17 ms·

Show HN: I built a zero-cost, ad-free alternative to LinkedIn

249 points by 4sellff 6y ago

kulikalov 6y ago
What's the killer feature? How is it drastically different from LinkedIn or Angel.co?
- sharemywin 6y ago
  I saw something about a trust score and some thing about investing on the site but I don't really understand how it works.
- 4sellff 6y ago
  The TRU Score is the primary point of differentiation. The goal is to provide an independent way to measure reputation and trust, that uses community feedback. There are many ways to generate a score for a person. Our method involves the trading of of virtual shares, which are bought/sold just like stocks. Share price changes are reflected in that persons TRU Score. The investments you make in others is reflected in your TRU Score. https://sellff.com/about https://sellff.com/about
  - kulikalov 6y ago
    I don't think this is how people's relationships work. Putting a number next to someone's name doesn't make this person more or less reliable. The only kind of recommendation that is trustworthy is the one made by someone you know.
    - Topgamer7 6y ago
      I think there is a range to this being true. Take app review score aggregation. Anything 3 stars and up is probably acceptable. You score a 1 star and within reason nobody will use the app. You can say similar things about tv/movie reviews, car safety scores, and I'm sure many other trust metrics.
      - 4sellff 6y ago
        And that is part of the problem space we are addressing. How do you find and select people to work with? Whether that is a plumber, accountant or software developer. It's great if you have a referral from a trusted friend. But what if your trusted friend does not have a referral? Or, if the referral is busy at the moment. The need still exists and you need to find a provider. Perhaps the TRU Score is not the "perfect" solution, but I think it's far better than a simple star rating. How many times on HN do we see posts about people "buying" ratings or followers. As a result, people lose trust in the value of the rating system. So, we have created an alternative that we think people can trust. A future release has planned to use Stripe Identity. Whereby, you will have confidence in the profile you are viewing and can make an informed buying decision. As designed, manipulation of the TRU Score [when combined with Identity], will be difficult.
    - ravenstine 6y ago
      To add to your point, different employers value different things in their employees. Some employers want a ton of reliability in their employees, whilst others obviously want a reasonable level of reliability but also employees who are creative and easy to get along with. And there are some where your personality doesn't matter so much as long as you get your work done. The idea is interesting, and it's good that people experiment with such ideas, but I'm skeptical that this scoring concept isn't going to make people miserable and possibly going to be gamed easily. A better way to compete with LinkedIn would be to simply get rid of the social media feed. I'd find LinkedIn much more pleasant if it wasn't full of trite platitudes, cringey corporate signaling, political grandstanding, dudebro philosophy around productivity, and so forth.
    - vngzs 6y ago
      I believed this, but watching the movie Parasite changed my perspective on personal recommendations more than a little bit.
  - monkeynotes 6y ago
    This is a rather brittle concept. I certainly don't want someone judging me based off of my occasional use of a professional profile. I would feel very hesitant to allow a proprietary value algorithm to judge me in my professional life. And as a recruiter that value would essentially be mostly meaningless, I'd want to look at recommendations, and experience first. A score based on trading simply measures how good you are at trading, not how good you are at doing your job.
    - 4sellff 6y ago
      Thx for your comment. To be clear, the TRU Score is not limited to the trading of shares in your profile. It is an input, but not necessarily the one that weighs most heavily in the determination of a members TRU Score. SELLFF offers multiple ways to support other members. You can write a review and go into details of your connection with another member. Buying shares of another member is an additional, low-friction way to show support. It's fast, easy and provides the added benefit that your investment might increase in value. Any investments you make are an input to your TRU Score. So, if you make good investments in other members your TRU Score will increase...even if your profile shares are not being traded.
fundamental 6y ago
Turning personal trust in others into what looks like a stock market game strikes me as quite odd. I wouldn't find people trading internet points back and forth to determine my 'value' on a platform as something I would like. I like the trading of points even less considering the target of the website about people representing themselves in the scope of their professions.
- dvtrn 6y ago
  Turning personal trust in others into what looks like a stock market game strikes me as quite odd. Because it feels like turning the individual into a commodity?
  - EGreg 6y ago
    So what? That's what capitalism does. It cheapens and commodifies everything. Often, that's what you want, but when it comes to personal relationships, or welfare of people and animals, maybe it's not. Both parents working 10 hour days and neglecting their kids and quality time just so they can climb the corporate ladder is a more serious example. The other day I wrote about Facebook doing it to the words "friend" and "like": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26456328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26456328 I remember an acquaintance of mine, Siqi Chen, built Friends for Sale back in the day on Facebook and that was a great launch pad for his career, where he did a lot more interesting stuff later :)
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    But that is what you are in the workplace. And you admit this every time you switch jobs or ask for a raise.
    - tolbish 6y ago
      Is it that common to switch jobs purely for the money? For the gigantic pay raises yes, but I think for the vast majority, you switch jobs for a variety of non-commodifying factors along with money.
    - 6y ago
dutchbrit 6y ago
How do you plan to compete against LinkedIn & monetise?
- 4sellff 6y ago
  We believe the platform is attractive to professionals who want an easy, privacy-focused way to promote the services they offer, with the ability to differentiate themselves from people offering the same/similar services. The platform is zero-cost, ad-free and includes direct messages. I hope the UI is more easy to navigate and understand, compared to LinkedIn. The TRU Score, while somewhat controversial, is more powerful than a star-rating system. Also, it works works for you as a buyer or seller. Monetization is planned in a future release and includes [1] selling blocks of time to people who want to consult with you, and [2] promotions, where you [as a seller] pays the buyer for considering your services. We believe it's a great time to build alternatives to the major networks that exist today. It should be easier for people to promote and sell their services. It should be easier for people to find trustworthy providers. And it should be easier to protect your personal privacy.
  - skellystudios 6y ago
    > where you [as a seller] pays the buyer for considering your services Isn't this just ads?
    - 4sellff 6y ago
      Not advertising in the traditional sense. Today, many of the ad's you see are based on data collected about you. There is no "opt-in" and you are not compensated. We envision a model whereby you select which promotions to participate in, based on your needs/interest "and" how much you will receive in compensation. From the seller standpoint, we believe the costs to reach a consumer will be similar. Yet, the consumers they do reach will have a genuine interest in the offering. Thus the promotion has the potential to offer a better response. To be clear, the seller is able to select which members qualify for the promotion [Ex. based on location, occupation, TRU Score, etc]. From the buyer standpoint, we view this an an improvement over the current model. There is no privacy violation or personal data sharing with strangers. You have the freedom and choice of which promotions to participate in. Assuming it works as planned, it would allow you to make a more informed buying decision.
edoceo 6y ago
Looks like Empirecred and Klout merged?
mouzogu 6y ago
Novel idea but won't something like this just end up being manipulated or gamed in one way or another.
- 4sellff 6y ago
  I believe the trading feature helps to prevent manipulation. The investments you make in others counts towards the TRU Score for you and the other person. So, if you make "bad" investments in others, it will only serve to reduce your TRU Score. Of course, some people might be willing to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others. But, that should be easy to identify. Example: If a high-reputation person vouches for someone, does it have more meaning compared to the endorsement from a person with no/low reputation? Which is why the TRU Score is more than just the share price and your investments. It also includes other platform activities [Ex. member reviews, review scores, number of investors, etc.]. Not claiming we have solved this problem. But, we think it is a step in the right direction.
  - tgv 6y ago
    But the investment is directly proportional to the number of people you know and can coerce/bribe in some way. If you know many people, you can rig the numbers in your favor, at least temporarily, which might be long enough to get another position (or whatever it is you're after).
    - 4sellff 6y ago
      Not sure that manipulation can be entirely eliminated. Instead, we are trying to incentivize good behavior and make it easier to identify fakes. If you sell services and/or need to find a service provider, you need some method to perform [1] discovery, [2] evaluation, and [3] decision. This is what we tried to build, in a manner which we hope promotes trust and good behavior. That said, as the platform develops, we will no doubt need to make adjustments. But the focus will remain on maintaining an efficient marketplace for buyers and sellers to interact and transact.
  - varispeed 6y ago
lmilcin 6y ago
Let's deconstruct this statement without even reading the page. "Alternative" -- it is not an alternative to LinkedIn. The major selling point of LinkedIn is ability to connect people and that doesn't work unless you have enough people on your platform. Functionality-wise LinkedIn is extremely simple. Most of the functionality of the platform is cruft. "Ad-free" -- it just means: I can't monetize it yet. Unfortunately, this will not work with subscription fee as I just can't imagine people would switch from LinkedIn to whatever you are proposing but also asked to pay for it when they don't need to pay for LI. "Zero-cost" -- obviously, a platform that only makes sense when majority of people you work with also use it, must be zero-cost. It is not a selling point, it is a necessity in today's world where people expect these things to be given out for free (or don't understand what the actual cost is). "zero-cost" + "ad-free" + "no backing" + "I need lots of users for this to make sense" is a deadly combination. How do you plan to cover running costs? "I built" -- no, you did not built it yet. Writing code to have a functionality is a trivial exercise for a newbie developer. Getting half of the planet to use it and scale it to meet the challenge is the tricky part. Don't get discouraged, but also don't be naive and don't treat people as if they are naive.
deleted 6y ago
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pk-r 6y ago
Has problems in authentication, ad-free, quite interesting.
medell 6y ago
Black Mirror Nose Dive anyone? Nice concept but the "invest" idea introduces friction that could be too much to overcome. What about a PageRank system based on recommendation / testimonials and likes and connections?
- carabiner 6y ago
  Dont know bout you but everyone is trading at $1. I'm just getting in on the ground floor.
  - 4sellff 6y ago
    The starting share price is 1.00 for all members at the time of registration. - When anyone BUYS shares in your profile, the price will increase by 0.01 - When anyone SELLS shares in your profile, the price will decrease by 0.01 Each trade is fixed at 100 shares There are a few limits we placed for the launch: [1] A maximum of 1,000 shares in another member per day - So, if you wanted to BUY 5,000 shares, it would need to be spread across 5 different days - The same logic applies if want to SELL shares [2] A maximum of 100,000 shares total in another member
    - carabiner 6y ago
      When can I convert to USD?
      - symlinkk 6y ago
        When it lands you a well paying job
        4sellff 6y ago
        That is an accurate comment. Your SELLFF profile can help you to connect with new business opportunities, from which you can save and/or earn $$. It's a new/different alternative to the megacorp solutions that does not track you or sell your personal information.
MattGaiser 6y ago
There are a lot of objections on here to being "valued" and "commodified." I don't understand why. You are valued every time you go to an interview or ask for a raise. You can leverage your network in the same way as you can leverage "investment." To me this is already a more transparent version of what already happens.
- louis___ 6y ago
  > There are a lot of objections on here to being "valued" and "commodified." I don't understand why. Because it is immoral. It is not because it is maybe commonplace, and valued in a capitalist society, that it is a good thing. And, the more you apply that mindset in the workplace, the more you will do it outside the workplace.
- clairity 6y ago
  points are a pretty poor proxy for the amazing variety of skills, proficiencies, and perceptions of humans (or even animals), no matter how sophisticated the point system might be. it also paints an illusory objective sheen (aka ass cover™) over a highly subjective evaluation. you might believe in the point system if it favors you, but that doesn't make the point system any more transparent or "good". we're just not as fungible as nearly a century of mass industrialization would have us believe. we devalue humans by trying to bucketize a set of skills and buy only those skills on the labor market, despite the vast richness that each person brings to the table. that we allow the labor market to be commoditized this way is already a huge imbalance between worker and corporation. we need fair and transparent labor markets for people, not corporations.
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    > the amazing variety of skills, proficiencies, and perceptions of humans Does this matter for the vast majority of jobs? I have lots of skills. I am a published writer. I have won innovation competitions. I can build large cities with high property values in SimCity. None of that matters for my employment. I am a software engineer. For the purposes of work I am a commodity. My past job replaced me fairly easily when I left. Companies are truly only buying a subset of skills on the labour market.
rsweeney21 6y ago
Not directly related to the post, but developers should be aware that developer salaries will likely jump significantly this year. The VC market is super hot right now - VC firms are being flooded with cash, and they need to deploy it. Companies are raising massive amounts of money at unprecedented valuations. A large chunk of that money is going to hire developers. The recruiting industry is seeing a huge surge in hiring in the past couple of months (source: I run a technical recruiting company (1)). Because demand and cash available to hire developers has increased significantly in the past few months, but the supply is basically fixed, companies are offering higher salaries to attract talent. They have the cash for it. Keep in mind that new money raised from investors will raise the value of your stock options, but rarely translates to salary increases for existing employees. What a time to be a software engineer. (1) https://www.facet.net https://www.facet.net
- monkeynotes 6y ago
  What's driving this new surge of cash?
  - loremipsium 6y ago
    I suppose this https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...
  - rsweeney21 6y ago
    Low interest rates means managers of pensions and other large money managers can't put their money in bonds. They would lose money because the interest rate is lower than inflation. So they need somewhere else to put it.
    - flurben 6y ago
      Interest rates have been low for quite some time, though. Maybe it is also driven by perception of overvaluation among publicly traded equities?
prionassembly 6y ago
Has everyone forgotten Klout?
- 4sellff 6y ago
  As I recall, the Klout [and CRED] score was based on an aggregation of your off-platform social activities. This included, for example, your Twitter activity. The SELLFF TRU Score is based on your on-platform activities and is determined only by members of the SELLFF community.
paulcole 6y ago
> zero-cost | privacy-focused | ad-free Where does the money come from?
- m348e912 6y ago
  Asking the real questions. How are expenses paid?
  - 4sellff 6y ago
    Currently, all expenses are paid from my personal savings and the day job. We are working on the next release which will offer two options [consult and promote] to monetize the service. As mentioned earlier, the focus is making it easier for buyers and sellers to interact, while maintaining privacy. I remain convinced that there are effective ways to monetize the service without going the traditional advertising route that is so common today. For sure, billion dollar businesses have been build on the current model. My hope is that we can advance to a new model, where we do not sacrifice personal privacy for the sake of accessing a useful service. To be determined if we can be part of that new solution.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  Discussed upthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26478054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26478054
- ipaddr 6y ago
  Next release.. zero cost moves to paid for anyone offering services. Which is the opposite model of linkedin. Sellers are free.. buyers pay.. plus upselling to both groups as premium offerings
  - 4sellff 6y ago
    Your comment indicates one option for monetizing the platform. For now, we do not see that as ideal. We are focused on ways to increase the value provided to the buyers and sellers [members] on the platform. To the degree the solution is working and people value it, only then can we attempt to extract some of that value. If we over-reach, usage will drop. So, there is a fine balance needed here. We are adamant about exploring and discovering new models which do not involve traditional advertising or selling/sharing of member data. We are also realistic and realize there are expenses to providing this solution. So, monetization is a requirement to keep the doors open. A question for you, assuming this service becomes successful. [1] What would be a reasonable price to pay for promoting your services and being able to easily connect with trustworthy professionals? - Is $1.00 per year fair? - Is $10.00 per month reasonable? - Is a % of revenue you generate a better model?
TameAntelope 6y ago
Very interesting! I'll be curious to see if the focus on privacy for something like this ends up being a differentiator. Lots of folks care about privacy, though sometimes it becomes a challenge due to some of the limitations you end up with as a result. The trade-off people are making is obvious to some, but not to others. Congrats! Launching a product is super hard, this is an impressive accomplishment. I'd imagine you would put this site on your profiles. :D
- 4sellff 6y ago
  Yes, launching was a lot of work. My focus is on product. The real talent is a 3-person team in Croatia who I found via a HN "Who wants to be hired" post. We started April-2020. What you see today is the result of everyone working evenings and weekends, during the quarantine lockdown, while maintaining a full-time job. Much respect and love for: Bruno, Ivona and Kresho. They are an excellent representation of how the SELLFF platform can work. If you are looking for talented programmers, I can definitely recommend them.
  - ivanche 6y ago
    And yet, with JavaScript turned off your site shows completely blank page...
    - 4sellff 6y ago
      Right...JavaScript is required at this time. Thx for you comment. We will post a notice on the landing page that JS is required. Also, can work on a non-JS version of the site.
jiveturkey 6y ago
very poor messaging here. this is like 99designs or toptal or any marketplace for providers. not like linkedin. ad-free is a lie as the entire platform is advertising. (syndicated ad-free more like it.) because the platform depends on the TRU score, this form the social network between providers, and customers I suppose. This in and of itself is a privacy violation. The major problem with linkedin (from privacy perspective) is the information they have on you, which they monetise. They are the privacy problem, not syndicated ads, and you are not fixing that. outside of the bubble, no one cares about the privacy angle, not in a real way. (they complain, a lot, but have no problem continuing to use privacy invasive services.) your pronouncement of being privacy focused, while not actually being so, is pretty bad. i think you may have something here, you just need to pivot your messaging. FWIW I think the TRU score is a) not innovative, and b) should be abandoned in favor of familiar 5 star scale. (like amazon or ebay: #stars plus #ratings) If you really want to be "trustworthy", you will publish statistical data on ratings. Of course, everyone will have >4 star rating, so you can't do that. I don't think that's a hindrance to marketing "trustworthiness" though, even if it's baloney.
meamin 6y ago
Congrats! Will make some time to sign-up. I like the vector. Looking forward to the progress. I think your solution space will give you other opportunities down the road even if sellff struggles.
random5634 6y ago
I browse with ublock origin, and get an endless spinning circle in the tab.
- 4sellff 6y ago
  Please...which tab are you referring to? Which member profile? Feel free to send an email to help@sellff.com with any details. Thx.
  - theandrewbailey 6y ago
    As a rule of thumb, serve HTML on page load. All of these pages are remarkably free of meaningful markup.
    - 4sellff 6y ago
      Thank you for the feedback...the devs are reading your comments.
KadeTheSpade 6y ago
This site is excellent, and I have made my account!
deleted 6y ago
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dpeck 6y ago
Cory Doctorow’s classic Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom as a service. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Ki...
INTPenis 6y ago
A Linkedin alternative is really something that should be self hosted and federated.
- 4sellff 6y ago
  Agree and we are looking at options on doing just that. Do you think any existing platforms could work, or does something need to be purpose built? How would you architect a self-hosted, federated solution? I welcome your thoughts and suggestions on how that can be accomplished.
  - INTPenis 6y ago
    I can't help you on a low level. I just think that on a high level something like professional profiles, networking and assessments from colleagues should definitely be federated. And I'm also a strong believer in this whole federation wave that is sweeping over us. It doesn't work for all things but this is a perfect use case, in spirit of course. You always have to expect there to be two demographics, big tech and small tech. Federated linkedin would allow for Mastodon-like instances for people who don't want to host their own, and selfhosted instances for more technical people. While also allowing for Linkedin-style endorsements (not sure what they're called in English) over federation. So user@instance endorses user2@instance2 in skill:python for example. My hope would be to use ActivityPub to do that part. AP federation already works really well for social media imo. Linkedin is essentially social media with skill endorsements.
    - 4sellff 6y ago
      Thank you for your thoughts/comments. We agree and are moving in the direction you indicated.
Grustaf 6y ago
Free and ad-free sounds great, but will it be free of cheesy inspirational humble bragging? Then I'm in.
- ducharmdev 6y ago
  Please, anything to get rid of that. LinkedIn really has set the bar low.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  I was raised by dwarves in a mountain and overcame the rare sverfneblin disease to go to Harvard and the make a million dollars from my app. Buy my newsletter.
- zeofig 6y ago
  Pretty sure any linkedin-like service will amount to that. I'd rather miss a few opportunities than worry about such nonsense.
FlorinSays 6y ago
I believe you're on the right path. Exploring and displaying trust between people is one of the big missing pieces on the web. People are currently replacing the harder questions like "can I trust this person to do what he says he can" with simple or shallow ones based on status and image. Good luck with this!
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >I believe you're on the right path. I'm not sure about that. I think any system that potentially brings value will be gamed quickly.
CognitiveLens 6y ago
Interesting take on the challenge of determining professional trust. Seeing pictures of 3 white/European males on the homepage might turn off a more diverse audience of users, however - even if it's representative of the early adopters, it's important to present the product more inclusively.
- AshleighBasil 6y ago
  Does this work inverted? Would showing only brown people drive away white users, or are white people a special, universal race that doesn't need to be coddled? I'm not trying to troll or be obnoxious, I'm curious how people think about this. Does tokenism really make people feel included, or does it just give white people something to be moral and self-deprecatingly righteous about? I'm Mexican and when americans do the 'latinx' thing is makes me want to vomit, but I'm a mennonite so I guess I'm not a 'normal' Mexican, I'm not the one who they're trying to include. This is so interesting to me
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    > Would showing only brown people drive away white users It definitely would, but for different reasons. Black people seeing only white people would assume the platform will be racist, white people seeing only black people would assume that the platform is inferior.
  - JetAlone 6y ago
    If I was one of the only White people on say a job platform, and I was treated with the same level of respect, dignity and fairness as everybody else, I genuinely don't think it would bother me. That's what everybody reasonable wants, respect, dignity and fairness, and that's what I want to give to the Black, Brown, Indigenous and Asian people in our world. My understanding is that if someone truly wants something else such as domination, then yes, normal racial tensions will foment and cascade into hate and suspicion, making it harder and more painful for everyone to give or receive that respect, dignity and fairness, even where someone's actively trying to give it. Different nations and systems have had to deal with multiculturalism in the past, some of them dealt with it better and some of them worse. Our communications technology has created an inconvenient shift in terrain, but there have been other societal shifts, and chapters in history much worse, so I have some optimism about it. Mind you I'm also not 'normal' in terms of faith let alone ethnic demography where I live, plus I'm what they call "neurodivergent". I've grown up being very, very accustomed to being out of place one way or another. Maybe it would bother White people who are very used to being in the majority where they live and work, and can't cope with a stronger subliminal desire for ingroup dominanance. Dominance is comfortable for the dominator, and we have a nasty habit of liking comfort, so, to get a little religious, we do have to resist the flesh and aim for higher values found in sacrificial love. I'm genuinely curious what it's like for you being Mennonite in Mexico. How does it affect your life?
varispeed 6y ago
I wish there was a service I could simply pay for using, enough so that the operator wouldn't have to use invasive advertising where I could connect with other people who would want my services or vice-versa. Why such a simple thing seems to be not possible? Everyone looks to be only motivated by $$$ and turning potential customers into product. I also don't understand why should I value a network where the main selling point is zero-cost ad-free. If people on there don't want to pay for something that brings them value, are they going to want to pay me for my services? This is so contradictory. What's the goal here?
- toss1 6y ago
  Fully agree. Unfortunately, the networks that are built for pay are basically seeking extortionist-level payouts. One, which started out on a freemium model to connect makers and designers, seemed pretty good, the free plan did ok, and the others were tempting if I needed more. Then, somethign changed, and they reworked their site, and expected to take something like a 30% cut of all business done through link-ups made there. That might work for a few small one-off jobs where the total is small, but anything where you might work together for a competitive bid, their 30% cut demand will just force the cost right through the roof. So, nevermind now....
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >I wish there was a service I could simply pay for using, enough so that the operator wouldn't have to use invasive advertising where I could connect with other people who would want my services or vice-versa. There are a lot of services that you can pay to use. The problem with social networks (which this is) is that though you are willing to pay, others are not, and social networks are worthless without the 'network' part.
  - varispeed 6y ago
    I don't mind being on a network without people who don't want to pay for it. Not sure why is that an issue?
    - 6y ago
tkiolp4 6y ago
I don’t want a score associated with my name, so I wouldn’t use your service. I wonder how many people would like to have an associated “trust” score; I mean if you are an average individual I imagine you would get an average score of, let’s say, 5 over 10... you’ll look ridiculously untrustworthy compared to someone who has a score of 9/10. At least in the real world you have a chance to prove that you could be as trustworthy as anyone; with a score that chance goes away.
- mleonhard 6y ago
  Second. I want a LinkedIn that respects its users. Sellff doesn't need to make a product that is much different from LinkedIn. 1. Let me make an online resume, publicly connect with past colleagues, and give and receive recommendations and skills endorsements. 2. Sell job postings. 3. Sell search tools for jobs & candidates. 4. Don't trick people into uploading their contacts. 5. Don't provide an Invite All feature. Require users to state the relationship type for every invitation sent. Allow me to opt-out of connections by type: acquaintance, family, friend, school, work,etc. 6. Respect my communication preferences. For example, don't rename the preferences and re-enable them every few years. 7. Don't break core product functionality. For example, don't remove the email archive button for a year. Use functional integration tests. 8. Provide discussion Groups with useful moderation tools. This would draw users to your site every day. Don't provide useless moderation tools and let all groups flood with spam. Recruiters must pay for every message they post to a Group. New feature idea: Allow groups to curate comprehensive FAQs. It could be like Quora & Stack Overflow for professional questions. This could grow to be a very popular and bring a lot of daily traffic.
  - mooreds 6y ago
    > Allow me to opt-out of connections by type: acquaintance, family, friend, school, work,etc. I'd also love an 'age out' functionality. As far as LinkedIn shows, someone I work with at my current job shows up as the same strength of connection as a random person I chatted with once at a conference a decade ago. Time and number of interactions should play some role in the strength of connection as displayed in the UX (at least to me).
macspoofing 6y ago
>I built a zero-cost, ad-free alternative to LinkedIn Zero-cost and ad-free FOR NOW you mean. At some point you're going to have make money and the only viable options are 1) charity/donations 2) subscription 3) ads and data selling. #2 means you're not 'zero-cost' and #3 means you're not 'ad-free'. So you're going to rely on donations?
- 4sellff 6y ago
  With all due respect, there are additional options to choose from. We are still very early in this, but I will "take the bait" since monetization seems to be an issue that people care about. A percentage of revenue is I think a fair option. I am not referring to the previous comment about 30% [or even 10%]. I hate fees as much as the next person and taking a giant cut of your customers income is not the way to grow a business. Also, as it relates to zero-cost, using your Visa card is free to you, but not the merchant. However, those fees are being included in the price you pay for the products/services. A question for you: If you are making $100 per month from a service, what is a "fair" price for you to pay to continue having usage of that service? - Are you OK to look at ads, so long as your cost is zero? - Are you OK to pay $5.00 per month, so you do not have to look at ads? - Or, do you prefer to have no ads and pay a % of your monthly income that you generate from using the service?
  - disiplus 6y ago
    that's not zero cost, and would be closest to the subscription model.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    I'm sure you mean well, but "we'll figure out sustainability later" has huge negative trust value to me. That's basically what LinkedIn did and it has not worked out well for me. The incentives for eternal revenue growth are incredibly strong, and I have no reason to think you're uniquely capable of resisting them for the next 20 years. I'm am unlikely to go through all the switching cost just to help create a different hegemon.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
desireco42 6y ago
On positive note, I really think we need alternative to LinkedIn, wish you all the best. Some of the things and criticism are spot on but it is welcome to have people thinking on how to improve this area.
lvass 6y ago
A centralized proprietary service is exactly what we need to replace the other thousands of services who all do the same thing but look evil due to some mysterious coincidence, totally unrelated to being centralized and proprietary.
mdausmann 6y ago
my detailed analysis (searching for dave and counting them... 5.. and then multiplying by 50...2% of men are called Dave) tells me there are ~250 people on your service. I will join when you have 2.5 Million :)
datavirtue 6y ago
Tried to join, one second spinner, nothing.
- 4sellff 6y ago
  Sorry...we are experiencing 1st day server issues :-( Please give us another chance later today or tomorrow as we work to restore the services. Thank you for your patience.
bwb 6y ago
I signed up but never got a confirmation email, and login wont work.
- 4sellff 6y ago
  Hello...thanks for your comment. We seem to be experiencing issues with new account registrations and email confirmations. We are working to resolve now. Thank you for your interest in the service and your patience. -Ron
  - bwb 6y ago
    Awesome thanks, just let me know as I'd like to take a look. Love the idea!
lbj 6y ago
The Zero-Cost is showing in the 8.3 second load time I get on the first page. Second, if you want to take up space in LinkedIns market, you need to copy the pros of that platform. Good luck.
Black101 6y ago
it doesn't show anything with javascript disabled...
shaicoleman 6y ago
Make sure you think about how to address the "Chicken-egg problems" for network-effect. A good read about it is: https://apenwarr.ca/log/20201227 https://apenwarr.ca/log/20201227 (if you're short on time, you can skip to "Chicken-egg problems" section) "The defining characteristic of a chicken-egg technology or product is that it's not useful to you unless other people use it. Since adopting new technology isn't free (in dollars, or time, or both), people aren't likely to adopt it unless they can see some value, but until they do, the value isn't there, so they don't."
symlinkk 6y ago
The whole stock shares / TRU score thing is quite cool, I think this has potential.
unobatbayar 6y ago
What's the tech stack you've used? Do you think it's better to build an App first or a Website? or both?
- 4sellff 6y ago
  Not entirely the right person to answer this question, but we went with a .Net solution using SQL Server and React. We decided on the website first that would work OK on mobile devices. Faster and less cost to get into the market. Thanks to HN "Who wants to be hired" I was able to connect with 3x amazing devs in Croatia who built the solution. I have learned so much from HN over the last couple of years. Lots of value in this community and grateful to be a small part of it.
  - unobatbayar 6y ago
    Thank you, I see. The site looks great!
indymike 6y ago
Can't sign up. Broken. No error, just spins and quits spinning.
- 4sellff 6y ago
  Apologies. We experienced classic 1st day server crash. Working to restore services ASAP. Thank you for your interest and patience. -Ron
  - indymike 6y ago
    Keep plugging. If this stuff was easy, everyone would do it.
firepoet 6y ago
I can't help but attempt to apply Kant's categorical imperative to this approach. Is this something I would wish as a universal rule? What about folks who have really bad luck and participate in organizations that are a bad fit for their personality? Their score immediately goes down, and then the odds of them finding a better fit plummet. There is no "fresh start," so to speak. If everybody used this system to make a judgment about whether a person is worthy, it feels like we would immediately create a permanent caste system. There would be social outcasts that would only work with other outcasts, because, frankly who else would want to? They are, in a word, untouchable. So, for me, it appears this system is unethical to the extreme. Happy to be proved wrong, of course!
- nytgop77 6y ago
  if i work with outcasts that fit my personality i get positive points and get back to the top. No? (btw. is there a formula how that score works. maybe older votes expire)
lowbloodsugar 6y ago
How are you preventing the system being gamed? How would, for example, prevent QAnon, or its equivalent, from being the dominant source and judgement of reputation? Who pays for it, if not me?
jrm4 6y ago
Don't do the score thing. Just. Don't. Where there is money involved like this, despite whatever good intentions you may or may not have, reducing people to a score invites gaming and bad actors.
015a 6y ago
> The SELLFF TRU Score is a number that represents quality, trust, character and performance. No. Stop. Just stop. Holy crap No, No, No, No, No.
chovybizzass 6y ago
signup doesn't work for me in firefox. it just refreshes the page.
gcpm 6y ago
The TRU Score system and how you describe its use for evaluating people on employment could fall under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Have you thought about that?https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/statutes/fair-credit-reporting-act https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/statutes/fair-credit-reporti...
mutant 6y ago
So another "my data was sold after 3 years of 'privacy' website" Thanks, but no thanks

249 points by 4sellff 6y ago

kulikalov 6y ago

What's the killer feature? How is it drastically different from LinkedIn or Angel.co?

sharemywin 6y ago
I saw something about a trust score and some thing about investing on the site but I don't really understand how it works.
4sellff 6y ago
The TRU Score is the primary point of differentiation. The goal is to provide an independent way to measure reputation and trust, that uses community feedback. There are many ways to generate a score for a person. Our method involves the trading of of virtual shares, which are bought/sold just like stocks. Share price changes are reflected in that persons TRU Score. The investments you make in others is reflected in your TRU Score. https://sellff.com/about https://sellff.com/about
- kulikalov 6y ago
  I don't think this is how people's relationships work. Putting a number next to someone's name doesn't make this person more or less reliable. The only kind of recommendation that is trustworthy is the one made by someone you know.
  - Topgamer7 6y ago
    I think there is a range to this being true. Take app review score aggregation. Anything 3 stars and up is probably acceptable. You score a 1 star and within reason nobody will use the app. You can say similar things about tv/movie reviews, car safety scores, and I'm sure many other trust metrics.
    - 4sellff 6y ago
      And that is part of the problem space we are addressing. How do you find and select people to work with? Whether that is a plumber, accountant or software developer. It's great if you have a referral from a trusted friend. But what if your trusted friend does not have a referral? Or, if the referral is busy at the moment. The need still exists and you need to find a provider. Perhaps the TRU Score is not the "perfect" solution, but I think it's far better than a simple star rating. How many times on HN do we see posts about people "buying" ratings or followers. As a result, people lose trust in the value of the rating system. So, we have created an alternative that we think people can trust. A future release has planned to use Stripe Identity. Whereby, you will have confidence in the profile you are viewing and can make an informed buying decision. As designed, manipulation of the TRU Score [when combined with Identity], will be difficult.
  - ravenstine 6y ago
    To add to your point, different employers value different things in their employees. Some employers want a ton of reliability in their employees, whilst others obviously want a reasonable level of reliability but also employees who are creative and easy to get along with. And there are some where your personality doesn't matter so much as long as you get your work done. The idea is interesting, and it's good that people experiment with such ideas, but I'm skeptical that this scoring concept isn't going to make people miserable and possibly going to be gamed easily. A better way to compete with LinkedIn would be to simply get rid of the social media feed. I'd find LinkedIn much more pleasant if it wasn't full of trite platitudes, cringey corporate signaling, political grandstanding, dudebro philosophy around productivity, and so forth.
  - vngzs 6y ago
    I believed this, but watching the movie Parasite changed my perspective on personal recommendations more than a little bit.
- monkeynotes 6y ago
  This is a rather brittle concept. I certainly don't want someone judging me based off of my occasional use of a professional profile. I would feel very hesitant to allow a proprietary value algorithm to judge me in my professional life. And as a recruiter that value would essentially be mostly meaningless, I'd want to look at recommendations, and experience first. A score based on trading simply measures how good you are at trading, not how good you are at doing your job.
  - 4sellff 6y ago
    Thx for your comment. To be clear, the TRU Score is not limited to the trading of shares in your profile. It is an input, but not necessarily the one that weighs most heavily in the determination of a members TRU Score. SELLFF offers multiple ways to support other members. You can write a review and go into details of your connection with another member. Buying shares of another member is an additional, low-friction way to show support. It's fast, easy and provides the added benefit that your investment might increase in value. Any investments you make are an input to your TRU Score. So, if you make good investments in other members your TRU Score will increase...even if your profile shares are not being traded.

fundamental 6y ago

Turning personal trust in others into what looks like a stock market game strikes me as quite odd. I wouldn't find people trading internet points back and forth to determine my 'value' on a platform as something I would like. I like the trading of points even less considering the target of the website about people representing themselves in the scope of their professions.

dvtrn 6y ago
Turning personal trust in others into what looks like a stock market game strikes me as quite odd. Because it feels like turning the individual into a commodity?
- EGreg 6y ago
  So what? That's what capitalism does. It cheapens and commodifies everything. Often, that's what you want, but when it comes to personal relationships, or welfare of people and animals, maybe it's not. Both parents working 10 hour days and neglecting their kids and quality time just so they can climb the corporate ladder is a more serious example. The other day I wrote about Facebook doing it to the words "friend" and "like": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26456328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26456328 I remember an acquaintance of mine, Siqi Chen, built Friends for Sale back in the day on Facebook and that was a great launch pad for his career, where he did a lot more interesting stuff later :)
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  But that is what you are in the workplace. And you admit this every time you switch jobs or ask for a raise.
  - tolbish 6y ago
    Is it that common to switch jobs purely for the money? For the gigantic pay raises yes, but I think for the vast majority, you switch jobs for a variety of non-commodifying factors along with money.
  - 6y ago

dutchbrit 6y ago

How do you plan to compete against LinkedIn & monetise?

4sellff 6y ago
We believe the platform is attractive to professionals who want an easy, privacy-focused way to promote the services they offer, with the ability to differentiate themselves from people offering the same/similar services. The platform is zero-cost, ad-free and includes direct messages. I hope the UI is more easy to navigate and understand, compared to LinkedIn. The TRU Score, while somewhat controversial, is more powerful than a star-rating system. Also, it works works for you as a buyer or seller. Monetization is planned in a future release and includes [1] selling blocks of time to people who want to consult with you, and [2] promotions, where you [as a seller] pays the buyer for considering your services. We believe it's a great time to build alternatives to the major networks that exist today. It should be easier for people to promote and sell their services. It should be easier for people to find trustworthy providers. And it should be easier to protect your personal privacy.
- skellystudios 6y ago
  > where you [as a seller] pays the buyer for considering your services Isn't this just ads?
  - 4sellff 6y ago
    Not advertising in the traditional sense. Today, many of the ad's you see are based on data collected about you. There is no "opt-in" and you are not compensated. We envision a model whereby you select which promotions to participate in, based on your needs/interest "and" how much you will receive in compensation. From the seller standpoint, we believe the costs to reach a consumer will be similar. Yet, the consumers they do reach will have a genuine interest in the offering. Thus the promotion has the potential to offer a better response. To be clear, the seller is able to select which members qualify for the promotion [Ex. based on location, occupation, TRU Score, etc]. From the buyer standpoint, we view this an an improvement over the current model. There is no privacy violation or personal data sharing with strangers. You have the freedom and choice of which promotions to participate in. Assuming it works as planned, it would allow you to make a more informed buying decision.

edoceo 6y ago

Looks like Empirecred and Klout merged?

mouzogu 6y ago

Novel idea but won't something like this just end up being manipulated or gamed in one way or another.

4sellff 6y ago
I believe the trading feature helps to prevent manipulation. The investments you make in others counts towards the TRU Score for you and the other person. So, if you make "bad" investments in others, it will only serve to reduce your TRU Score. Of course, some people might be willing to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others. But, that should be easy to identify. Example: If a high-reputation person vouches for someone, does it have more meaning compared to the endorsement from a person with no/low reputation? Which is why the TRU Score is more than just the share price and your investments. It also includes other platform activities [Ex. member reviews, review scores, number of investors, etc.]. Not claiming we have solved this problem. But, we think it is a step in the right direction.
- tgv 6y ago
  But the investment is directly proportional to the number of people you know and can coerce/bribe in some way. If you know many people, you can rig the numbers in your favor, at least temporarily, which might be long enough to get another position (or whatever it is you're after).
  - 4sellff 6y ago
    Not sure that manipulation can be entirely eliminated. Instead, we are trying to incentivize good behavior and make it easier to identify fakes. If you sell services and/or need to find a service provider, you need some method to perform [1] discovery, [2] evaluation, and [3] decision. This is what we tried to build, in a manner which we hope promotes trust and good behavior. That said, as the platform develops, we will no doubt need to make adjustments. But the focus will remain on maintaining an efficient marketplace for buyers and sellers to interact and transact.
- varispeed 6y ago

lmilcin 6y ago

Let's deconstruct this statement without even reading the page. "Alternative" -- it is not an alternative to LinkedIn. The major selling point of LinkedIn is ability to connect people and that doesn't work unless you have enough people on your platform. Functionality-wise LinkedIn is extremely simple. Most of the functionality of the platform is cruft. "Ad-free" -- it just means: I can't monetize it yet. Unfortunately, this will not work with subscription fee as I just can't imagine people would switch from LinkedIn to whatever you are proposing but also asked to pay for it when they don't need to pay for LI. "Zero-cost" -- obviously, a platform that only makes sense when majority of people you work with also use it, must be zero-cost. It is not a selling point, it is a necessity in today's world where people expect these things to be given out for free (or don't understand what the actual cost is). "zero-cost" + "ad-free" + "no backing" + "I need lots of users for this to make sense" is a deadly combination. How do you plan to cover running costs? "I built" -- no, you did not built it yet. Writing code to have a functionality is a trivial exercise for a newbie developer. Getting half of the planet to use it and scale it to meet the challenge is the tricky part. Don't get discouraged, but also don't be naive and don't treat people as if they are naive.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

pk-r 6y ago

Has problems in authentication, ad-free, quite interesting.

medell 6y ago

Black Mirror Nose Dive anyone? Nice concept but the "invest" idea introduces friction that could be too much to overcome. What about a PageRank system based on recommendation / testimonials and likes and connections?

carabiner 6y ago
Dont know bout you but everyone is trading at $1. I'm just getting in on the ground floor.
- 4sellff 6y ago
  The starting share price is 1.00 for all members at the time of registration. - When anyone BUYS shares in your profile, the price will increase by 0.01 - When anyone SELLS shares in your profile, the price will decrease by 0.01 Each trade is fixed at 100 shares There are a few limits we placed for the launch: [1] A maximum of 1,000 shares in another member per day - So, if you wanted to BUY 5,000 shares, it would need to be spread across 5 different days - The same logic applies if want to SELL shares [2] A maximum of 100,000 shares total in another member
  - carabiner 6y ago
    When can I convert to USD?
    - symlinkk 6y ago
      When it lands you a well paying job
      - 4sellff 6y ago
        That is an accurate comment. Your SELLFF profile can help you to connect with new business opportunities, from which you can save and/or earn $$. It's a new/different alternative to the megacorp solutions that does not track you or sell your personal information.

MattGaiser 6y ago

There are a lot of objections on here to being "valued" and "commodified." I don't understand why. You are valued every time you go to an interview or ask for a raise. You can leverage your network in the same way as you can leverage "investment." To me this is already a more transparent version of what already happens.

louis___ 6y ago
> There are a lot of objections on here to being "valued" and "commodified." I don't understand why. Because it is immoral. It is not because it is maybe commonplace, and valued in a capitalist society, that it is a good thing. And, the more you apply that mindset in the workplace, the more you will do it outside the workplace.
clairity 6y ago
points are a pretty poor proxy for the amazing variety of skills, proficiencies, and perceptions of humans (or even animals), no matter how sophisticated the point system might be. it also paints an illusory objective sheen (aka ass cover™) over a highly subjective evaluation. you might believe in the point system if it favors you, but that doesn't make the point system any more transparent or "good". we're just not as fungible as nearly a century of mass industrialization would have us believe. we devalue humans by trying to bucketize a set of skills and buy only those skills on the labor market, despite the vast richness that each person brings to the table. that we allow the labor market to be commoditized this way is already a huge imbalance between worker and corporation. we need fair and transparent labor markets for people, not corporations.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  > the amazing variety of skills, proficiencies, and perceptions of humans Does this matter for the vast majority of jobs? I have lots of skills. I am a published writer. I have won innovation competitions. I can build large cities with high property values in SimCity. None of that matters for my employment. I am a software engineer. For the purposes of work I am a commodity. My past job replaced me fairly easily when I left. Companies are truly only buying a subset of skills on the labour market.

rsweeney21 6y ago

Not directly related to the post, but developers should be aware that developer salaries will likely jump significantly this year. The VC market is super hot right now - VC firms are being flooded with cash, and they need to deploy it. Companies are raising massive amounts of money at unprecedented valuations. A large chunk of that money is going to hire developers. The recruiting industry is seeing a huge surge in hiring in the past couple of months (source: I run a technical recruiting company (1)). Because demand and cash available to hire developers has increased significantly in the past few months, but the supply is basically fixed, companies are offering higher salaries to attract talent. They have the cash for it. Keep in mind that new money raised from investors will raise the value of your stock options, but rarely translates to salary increases for existing employees. What a time to be a software engineer. (1) https://www.facet.net https://www.facet.net

monkeynotes 6y ago
What's driving this new surge of cash?
- loremipsium 6y ago
  I suppose this https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...
- rsweeney21 6y ago
  Low interest rates means managers of pensions and other large money managers can't put their money in bonds. They would lose money because the interest rate is lower than inflation. So they need somewhere else to put it.
  - flurben 6y ago
    Interest rates have been low for quite some time, though. Maybe it is also driven by perception of overvaluation among publicly traded equities?

prionassembly 6y ago

Has everyone forgotten Klout?

4sellff 6y ago
As I recall, the Klout [and CRED] score was based on an aggregation of your off-platform social activities. This included, for example, your Twitter activity. The SELLFF TRU Score is based on your on-platform activities and is determined only by members of the SELLFF community.

paulcole 6y ago

> zero-cost | privacy-focused | ad-free Where does the money come from?

m348e912 6y ago
Asking the real questions. How are expenses paid?
- 4sellff 6y ago
  Currently, all expenses are paid from my personal savings and the day job. We are working on the next release which will offer two options [consult and promote] to monetize the service. As mentioned earlier, the focus is making it easier for buyers and sellers to interact, while maintaining privacy. I remain convinced that there are effective ways to monetize the service without going the traditional advertising route that is so common today. For sure, billion dollar businesses have been build on the current model. My hope is that we can advance to a new model, where we do not sacrifice personal privacy for the sake of accessing a useful service. To be determined if we can be part of that new solution.
yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
Discussed upthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26478054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26478054
ipaddr 6y ago
Next release.. zero cost moves to paid for anyone offering services. Which is the opposite model of linkedin. Sellers are free.. buyers pay.. plus upselling to both groups as premium offerings
- 4sellff 6y ago
  Your comment indicates one option for monetizing the platform. For now, we do not see that as ideal. We are focused on ways to increase the value provided to the buyers and sellers [members] on the platform. To the degree the solution is working and people value it, only then can we attempt to extract some of that value. If we over-reach, usage will drop. So, there is a fine balance needed here. We are adamant about exploring and discovering new models which do not involve traditional advertising or selling/sharing of member data. We are also realistic and realize there are expenses to providing this solution. So, monetization is a requirement to keep the doors open. A question for you, assuming this service becomes successful. [1] What would be a reasonable price to pay for promoting your services and being able to easily connect with trustworthy professionals? - Is $1.00 per year fair? - Is $10.00 per month reasonable? - Is a % of revenue you generate a better model?

TameAntelope 6y ago

Very interesting! I'll be curious to see if the focus on privacy for something like this ends up being a differentiator. Lots of folks care about privacy, though sometimes it becomes a challenge due to some of the limitations you end up with as a result. The trade-off people are making is obvious to some, but not to others. Congrats! Launching a product is super hard, this is an impressive accomplishment. I'd imagine you would put this site on your profiles. :D

4sellff 6y ago
Yes, launching was a lot of work. My focus is on product. The real talent is a 3-person team in Croatia who I found via a HN "Who wants to be hired" post. We started April-2020. What you see today is the result of everyone working evenings and weekends, during the quarantine lockdown, while maintaining a full-time job. Much respect and love for: Bruno, Ivona and Kresho. They are an excellent representation of how the SELLFF platform can work. If you are looking for talented programmers, I can definitely recommend them.
- ivanche 6y ago
  And yet, with JavaScript turned off your site shows completely blank page...
  - 4sellff 6y ago
    Right...JavaScript is required at this time. Thx for you comment. We will post a notice on the landing page that JS is required. Also, can work on a non-JS version of the site.

jiveturkey 6y ago

very poor messaging here. this is like 99designs or toptal or any marketplace for providers. not like linkedin. ad-free is a lie as the entire platform is advertising. (syndicated ad-free more like it.) because the platform depends on the TRU score, this form the social network between providers, and customers I suppose. This in and of itself is a privacy violation. The major problem with linkedin (from privacy perspective) is the information they have on you, which they monetise. They are the privacy problem, not syndicated ads, and you are not fixing that. outside of the bubble, no one cares about the privacy angle, not in a real way. (they complain, a lot, but have no problem continuing to use privacy invasive services.) your pronouncement of being privacy focused, while not actually being so, is pretty bad. i think you may have something here, you just need to pivot your messaging. FWIW I think the TRU score is a) not innovative, and b) should be abandoned in favor of familiar 5 star scale. (like amazon or ebay: #stars plus #ratings) If you really want to be "trustworthy", you will publish statistical data on ratings. Of course, everyone will have >4 star rating, so you can't do that. I don't think that's a hindrance to marketing "trustworthiness" though, even if it's baloney.

meamin 6y ago

Congrats! Will make some time to sign-up. I like the vector. Looking forward to the progress. I think your solution space will give you other opportunities down the road even if sellff struggles.

random5634 6y ago

I browse with ublock origin, and get an endless spinning circle in the tab.

4sellff 6y ago
Please...which tab are you referring to? Which member profile? Feel free to send an email to help@sellff.com with any details. Thx.
- theandrewbailey 6y ago
  As a rule of thumb, serve HTML on page load. All of these pages are remarkably free of meaningful markup.
  - 4sellff 6y ago
    Thank you for the feedback...the devs are reading your comments.

KadeTheSpade 6y ago

This site is excellent, and I have made my account!

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dpeck 6y ago

Cory Doctorow’s classic Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom as a service. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Ki...

INTPenis 6y ago

A Linkedin alternative is really something that should be self hosted and federated.

4sellff 6y ago
Agree and we are looking at options on doing just that. Do you think any existing platforms could work, or does something need to be purpose built? How would you architect a self-hosted, federated solution? I welcome your thoughts and suggestions on how that can be accomplished.
- INTPenis 6y ago
  I can't help you on a low level. I just think that on a high level something like professional profiles, networking and assessments from colleagues should definitely be federated. And I'm also a strong believer in this whole federation wave that is sweeping over us. It doesn't work for all things but this is a perfect use case, in spirit of course. You always have to expect there to be two demographics, big tech and small tech. Federated linkedin would allow for Mastodon-like instances for people who don't want to host their own, and selfhosted instances for more technical people. While also allowing for Linkedin-style endorsements (not sure what they're called in English) over federation. So user@instance endorses user2@instance2 in skill:python for example. My hope would be to use ActivityPub to do that part. AP federation already works really well for social media imo. Linkedin is essentially social media with skill endorsements.
  - 4sellff 6y ago
    Thank you for your thoughts/comments. We agree and are moving in the direction you indicated.

Grustaf 6y ago

Free and ad-free sounds great, but will it be free of cheesy inspirational humble bragging? Then I'm in.

ducharmdev 6y ago
Please, anything to get rid of that. LinkedIn really has set the bar low.
nickthemagicman 6y ago
I was raised by dwarves in a mountain and overcame the rare sverfneblin disease to go to Harvard and the make a million dollars from my app. Buy my newsletter.
zeofig 6y ago
Pretty sure any linkedin-like service will amount to that. I'd rather miss a few opportunities than worry about such nonsense.

FlorinSays 6y ago

I believe you're on the right path. Exploring and displaying trust between people is one of the big missing pieces on the web. People are currently replacing the harder questions like "can I trust this person to do what he says he can" with simple or shallow ones based on status and image. Good luck with this!

macspoofing 6y ago
>I believe you're on the right path. I'm not sure about that. I think any system that potentially brings value will be gamed quickly.

CognitiveLens 6y ago

Interesting take on the challenge of determining professional trust. Seeing pictures of 3 white/European males on the homepage might turn off a more diverse audience of users, however - even if it's representative of the early adopters, it's important to present the product more inclusively.

AshleighBasil 6y ago
Does this work inverted? Would showing only brown people drive away white users, or are white people a special, universal race that doesn't need to be coddled? I'm not trying to troll or be obnoxious, I'm curious how people think about this. Does tokenism really make people feel included, or does it just give white people something to be moral and self-deprecatingly righteous about? I'm Mexican and when americans do the 'latinx' thing is makes me want to vomit, but I'm a mennonite so I guess I'm not a 'normal' Mexican, I'm not the one who they're trying to include. This is so interesting to me
- pessimizer 6y ago
  > Would showing only brown people drive away white users It definitely would, but for different reasons. Black people seeing only white people would assume the platform will be racist, white people seeing only black people would assume that the platform is inferior.
- JetAlone 6y ago
  If I was one of the only White people on say a job platform, and I was treated with the same level of respect, dignity and fairness as everybody else, I genuinely don't think it would bother me. That's what everybody reasonable wants, respect, dignity and fairness, and that's what I want to give to the Black, Brown, Indigenous and Asian people in our world. My understanding is that if someone truly wants something else such as domination, then yes, normal racial tensions will foment and cascade into hate and suspicion, making it harder and more painful for everyone to give or receive that respect, dignity and fairness, even where someone's actively trying to give it. Different nations and systems have had to deal with multiculturalism in the past, some of them dealt with it better and some of them worse. Our communications technology has created an inconvenient shift in terrain, but there have been other societal shifts, and chapters in history much worse, so I have some optimism about it. Mind you I'm also not 'normal' in terms of faith let alone ethnic demography where I live, plus I'm what they call "neurodivergent". I've grown up being very, very accustomed to being out of place one way or another. Maybe it would bother White people who are very used to being in the majority where they live and work, and can't cope with a stronger subliminal desire for ingroup dominanance. Dominance is comfortable for the dominator, and we have a nasty habit of liking comfort, so, to get a little religious, we do have to resist the flesh and aim for higher values found in sacrificial love. I'm genuinely curious what it's like for you being Mennonite in Mexico. How does it affect your life?

varispeed 6y ago

I wish there was a service I could simply pay for using, enough so that the operator wouldn't have to use invasive advertising where I could connect with other people who would want my services or vice-versa. Why such a simple thing seems to be not possible? Everyone looks to be only motivated by $$$ and turning potential customers into product. I also don't understand why should I value a network where the main selling point is zero-cost ad-free. If people on there don't want to pay for something that brings them value, are they going to want to pay me for my services? This is so contradictory. What's the goal here?

toss1 6y ago
Fully agree. Unfortunately, the networks that are built for pay are basically seeking extortionist-level payouts. One, which started out on a freemium model to connect makers and designers, seemed pretty good, the free plan did ok, and the others were tempting if I needed more. Then, somethign changed, and they reworked their site, and expected to take something like a 30% cut of all business done through link-ups made there. That might work for a few small one-off jobs where the total is small, but anything where you might work together for a competitive bid, their 30% cut demand will just force the cost right through the roof. So, nevermind now....
macspoofing 6y ago
>I wish there was a service I could simply pay for using, enough so that the operator wouldn't have to use invasive advertising where I could connect with other people who would want my services or vice-versa. There are a lot of services that you can pay to use. The problem with social networks (which this is) is that though you are willing to pay, others are not, and social networks are worthless without the 'network' part.
- varispeed 6y ago
  I don't mind being on a network without people who don't want to pay for it. Not sure why is that an issue?
  - 6y ago

tkiolp4 6y ago

I don’t want a score associated with my name, so I wouldn’t use your service. I wonder how many people would like to have an associated “trust” score; I mean if you are an average individual I imagine you would get an average score of, let’s say, 5 over 10... you’ll look ridiculously untrustworthy compared to someone who has a score of 9/10. At least in the real world you have a chance to prove that you could be as trustworthy as anyone; with a score that chance goes away.

mleonhard 6y ago
Second. I want a LinkedIn that respects its users. Sellff doesn't need to make a product that is much different from LinkedIn. 1. Let me make an online resume, publicly connect with past colleagues, and give and receive recommendations and skills endorsements. 2. Sell job postings. 3. Sell search tools for jobs & candidates. 4. Don't trick people into uploading their contacts. 5. Don't provide an Invite All feature. Require users to state the relationship type for every invitation sent. Allow me to opt-out of connections by type: acquaintance, family, friend, school, work,etc. 6. Respect my communication preferences. For example, don't rename the preferences and re-enable them every few years. 7. Don't break core product functionality. For example, don't remove the email archive button for a year. Use functional integration tests. 8. Provide discussion Groups with useful moderation tools. This would draw users to your site every day. Don't provide useless moderation tools and let all groups flood with spam. Recruiters must pay for every message they post to a Group. New feature idea: Allow groups to curate comprehensive FAQs. It could be like Quora & Stack Overflow for professional questions. This could grow to be a very popular and bring a lot of daily traffic.
- mooreds 6y ago
  > Allow me to opt-out of connections by type: acquaintance, family, friend, school, work,etc. I'd also love an 'age out' functionality. As far as LinkedIn shows, someone I work with at my current job shows up as the same strength of connection as a random person I chatted with once at a conference a decade ago. Time and number of interactions should play some role in the strength of connection as displayed in the UX (at least to me).

macspoofing 6y ago

>I built a zero-cost, ad-free alternative to LinkedIn Zero-cost and ad-free FOR NOW you mean. At some point you're going to have make money and the only viable options are 1) charity/donations 2) subscription 3) ads and data selling. #2 means you're not 'zero-cost' and #3 means you're not 'ad-free'. So you're going to rely on donations?

4sellff 6y ago
With all due respect, there are additional options to choose from. We are still very early in this, but I will "take the bait" since monetization seems to be an issue that people care about. A percentage of revenue is I think a fair option. I am not referring to the previous comment about 30% [or even 10%]. I hate fees as much as the next person and taking a giant cut of your customers income is not the way to grow a business. Also, as it relates to zero-cost, using your Visa card is free to you, but not the merchant. However, those fees are being included in the price you pay for the products/services. A question for you: If you are making $100 per month from a service, what is a "fair" price for you to pay to continue having usage of that service? - Are you OK to look at ads, so long as your cost is zero? - Are you OK to pay $5.00 per month, so you do not have to look at ads? - Or, do you prefer to have no ads and pay a % of your monthly income that you generate from using the service?
- disiplus 6y ago
  that's not zero cost, and would be closest to the subscription model.
- wpietri 6y ago
  I'm sure you mean well, but "we'll figure out sustainability later" has huge negative trust value to me. That's basically what LinkedIn did and it has not worked out well for me. The incentives for eternal revenue growth are incredibly strong, and I have no reason to think you're uniquely capable of resisting them for the next 20 years. I'm am unlikely to go through all the switching cost just to help create a different hegemon.
- macspoofing 6y ago

desireco42 6y ago

On positive note, I really think we need alternative to LinkedIn, wish you all the best. Some of the things and criticism are spot on but it is welcome to have people thinking on how to improve this area.

lvass 6y ago

A centralized proprietary service is exactly what we need to replace the other thousands of services who all do the same thing but look evil due to some mysterious coincidence, totally unrelated to being centralized and proprietary.

mdausmann 6y ago

my detailed analysis (searching for dave and counting them... 5.. and then multiplying by 50...2% of men are called Dave) tells me there are ~250 people on your service. I will join when you have 2.5 Million :)

datavirtue 6y ago

Tried to join, one second spinner, nothing.

4sellff 6y ago
Sorry...we are experiencing 1st day server issues :-( Please give us another chance later today or tomorrow as we work to restore the services. Thank you for your patience.

bwb 6y ago

I signed up but never got a confirmation email, and login wont work.

4sellff 6y ago
Hello...thanks for your comment. We seem to be experiencing issues with new account registrations and email confirmations. We are working to resolve now. Thank you for your interest in the service and your patience. -Ron
- bwb 6y ago
  Awesome thanks, just let me know as I'd like to take a look. Love the idea!

lbj 6y ago

The Zero-Cost is showing in the 8.3 second load time I get on the first page. Second, if you want to take up space in LinkedIns market, you need to copy the pros of that platform. Good luck.

Black101 6y ago

it doesn't show anything with javascript disabled...

shaicoleman 6y ago

Make sure you think about how to address the "Chicken-egg problems" for network-effect. A good read about it is: https://apenwarr.ca/log/20201227 https://apenwarr.ca/log/20201227 (if you're short on time, you can skip to "Chicken-egg problems" section) "The defining characteristic of a chicken-egg technology or product is that it's not useful to you unless other people use it. Since adopting new technology isn't free (in dollars, or time, or both), people aren't likely to adopt it unless they can see some value, but until they do, the value isn't there, so they don't."

symlinkk 6y ago

The whole stock shares / TRU score thing is quite cool, I think this has potential.

unobatbayar 6y ago

What's the tech stack you've used? Do you think it's better to build an App first or a Website? or both?

4sellff 6y ago
Not entirely the right person to answer this question, but we went with a .Net solution using SQL Server and React. We decided on the website first that would work OK on mobile devices. Faster and less cost to get into the market. Thanks to HN "Who wants to be hired" I was able to connect with 3x amazing devs in Croatia who built the solution. I have learned so much from HN over the last couple of years. Lots of value in this community and grateful to be a small part of it.
- unobatbayar 6y ago
  Thank you, I see. The site looks great!

indymike 6y ago

Can't sign up. Broken. No error, just spins and quits spinning.

4sellff 6y ago
Apologies. We experienced classic 1st day server crash. Working to restore services ASAP. Thank you for your interest and patience. -Ron
- indymike 6y ago
  Keep plugging. If this stuff was easy, everyone would do it.

firepoet 6y ago

I can't help but attempt to apply Kant's categorical imperative to this approach. Is this something I would wish as a universal rule? What about folks who have really bad luck and participate in organizations that are a bad fit for their personality? Their score immediately goes down, and then the odds of them finding a better fit plummet. There is no "fresh start," so to speak. If everybody used this system to make a judgment about whether a person is worthy, it feels like we would immediately create a permanent caste system. There would be social outcasts that would only work with other outcasts, because, frankly who else would want to? They are, in a word, untouchable. So, for me, it appears this system is unethical to the extreme. Happy to be proved wrong, of course!

nytgop77 6y ago
if i work with outcasts that fit my personality i get positive points and get back to the top. No? (btw. is there a formula how that score works. maybe older votes expire)

lowbloodsugar 6y ago

How are you preventing the system being gamed? How would, for example, prevent QAnon, or its equivalent, from being the dominant source and judgement of reputation? Who pays for it, if not me?

jrm4 6y ago

Don't do the score thing. Just. Don't. Where there is money involved like this, despite whatever good intentions you may or may not have, reducing people to a score invites gaming and bad actors.

015a 6y ago

> The SELLFF TRU Score is a number that represents quality, trust, character and performance. No. Stop. Just stop. Holy crap No, No, No, No, No.

chovybizzass 6y ago

signup doesn't work for me in firefox. it just refreshes the page.

gcpm 6y ago

The TRU Score system and how you describe its use for evaluating people on employment could fall under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Have you thought about that?https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/statutes/fair-credit-reporting-act https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/statutes/fair-credit-reporti...

mutant 6y ago

So another "my data was sold after 3 years of 'privacy' website" Thanks, but no thanks