Path 101 to LinkedIn: We Like Your Business, and Cash
When I chatted with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman last month about how the professional network he built trumps the social network he invested in, Facebook, in the business arena, he told me one of the core reasons why LinkedIn is the online destination of choice for choice professionals is discretion, that old-school, but good school, executive virtue:
While Facebook is used by bloggers to push out their own media to as wide a circle as possible, ”most professionals don’t want an open door policy,” Hoffman told me. The 3,414 CEOs that use Linkedin every day, notably!
In Web-based social networking, six figure Fortune 500 execs seek the discretion and confidentiality that LinkedIn uniquely offers, Hoffman told me. While bloggers may extol the virtual sociability of an anything and everything goes open blogosphere atmosphere, a professionally run, online “gated referral network” is invaluable in the real world of high-stakes business, Hoffman indicated.
Hoffman will undoubedtly not be surprised, than, that a blogger/entrepreneur has taken to the shed all, share all, blogosphere with an open call for linking in with LinkedIn! Will the tell all blogger, Charlie O’Donnell, be surprised by the reaction, or not, of Linkedin to his direct, unabashed public plea for money for his startup, among other things? Probably not, a goal of the self-proclaimed “uber-stealth” is to “disclose just about everything it can” on the life of its startup, come what may.
O’Donnell says “we have a lot of ideas about how we would see working with LinkedIn that we’d like to share,” and takes to his blog to disclose them to the world.
Is Path 101 exhibiting entrepreneurial chutzpah, or novice naivete? The brash public cry of an in-the-works venture to a well established company for help AND money, in any event, had better be good, damn good, for the sake of the venture’s credibility.
Path 101’s problem 101: O’Donnell writes “here are the top 10 ways that we see working with LinkedIn,” but enumerates a mere seven! (Typo, or not, NOT off to a good start)
Path 101’s MAIN LinkedIn problem, though, is its utterly transparent pleas for help from Hoffman and company to help buid a business, Path 101’s business. Path 101 is hoping to piggyback off LinkedIn’s years-long successful efforts in building out its thriving and growing business. Oh, and we could use your money, too Reid, O’Donnell adds.
O’Donnell strives to make a case for how a LinkedIn-Path 101 linking-in would be a win-win, because both sites would “share” complementary resources and a “Facebook is (only) great for friends” philosophy. Despite Path 101’s “confidence” in its unproven ideas and its projected ability to “hedge” migration to Facebook, its open airing of its open needs offers much in the way of bravado, but little in terms of what it actually brings to the table, LinkedIn’s table, TODAY!
Path 101 on its “status,” as of October 11: “NO assets, NO revenues, a two day old empty checking account…and now, back to actually building this service.”
EXACTLY. Path 101’s “How we would like to work with LinkedIn” sharing is caring post reads more like LinkedIn, how can you help Path 101 realize its very young, and not fully articulated, vision. When a startup is still but a handful of people and a dream, the people must sell themselves (in a good way) to prospective partners, investors, employees….and make a very strong case.
The as yet to be built Path 101 has made a case for why it needs veteran LinkedIn, but does not appear to be in a strong “always be closing” position regarding LinkedIn’s need of O’Donnell and (small) company.
Moreover, O’Donnell’s advice for LinkedIn to build a wizard to “get the whole family involved…whether or not your mom is the CFO of a Fortune 500 company,” is not in sync with LinkedIn’s distinctive, core value proposition.
Kay Luo, LinkedIn’s communications chief: “To be a useful professional network, you have to have the people above you on the network.”
In other words, openness may be a good thing in a “friends and family” blogosphere, but the high-end LinkedIn “gated referral network” is getting the job done professionally, for professionals.
MORE: Reid Hoffman On How LinkedIn Beats Facebook for Business, INTERVIEW
PLUS: Salesconx Will Monetize Your Rolodex: LinkedIn Beware? INTERVIEW and CED Tech 2007: 30 Cool Startups, But NO Facebook Apps
AND: Judy’s Book: What’s On Sale? WE ARE! Ten Reasons Why and Business Plans Help the Web 2.0 Kool-Aid Go Down