Ripple — A new professional network from the creators of Tinder

Let's face it, all we really have for professional networking is LinkedIn and it's not great. The world is in desperate need for a better alternative. Maybe this is it. Tinder isn't the first dating app to spin out into professional relationships, I've seen Bumble Bizz getting attention in women's networks here in London. It makes sense to take the learnings from facilitating romantic encounters into facilitating better business connections, and since everyone always has their phone in their pocket -- why not focus on an app. Would love to know what's been the feedback from the beta @garethtjohnson @ryanogle79 @paul_cafardo?

Nothing about what I can see really screams "I MUST GET ON THIS!", except for the obvious FOMO, of course. If you'd asked me a year ago, I'd have agreed that we needed a new professional social network, but I think LinkedIn has done a great job of making itself relevant again... and I think we're going to see that relevance grow as we move further into 2018 Reading the TC article, I can see there's been a lot of careful thought to solve some of the annoyances I might experience on other professional platforms, and to create an individual app identity separate to Tinder (though the fact that it's "by Tinder" features very heavily in its marketing)... but the focus seems to be on forming the connection, not how you engage after the connection (all it does is show me connections' medium/twitter feeds?), and I just can't see that compelling reason for me to want to use this... yet. That said, they'll probably revolutionise the idea of "casual business networking" and become the new standard in professional networking moving forward

Are we in 2014? Tinder for professional networking has been done. A lot. And a few really well, with a lot of money raised, and NONE continue to exist today. But I’m keeping an open mind. Other than being made by Tinder folk, how is this any different? The app is less a standalone app and more of a feature for LinkedIn imho, so I don’t really see a competitive advantage as of yet. Again, keeping an open mind. Would love to hear from the founders.

I read "From the creators of Tinder" first and then I immediately read "Nipple". Now I can't even bring myself to download and try it.. Nah.

It is very obvious there was no H.E.O. research done before launching to create a good flow to the customer journey. It is choppy, missing chunks and very obviously designed with the developers ego first rather than defining the buyer persona for the actual user of the app.

The reviews on the App store seem to nail it.

Definitely, not a Tinder quality app. Maybe Tinder ver .0005.

Pros:

Clever idea! LI needs a competitor

Cons:

Not up to par. Seems unfinished full of bugs

If someone took my picture without my permission I would not be happy. Linkedin is bad enough. This isn’t needed.

So what’s the real added value compared to... Linkedin? I am not really shuffling my next Job opportunity... mmm

the "take a picture to add a connection" feature is pretty novel, if a little creepy. outside of that I don't see much value here?

This feels more like they started with the swiping tech and then worked backward to what it can be applied to. What's the problem being solved? LinkedIn uses circles of trust to build connections to persons outside immediate sphere. Ripple seems trying to build random 1:1 business connections, completely bypassing any trust or existing relationships. Is this how people really want to build business networks? I think they should look at how professionals spontaneously expand their network outside immediate network and then work backwards towards a product that can more easily facilitate it. Swiping to a match seems like a bad way to go about it. Airbnb might be a better model to look at, to understand how they build sufficient trust between 2 stranger parties to remove barriers to a "booking" between them.

LinkedIn is frankly awful, its newsfeed is the pits. Medium mixes up articles from people I follow with article I _might_ enjoy. Keen to try it in case it helps cut through the clutter. I will mourn the death of the 'I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn' though.

Love the idea, it’s available here in Ireland but it requires your phone number to use a predefined country code (+1 when it’s +353 here) so I can’t sign up...

A 'professional' networking site with no web app? Lol, thanks, but no, thanks. Not to mention that I'm pretty pessimistic about any of their potential monetization models after Tinder.

Do we really need another Ripple? First the cryptocurrency, then the pea-milk (it's weirdly delicious) and now this. Love the idea, but think you should pick a new name

Look like Shapr which is doing the same thing and seems to have a good traction in France. Btw you should seriously consider to change the name as its really confusing with the famous crypto http://www.shapr.co/

Was frustrated with the onboarding and lack of immediate value.

Pros:

Familiar design

Cons:

onboarding was frustrating, could have primed account creation more reducing the number of steps a user needs to take.

What made them think "swipes" are good idea to professional networking? Swipes are literally hormonal decisions on Tinder.

As much as LI has grown to annoy me, it remains the go-to. And with all the familiarity of long-term usage/users, it’s gonna be hard to replace it with another tool. I tried shapr and soon got bored. Didn’t provide a viable value. & with the sneaky updates I’m finding daily, MS is making sure it’s still the one and mainly. Happy to leverage another, though.

The idea seems great but it looks like the android app has been shipped in a rush because i couldn't even get past the signup process.

Pros:

The idea seems great

Cons:

Couldn't go through the onboarding as linking a google account didn't work and linking a twitter account crashed the app

Thanks for launching this @ryanogle79, @paul_cafardo, and @garethtjohnson. Great idea! I was excited to check this out and use it. I still am because I can't login on my Samsung S8. Let me know when I can. Name wise I agree with others. Work through the bugs, looking forward to it.

The app was a mix of real bugs, and seemingly scammy thing, like "nearby" people that were a continent away.

Pros:

Not sure, it didn't work

Cons:

Didn't work