The most valuable advice Reid Hoffman, Co-founder of Linkedin

If today asked anyone with minimal knowledge of internet which is the most important and relevant to professional social network the answer is unanimous: Linkedin. One of the main architects of this success is co-founder Reid Hoffman.

The history of Reid Hoffman

Born in California and graduated from Stanford, he continued studying to be drawn an MA in philosophy at Oxford. After two relevant works experience as were Apple and Fujitsu, founded his first company in 1997: Socialnet. It was an online dating platform to bring together people with similar tastes. It was a prototype social network, an idea ahead of its time.

He closed Socialnet to enter the board of Paypal reaching vice president until 2002 when PayPal was acquired by eBay for 1.5 billion dollars. In the same 2002, he cofounded what would be his most successful today, a social network for professionals: Linkedin. In 2014, Linkedin is the undisputed leader in its industry with more than 270 million users.

In parallel to Linkedin, Reid Hoffman has become one of the most successful investors in Silicon Valley with more than 80 investments in technology companies where stands Zynga, Flickr, Digg and others. Anecdotally, Reif arranged the first visit between Mark and Pete Thiel Zucherberg. Hence came the first investment in Facebook for $ 500,000.

The most valuable tips Reid Hoffman

Once “he accredited” and explained the great successes of Mr. Hoffman, now get to see what lessons we can learn from it:

1- Find the points of intersection between strengths, aspirations and needs of the market: integrating these 3 points and introduce them together in the business plan is essential is when starting a project. These elements during the process can change and will have to be reviewed.

2- Do not risk more than you’re willing to lose: it is clear that taking risks is inevitable but can be done reasonably. Think about whether you can survive if it goes wrong.

3- Focus on income and diversification: one of the greatest strengths of Linkedin right now and that makes it a very stable social network is its triple source of income: targeted ads, job postings and subscription fees. Although it is usually a source that really drives the business, finding complementary it is when a much more stable scenario is generated.

4- Put the focus on important metrics: There are metrics that are nice and others that are useful. Find 2-3 that allow you to make a reliable x-ray of your evolution. Linkedin be in revenue service renewal fee and such a nice metric is the number of users worldwide.

5- Your financial strategy is ahead: many entrepreneurs focus only on product strategy leaving the background the plan of income and expenses. You have to think that external funding takes time and have planned well revenue forecasting can save the company.

6- Lives in a “permanent state Beta”: this expression leads us to an important reflection:

– Your project is always being improved, you cannot stop testing to get validated knowledge and apply it to the “beta” version of the business. This state will allow always be placed in a competitive field.