Some thoughts/advice: IMHO, what Linkedin really misses is a good community. I know there are different groups on there but my impression is that they are of really low quality and the UI/UX is really lacking. I never find it worthwhile to try discussing anything on Linkedin. As it is today, LI seems to be used primarily by recruiters and they are ”merely” middlemen. A ”Linkedin killer” should place the customer (i.e. the people it wants to help being successful) in the front seat. A replacement for Linkedin need to find incentives for professionals to visit the site no only for the purpose of applying to a job. How else would you make the ”gainfully employed” visit your site and participate? Keep in mind that most people are not constantly looking for new jobs, so if that’s the only purpose of the site some users will visit too infrequently to build a good community feeling. Personally, I would love to have a good forum for discussing topics related to working in the tech/IT fields. (E.g. salary negotation, how to collaborate successfully within a company, career advancement, etc.) HN fills this need to some extent, but it’s mostly focused on ”news” articles. Reddit’s subreddits are generally either too silent or to noisy. Anyone trying to build a community today would probably be well served by studying the principles behind HN and the UI of Discourse(.org). Creating a real ”Facebook for professionals” would not be easy, but could really be a hit if it’s done right.