Image: Courtesy of Joi
LinkedIn is a popular business-focused social networking site for people in any profession. Millions of visitors flock to the site each month to update resumes, look for jobs, and communicate with past and current colleagues. LinkedIn now gets millions of visitors each month and millions of dollars in revenue to go along with it. Behind every great idea though is a great entrepreneur! This week in the spotlight we take a look at entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, who created the popular business-oriented social networking website called LinkedIn. We’ll look at just how he did it so you too can learn from his success!
Summary:
Name: Reid Hoffman
Age: 42
Location: Silicon Valley, CA
Claim to fame: LinkedIn (Popular business focused social networking website)
Initial cost: < $1000
How He Did It:
Reid Hoffman was born in California and graduated with a bachelors degree at Stanford University, and later a master’s degree in philosophy. Hoffman would go onto work for Apple Computer and Fujitsu before moving onto a job at Paypal where he would become Executive Vice President of Business Operations. Shortly after eBay acquired Paypal in 2002, Hoffman left to pursue his own ventures. He developed LinkedIn in 2002 and launched the now popular LinkedIn service in 2003 where he then held the role of CEO for four years before stepping down to now handle the day-to-day operations of the site. LinkedIn acts as a social networking platform for business professionals of all kinds to keep in touch and communicate about past and future work. As of 2009, LinkedIn reported over 50 million registered users and quickly growing. While not confirmed, estimates point to a yearly revenue currently of around $80 million!
Lessons Learned:
- It’s never too late to start a career as an entrepreneur. (Most entrepreneurs like Reid Hoffman and others all had corporate 9-5 jobs before launching into their own ventures. Plan, test, and execute!)
- Figure out how you can put a new spin on something already popular. (Hoffman used the existing social networking popularity to identify and attach a niche market within that area.)
- Give your idea/company the time and resources needed to grow (Hoffman launched in 2003, but it wasn’t until 2007/2008 that the site really saw huge gains.)
- Try and try again. (Reid attempted a previous entrepreneur venture prior to LinkedIn, which didn’t do nearly as well. Learn from past mistakes and use them to do better the next time around.)
Did you miss last weeks spotlight? Check it out here: The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Jeff Bezos
Be on the lookout for our next entrepreneur spotlight article in this ongoing series. In the meantime, be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think about the success of this week’s entrepreneur. Also, please let us know if you have an entrepreneur you would like to see featured here in the weeks to come.
Sources:
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One Response to “The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Reid Hoffman”
[...] startups. This fits him well being the founder of LinkedIn and featured previously in our Entrepreneur Spotlight. Reid is someone who has built numerous businesses out of nothing and created from scratch all of [...]