setting the scene
- in the hope of advancing your career, you browse LinkedIn to find relevant content and connections
- you log on to find:
- 10+ notifications for work anniversaries, birthdays, and irrelevant job postings 🤨
- a post from your high school classmate who is “honored and humbled” to receive a new job offer 🙄
- connection requests from a “business storyteller” and a “connector, wizard, guru” 🤔
- you struggle to filter through the noise to find useful content
- this week’s company provides a social networking platform that helps young professionals develop relationships and accelerate their careers
in a sentence
Purpose is a professional networking platform that enables users to connect based on interests and career goals
- connect: users follow and message each other, like posts, and meet via an intro matching algorithm
- interests: users join groups (termed “Circles”) to exchange on a particular topic
bulleted version: similar to how a gym allows members to improve their fitness through personal training and group classes, Purpose enables users to grow their careers through 1:1 intros and curated interest groups 🏋🏼
the basics
- industries: consumer internet, social networking, career development, hr tech
- headquarters: Berlin, Germany 🇩🇪
- year founded: 2021
- company size: 5 employees
- investors: bootstrapped 🚀
- business model: b2c, freemium
sponsored by
- Mercury is flipping the script on business banking
- despite being an instrumental pillar of starting and scaling a company, traditional banking has never catered to founders’ unique needs
- that’s why Mercury’s founders decided to create a new standard for business banking with a platform that fuels founders and their finance teams with exactly what they need (and nothing they don’t)
- manage FDIC-insured accounts, send money seamlessly, grow with alternative financing, and more – all online, all with confidence
- try their demo to see why more than 100k startups across industries, stages, business types choose Mercury to help them build the next great companies
Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust®; Members FDIC.
due diligence
what we like
- 📈 social networking trends: the social networking market has grown 20% to $86.8b in 2023, and professional networking platforms (i.e. LinkedIn) have seen record sales, engagement, and user growth amidst layoffs and recruitment trends
- 🎯 next-gen networking: 45% of Gen Zers and millennials claim that social media helps advance their careers, and 67% trust online networking when establishing professional relationships
- plus, users are tired of existing professional networking platforms
- plus, users are tired of existing professional networking platforms
- 🤝 authentic connections: Purpose has proven its product by helping early users meet co-founders and find new careers
potential risks
- 👾 existing players: will users adopt an additional platform that helps them network and discover career opportunities?
- 🛣 road to revenue: before Purpose makes revenue on a paid membership, they must determine whether enough users are willing to pay for a premium product
- operating without revenue may slow growth for a bootstrapped startup
- 👵 attracting experienced professionals: while Gen Zers account for a significant and growing percentage of the workforce, young workers desire opportunities to connect with experienced professionals
weekly cartoon
founder profiles
- Julian Willner (CEO; also founding partner @ hatch)
- Chris Hahn (COO; prev. @ Enpal, ProntoPro)
comps
why Purpose: with a 2k+ waitlist, 60% weekly active user retention, and users successfully finding new careers, co-founders, and connections, Purpose is connecting with young professionals
bulletin board ✏️
- our friend Jason Levin is the brains behind the newsletter Homescreen, which offers curated news and resources crucial for every founder
- Jason knows a thing or two about digital content strategy and shares tips through his must-read newsletter, Cyber Patterns
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