📬 Linkedin: Gamifying Status

Delivering single player value for a network-effect based business.

Hello Frens 👋,

I am 8 short days away from wrapping up my Masters's degree; I am keeping it short today!

Overview

• Company: Linkedin

• Goal: Get early users engaged

• Levers: Insight → We’re all status-seeking monkeys

Trust me, not the biggest Linkedin fan either.

But let’s rewind to 12 years back when Reed Hoffman sent out an email to 350 of his closest friends in the valley and asked them to join a new professional networking website he was working at.

Problem with a social network like Linkedin, with no critical mass, there is little to no value for me joining.

Linkedin needed to artificially create some value for people for early users and engage with the product. Even if that value was just temporary.

The solution: Gamified Status

More connections you have, the bigger the network icon on your profile, the more “networked” you are. This feature turned the platform into a status game for the few hundred (or even thousands) of people using it.

Value signed, sealed, and delivered (at least until they got to critical mass!)

Until we meet next Tuesday,

Ali Abouelatta