Build what people are asking for, not what you think they need. There are few people who can get away with that. I don't hear anyone asking for another LinkedI

Build what people are asking for, not what you think they need. There are few people who can get away with that. I don't hear anyone asking for another LinkedIn. Certainly, it could be done better/faster/cheaper/whatever... but as others have noted, it has critical mass network effect. You're not going to get a bunch of CEO's to switch to something, just because you made something. It is the classic chicken/egg problem and unless you're the first to market and the biggest, you won't win. We know that Facebook beat Friendster, MySpace and Tribe... but that is because all of those companies made grave mistakes at just the right time for Facebook to take hold. Effectively the social network critical mass hadn't been achieved yet. It is a bit too late for LinkedIn and the audience is different there. They don't move to the hot new thing because you raised $10m and want to overthrow the king.