Good one :)
Apply HN: – Linkedin without the spam
21–30 of 52 posts
Re: Apply HN: – Linkedin without the spam
#22Some thoughts/advice: IMHO, what Linkedin really misses is a good community. I know there are different groups on there but my impression is that they are of really low quality and the UI/UX is really lacking. I never find it worthwhile to try discussing anything on Linkedin. As it is today, LI seems to be used primarily by recruiters and they are ”merely” middlemen. A ”Linkedin killer” should place the customer (i.e. the people it wants to help being successful) in the front seat. A replacement for Linkedin need to find incentives for professionals to visit the site no only for the purpose of applying to a job. How else would you make the ”gainfully employed” visit your site and participate? Keep in mind that most people are not constantly looking for new jobs, so if that’s the only purpose of the site some users will visit too infrequently to build a good community feeling. Personally, I would love to have a good forum for discussing topics related to working in the tech/IT fields. (E.g. salary negotation, how to collaborate successfully within a company, career advancement, etc.) HN fills this need to some extent, but it’s mostly focused on ”news” articles. Reddit’s subreddits are generally either too silent or to noisy. Anyone trying to build a community today would probably be well served by studying the principles behind HN and the UI of Discourse(.org). Creating a real ”Facebook for professionals” would not be easy, but could really be a hit if it’s done right.
Re: Apply HN: – Linkedin without the spam
#23How do you solve the chicken and egg problem? What's the benefit of being one of the first 1000 users?
OMG I am glad you asked that. Like traditional idea is to solve one side first. For first 1000 users there are only fellow chickens. So it is just engineers sharing work and profiles with fellow engineers. Once we have enough chickens, eggs will start showing up. Then chickens decide how eggs contact them. chicken - users eggs - sales, recruiters, etc
The problem is that the spam - especially LinkedIn-generated invite spam - is how LinkedIn grew.
There are other professional networks out there. You just haven't heard of most of them.
The trouble is that respecting people's right not to bombarded with cookie-cutter emails means that your social network struggles to even attract large numbers of chickens, and the eggs aren't likely to be interested because the same people can generally be reached more easily on the much-bigger LinkedIn.
Don't get me wrong, I think there's plenty of scope for a better professional network site than LinkedIn (they don't even do job boards well, which is frankly weird given their unrivalled candidate metadata) But sadly, antipathy to spamming is the differentiator that's least likely to result in a successful mainstream social network.
Re: Apply HN: – Linkedin without the spam
#24I was thinking about this exact same thing a while ago. My biggest problem with LinkedIn is that you can't enabled "Do Not Disturb" and prevent InMail. The chicken and egg problem is real, so is the monetization. Money from recruiters won't come until you have users, right? Would users be willing to spend a small amount of money for a yearly subscription (for hosting their profile)? First year free, perhaps?
I thought about allowing users to "opt-in" to the network when they are interested in being contacted. Privacy and data ownership are another big concern of mine. Should advanced users be able to host their own profiles (no fees ever) and connect to the network when they want to be reached for opportunities?
Re: Apply HN: – Linkedin without the spam
#25Some thoughts/advice: IMHO, what Linkedin really misses is a good community. I know there are different groups on there but my impression is that they are of really low quality and the UI/UX is really lacking. I never find it worthwhile to try discussing anything on Linkedin. As it is today, LI seems to be used primarily by recruiters and they are ”merely” middlemen. A ”Linkedin killer” should place the customer (i.e…
I go to LinkedIn when I'm not looking for work. For some professions, at least, they do have great people and great discussions - but limited by the horrible UI/UX.
Re: Apply HN: – Linkedin without the spam
#26I'll ask the same questions / give the same advice I give friends who propose ideas like this:
* Social networks are tough, tough, tough. There are so many subtle UX issues (why did Facebook work but Friendster fail? Why did MySpace work for a while but ultimately fail?) and there's the ultimate chicken-and-egg problem. Do you really, truly understand why your idea will win?
* Do you think that you really need the YC Fellowship? Will that actually help you? What will you use the $ for?
As @patio11 tweeted the other night:
https://twitter.com/patio11/status/717474850927808512
"It has never in the history of mankind been cheaper to make software. You don't need funding you need a day job at McDonalds."
* I think your best bet - if you really believe in this idea - is to build a prototype on your own, show the world why you've built a better LinkedIn, and show us / investors / YC why your professional social network is better than LinkedIn, and back it up with hard growth numbers.
If this 'Apply HN' instead said something like:
"So we have an idea - it's LinkedIn without the spam. We built a prototype, and we've gotten 50,000 people in the business community to use it. They love it. We're growing within this niche at 20% per week. But it's only two of us, and we need to grow. So here we are -- we'd love the YC Fellowship so we can put some real effort into X, then Y, and finally Z."
Do that, and you've got a winner.
My $0.02. Discount as you will, and best of luck to your team!
Re: Apply HN: – Linkedin without the spam
#27I'll ask the same questions / give the same advice I give friends who propose ideas like this: * Social networks are tough, tough, tough. There are so many subtle UX issues (why did Facebook work but Friendster fail? Why did MySpace work for a while but ultimately fail?) and there's the ultimate chicken-and-egg problem. Do you really, truly understand why your idea will win? * Do you think that you really need the YC…
Great 2 cents !!
I agree that social networks are tough. I did a whole course studying them. But the idea I am proposing is more of a community than a social network, although community aren't easier either.
Agreed again,I do not need the YC funding. Although the advice,resource and the environment that it provides can be incredibly valuable. Having said that everyday there are great companies built outside of YC so yes will still give this a shot anyway
Yes but I just had this idea few days ago and with a full time job have just got some wireframes and data models done. I did not want to miss on Apply HN thread and the valuable feedback here. For example from one of the comments here I already changed one of my data models.
Also I am one man team right now :) so I realized from the feedback here that I would need a UI or hopefully a front-end UI founder on this.
I hope to move from Apply HN to Show HN. Thanks again
Re: Apply HN: – Linkedin without the spam
#28Good one :)
Thanks :)
Re: Apply HN: – Linkedin without the spam
#29I would prefer an anonymous employer/recruiter agent and an anonymous job seeker agent. The job seeker agent contains certain well defined constraints such as area=New York salary > 100k USD skillset=Java industry IN('medical','biotech') status=active then the employer agents can search for active seekers or passive seekers and present some detailed information about the position. If the seeker is interested, they ma…
great idea..took note
I originally tried to start a startup related to recruiting. I interviewed 40 recruiters. I could not find any specific pattern, so I moved on to other things.
Re: Apply HN: – Linkedin without the spam
#30I was thinking about this exact same thing a while ago. My biggest problem with LinkedIn is that you can't enabled "Do Not Disturb" and prevent InMail. The chicken and egg problem is real, so is the monetization. Money from recruiters won't come until you have users, right? Would users be willing to spend a small amount of money for a yearly subscription (for hosting their profile)? First year free, perhaps? I though…
Ya monetization can be tricky but to keep the platform user centric it would be nice to not charge users at all. Also not spamming users is very important.
I think there will be other monetization opportunities without compromising on basic principles. But definitely easier said than done.