The early challenges of LinkedIn: persistence and flexibility

Absrtact: At the heart of LinkedIn is the desire to give people great help, rather than just having a look at a photo or something. Riedhofman Reid Hoffman, founder and chairman of the board, said in an interview with Tencent Technology.

"At the heart of LinkedIn is the desire to give people great help, not to stay in the picture or something just to be interesting." "Ride Hoffman Reid Hoffman, founder and chairman of the board, said in a recent interview with Tencent Technology.

Users don't necessarily go to LinkedIn every day, he says, but LinkedIn can be particularly useful to people at specific stages of their careers.

This is Hoffman's third visit to China, the trip is mainly three, one is invited to participate in the 21st Century Council of the Beijing Conference, received by the national leaders, the second is for his book "The Startup of You" Chinese version of the "vital relationship" to do propaganda; third, see some Chinese entrepreneurs. He says he wants to meet local entrepreneurs everywhere he goes to learn about the local internet market and entrepreneurial environment.

In the 10-year history of social networking sites, too many star companies have been shooting off as meteors. From the Friendster of 2002 to MySpace in 2005, Facebook, which is now in its heyday, has heard a bad song.

But in a social networking site, LinkedIn looks unique. The company has more than 10 years of history, witnessing the rise and fall of Friendster and MySpace, but has not been affected by the rise of Facebook. This is largely due to its unique positioning: business networking, helping people expand their connections and help people with their careers and business activities.

Although LinkedIn has not yet officially entered the Chinese market, but now has 3 million users in China, Hoffman says he is also seriously studying the Chinese market. He recently met Lei in Silicon Valley, where he also took Lei to send his red-rice phone and two other Android phones on the day he was interviewed at the Beijing Guomao Hotel. "I now have 7 mobile phones, out of general with three." To understand Android, you have to use these phones more. "he said.

The early challenges of LinkedIn: persistence and flexibility

Entrepreneurship has been a tough process, especially in the early days. User volume is the most critical indicator for social networking sites, but LinkedIn's user growth is much slower than other sites in the same period.

"When we released our website in May 2003, we wanted to be able to get users as quickly as Friendster, but by July we found it impossible," he said. "said Hoffman.

In the first few years of LinkedIn, there was a constant suggestion that Hoffman add picture sharing and even games to LinkedIn, but Hoffman didn't add these features to the site. LinkedIn, he argues, is a Web site that enhances people's productivity, and LinkedIn can do more if it can provide users with more value than other sites. From the facts of the present, Hoffman is right.

For the first controversy over LinkedIn, Hoffman thinks that's a good thing, because a good idea is often controversial at first. "My favorite investment case when I'm investing in Greylock is the case where someone agrees or rejects it," he said. "he said.

But LinkedIn has done something to improve the user's growth, and one of the most important things is to add the Address book feature so that users can upload their own address book and then know if their contacts have been registered for LinkedIn, To make it easier for these people to connect to each other on LinkedIn. "Although there is still a big gap with the Friendster, but the introduction of this feature, we have a great increase in user growth." "This is a key feature, and if you didn't come up with that, LinkedIn might be over," says Hoffman. ”

Hoffman believes that entrepreneurs must adhere to their own vision at the same time must be very clear to know the most important tasks, we will insist on flexibility at the same time, but also have a strong ability to learn, the company and the business can be timely adjustment or transformation to respond to market changes. "Pivot" is one of the most popular words in Silicon Valley, and many of the successful companies in Silicon Valley have undergone several transformations, and Mr Hoffman's PayPal was no exception.

Social networking: Finding others and letting people find you

"Whether you admit it or not, we've actually lived in a social networking era." Hoffman told Tencent Technology. The social networking age is characterized by a connection between people, both in life and in the business world.

In the business world, each person has a very strong business purpose, either for money or for talent. This connection can bring value to both sides. But to find the right person, first of all need to have a certain understanding of both sides, especially in both sides of the professional field of understanding.

In the early days of LinkedIn, many sceptics believed that no one wanted to share their connections, and many believed that only strong relationships could bring value. Hoffman remembers an investment telling him that he has been very successful and does not need to find a job through LinkedIn. But after seeing the investor two years later, he told Hoffman that he is now on LinkedIn every day. Instead of looking for a job at LinkedIn, the investor is updating his page to make it easier for the entrepreneur to find him and bring his own investment projects.

Hoffman uses his own example to say that if an entrepreneur is doing an Internet payment project and wants to find an investor with relevant experience, he is likely to find him because his work experience shows that he is investing now (Hoffman is an investment company Greylock partner) and a former PayPal executive And if he hadn't filled out the full work experience, the entrepreneur might not have found him, and he might have lost an investment opportunity.

The integrity of information means more opportunities to be discovered by others, such as job opportunities, investment opportunities, partnering opportunities, and so on, prompting people to fill out a complete work experience on LinkedIn.

"In the age of social networking, you're not just looking for someone, you want to be found." When people realize this, people take the initiative to fill in the work experience. "said Hoffman. To make it easier for people to find and be found, LinkedIn has strict control over the user interface, and each user's personal page is a uniform color and layout that allows people to experience the same experiences when browsing different people's pages.

PayPal Gang effect: Network Circle expands individual ability

The New York Times, in a 2011 character feature report, called Hoffman "the King of Connection", and the article called Hoffman's connections to Silicon Valley, which means he knows everyone in Silicon Valley.

Hoffman is well-connected, on the one hand because he is the founder and Greylock investor of LinkedIn, on the other hand because he is a member of "PayPal Mafia".

The "PayPal mob" means that members of the founding team of PayPal, after leaving the company, have set up other companies and have been successful, and they are still keeping a good relationship. This is more representative, including PayPal executive Vice President Hoffman founded Linkedin,paypal co-founder, CEO Thiel began to do Angel investment and successfully invested Facebook,paypal co-founder, CTO Max · Lafchen founded Slide.

"I don't think it would be possible for me to do LinkedIn without PayPal's work experience without PayPal," he said. "Healthy networking can build healthy business relationships," Hoffman said. ”

He said that since the founding members of PayPal are very young, most people after PayPal sold to EBay have chosen to start a business, so after all have been kept in contact with each other for advice. Now the members of the PayPal gang will eat together or join parties and talk to each other when they encounter problems. The PayPal mob is a typical professional social network.

After successful listings of companies such as Google (Weibo) and Facebook, many of these companies also have employees who are willing to invest in such startups. "Because they have a good network of people, the network can enlarge a person's ability." I'm not saying you can't succeed without a network, but if you have a good network, it will be very helpful to your success. "he said.

Dialogue Hoffman Highlights:

"Early LinkedIn"

Early startups are tough, you don't know what you're doing. For entrepreneurs, have a good vision in the early stages and know what's most important now. In addition, entrepreneurs need to have a strong ability to learn, and the business of timely adjustment-in the words of Silicon Valley is a transformation.

One of the difficulties LinkedIn faced early on was that other social networking sites--initially Friendster, and then Facebook--grew very quickly, and people have been telling me that our site should also provide picture sharing, games, and more. We also put a lot of effort into thinking about this problem.

In fact, our goal is to change people's "economic life" and change the efficiency of people's job search. For any business event, it's all about connecting people, possibly for capital, for talent, and possibly for resources, and when you can connect people, you create value. So while our users are growing more slowly, we offer people more value than other social networking sites, and these values are more sustainable. From the present situation, we have done the right thing.

One suggestion I often give to other entrepreneurs is to be able to stick to it but also to be flexible. Insist is to adhere to their own vision, flexibility is to listen to other people's opinions, understand the market changes. A lot of internet companies are big, but then they fail, for example, Excite was once the second biggest search engine but then failed. Sometimes it is wrong to insist, sometimes it is wrong to give in to the reality too easily, so the entrepreneur needs to combine the two.

I didn't have any doubts about the LinkedIn model at first, but I've been deciding whether I've been learning.

When we released our website in May 2003, we wanted to be able to get users as quickly as Friendster, but by July we found it impossible. Then we think that our company is on the right path. Our research later found that we were not working hard enough and needed to think of a better way to increase the user's growth.

So we started to provide a function of the address Book. When people came to LinkedIn in June 2003, they didn't know who was here, but when we start providing the Address book feature-you can upload your own address book, and then we'll tell you what these people are already here-when people find that they can see their acquaintances. , it will naturally connect with acquaintances. This makes our user growth has a great improvement, although and Friendster still have a big gap.

This is a key feature, and if you didn't come up with this feature, LinkedIn might be over.

The other thing we do is how to deal with profit. A lot of people told us that we were trying to make LinkedIn profitable as soon as possible, but in the 1.5 to two years that LinkedIn was founded, we didn't think about the profit model at all. We think the most important thing in the beginning is user growth.

This is also an important lesson: the best ideas are controversial ideas. I now invest in GreyLock, our favorite investment case is those who have different views of the case, some people support the opposition. The ideas of the early days of LinkedIn were in fact helpful to its growth.

"University education"

One of the two things I learned from college that helped to create LinkedIn later was that I learned a lot about how people instinctively work, how people think and communicate with people. This helps to build social networks, and social networks are the ones that connect. Second, I learned how to think accurately. I'm an entrepreneur with a lot of investment thinking, which is right and contributes to the world.

The user interface

In the user interface we have to make a lot of compromises, because we have to try to be simple, but also useful to users. One big compromise we've made is that people want to be able to control their own pages, such as the color and layout of the page to highlight their own personality, but this will make the entire site look very confusing, but also to allow others to browse the user page is inconvenient, because everyone's page is different. So we set the layout of the page, not to give users any control, but this makes people more convenient when hiring.

"Strong relationship and weak relationship"

In the early days of LinkedIn, many people thought that only strong relationships were useful, and that people were unwilling to share their networks. One investor told me that I had been so successful that I didn't need LinkedIn. But two years later, he used it every day, because he needed to find the right person, to get people to know him, to find him. Another example is reporters, who feel they have to protect their contacts, but Adam Lashinsky relied on LinkedIn when he wrote the book Inside Apple, telling me that he found a lot of suitable audiences through LinkedIn.

Personally, I need to find good people, good companies to invest. I hope the right person can find me. Maybe some people are doing the pay-related business, want to find PayPal people to invest or advice, they search on LinkedIn will find me, but they do not have to start looking for me. That's why people fill out their work experience on LinkedIn.

In the age of social networking, you're not just looking for someone, you want to be found. When people realize this, people take the initiative to fill in the work experience.

"Why would he be the king of connections?"

I think if there is no PayPal work experience, no PayPal later network circles, I do LinkedIn can not be successful. In addition, when I started my business as LinkedIn, I also paid more and more attention to the role of the circle of contacts, which also made my network more and more extensive. Healthy networking can build healthy business relationships.

"New SNS Relationship"

People always like to say that old things are going to die, but I think networking is a vital part of people's lives. I also invested in a lot of social networks, such as Facebook, and we gerylock also invested in Nextdoor. People need different social networks, because different social networks can provide different values, in the real world, people also have homes, restaurants, units and other places.

WEB 3.0

I think WEB 3.0 is data, like Waze is using data to help people find better driving lines. LinkedIn has also used relevant data to help people better plan their careers.

From entrepreneurs to investors

To me these two things are very similar, when I do the enterprise, I also often from the investment aspect to think the question, like does this matter to have the influence to the world. I either do it myself or invest in someone else to do it.

I founded in 1997 socialnet,1998 years I made the first investment in life, invested in PayPal. I also invested in Friendster,facebook,six Apart.

The challenge, of course, is to do two jobs full-time. But I basically only invest in consumer-oriented internet companies, because this is my specialty and I can help these companies.

I put my information on the Internet when I was talking to investors on LinkedIn and I want people to learn something from it.

The judgment on investment is more art than science. You have to see if this can have a big impact on the world, and if so, you have to see if this group of people can do it.

I'll see if the company can be remembered. People usually only remember 7 common mobile apps, and it's important that your company's products become one of them. If there is a chance, it is worth investing.

"New payment system"

Payment still has a long way to go, and mobile creates a great opportunity, but it is still difficult. I've seen almost all the paying companies that come with me to finance, but I've dropped a few.

In Silicon Valley there is a kind of saying that might be akin to knowing pessimism that when you know too much about an industry, it may not be a good thing, because you will know how hard it is to do something and start to be afraid to do it. When we do PayPal, the bank, the financial system and so do not know very well, directly to do. But now I am worried that I will miss the next 10 years of big opportunities in the area of payment.

"PayPal Mafia"

We do PayPal is still very young, PayPal also sell early. So a lot of people are starting a business after leaving PayPal, because we all have ideas. We often call each other directly to discuss new things or to ask ourselves what we are doing. The power of social networks is to make people solve problems faster and more easily.

Of course, we also often eat together, or some of us have a party, then we will go.

The work experience at PayPal is also very helpful to the subsequent start-up. A person's network can magnify his ability, such as finding the right person, finding the right money, etc. For our investors, we look at people who come out of big companies because they have good connections. Without a good network of contacts, it's not that you can't succeed. But if you have a good network of contacts, it will be very helpful to your success.

"Business model"

For consumer-facing Internet companies, the scale is more important than the business model, especially the social-related. Many times the scale is up, and the business model is much simpler.

Our core is to do people's careers related things, such as work experience, jobs, we initially focused on the individual, but later found that the enterprise has such a demand. In fact, our enterprise-oriented products are two years late to make, very early on the enterprise with us to suggest that the product.

In LinkedIn I have this saying that it's important to think about what's going on next and what the future needs to be. After the heart has a clear goal, will not be users of the need to bring chaos.

"Social networking is the founder."

This sentence is Danah Boyd first proposed, that time or 2005, 2006 years or so, I think this sentence is very insightful. When Mark Zuckerberg to Facebook, his experience went to Harvard, and he often thought about the functions of college students. When I set up LinkedIn I had a startup and worked at PayPal, so I thought more about getting a social network to help people with their business behavior.

This is the founder's influence on a website.

"LinkedIn Help for users"

We hope that LinkedIn will be of great help to people and may be especially useful in a certain period of time. Of course we want users to come as much as possible, but the core is that we want them to be very useful for LinkedIn.

"How to see China in Silicon Valley"

I think Silicon Valley has been focusing on the future, focusing on change and focusing on subversion. They are all concerned about the Chinese market. One of my colleagues in GreyLock doesn't know Chinese at all, but he lets his kids learn Chinese.

As for those Copy to, I think it's normal to move the other way to another market, which is a common business practice.

I now have 7 mobile phones, today with three, one of which is red rice. Not long ago I ate in Silicon Valley and Lei he gave me, I think this is a very good mobile phone, Lei is also very good. To understand Android, it is necessary to use an Android phone.

For Linkedin, China is also a big market. Now in our only English site, we have 3 million users in China, we have a very detailed understanding of the Chinese market. This is the third time I have come to China, I plan to come here often.

"Twitter Listing"

I'm friends with them, and I've given them some suggestions for listing, combined with LinkedIn's listing. I think when a company is financing, it is important to find the right investors, so that investors can bring you more value.