more to encourage meaningful discussion in the
forums and find a way to keep recruiters from using the site to troll for
qualified applicants.Really, the glut of recruiters on LN makes it near-
impossible to effectively network on the site anymore. Instead of charging
real professionals, they should charge the recruiters through the nose and
segregate them like the bottom feeders they are.

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usablebytes
I couldn't agree more. Thanks a lot for sharing.

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itsprofitbaron
A new LinkedIn competitor can survive and it can even thrive.

Off the top of my head, some of LinkedIn's competitors include the likes of:

BranchOut

Viadeo

Xing

Bizily

partnerup

company.com

Zerply

If you're looking for what strategies can help to survive, then you should
look at how those guys have grown (not only the likes of Viadeo/Xing but how
BranchOut have done leveraging the Facebook Platform).

Likewise, you should look at how you can make it "better" in a way that will
entice users to join - Zerply mainly tries to do this via better looking
profiles. This feature may involve something related to _recruiters_ \- maybe
even giving them a seperate profile - where they can still find people to
recruit for their clients but also so people can use the service for what its
for _networking_.

Infact, you shouldn't limit yourself to looking at how LinkedIn and its
competitors have grown - you should also look at other Social Networks and how
they've grown as well e.g. Instagram, Badoo, Tagged etc

Similarly, if you're planning on "going viral" and a "great product" then it
_isn't_ enough! You _need_ to have a great distribution strategy above
anything else.

And if you want to create a _"LinkedIn Killer"_ then it has to be
significantly different like how Facebook _was_ to Myspace and for LinkedIn to
not notice it (you have to appear different enough from LinkedIn so they
simply don't copy the features), in order for you to stay under-the-radar for
long enough where you hit a tipping point where, everyone joins your service
and you completely take over the market

~~~
usablebytes
A lot of good advice there; many thanks.

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tryitnow
I'm not going to read any of the other comments before responding because I
don't want to bias myself.

Create a LI competitor that can get me a new job and I'll use it. In fact,
I'll be willing to pay you thousands and the company that ends up hiring me
will pay you thousands.

The value proposition is pretty undeniable. The problem is that I doubt that
there is really a technological fix to the problem of inefficient labor
markets. It would take more social hacking than machine hacking to facilitate
transactions.

Some hints at what will work: 1) Don't focus on employees or employers looking
to fill traditional roles. Someone with the "expected" resume will have no
problem finding a job and the potential employer will have no trouble finding
someone like that. 2) Create a platform so that people can interact face to
face in real life. The problem with a lot of tech people is that they're too
trusting. Most business types want to interact face to face because "that's
the way it's done." Why is it done that way? Because you can't record what
people say in face to face contact. 3) Don't work with HR or recruiters. They
usually don't possess the domain knowledge to think creatively about new
endeavors.

Message me if you want to discuss further. I won't invest (at least probably
not), but I will be your first customer.

~~~
markhall
Great thoughts! I had a couple similar thoughts but think it's more
complicated to execute. To continue this discussion offline, what's the best
way to contact you?

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yllus
A really strong feature in my mind would be one that highly encourages
mentoring between site members. Provide a short list of mentor recommendations
to both the mentor and mentees, and reward both with profile badges to
encourage others to do the same.

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1123581321
A common strategy is to sign up users with LinkedIn auth and develop extra
functionality around LinkedIn data.

I'm only aware of one American company intended to be a LinkedIn killer,
Zerply. Its distinguishing feature is better-looking profiles. It also used
LinkedIn auth to import data.

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koopajah
There are already some LinkedIn competitor out there that do more than
survive. In France Viadeo (<http://viadeo.com>) is pretty popular/used.

~~~
usablebytes
Rightly mentioned. So, do you see any common gap they all have where a new
competitor can capitalize on?

