Today the first thing that comes to mind to bring two strangers together is matchmaking apps. Weave did the same but in a completely different manner. Inspired by the Tinder model of swiping right and left, weave became an essential source for professional connections. Weave played a major role in finding job opportunities for job hunters.
Weave justifies its name from weaving; like intertwining people together at professional level.
Index
Founders of Weave:
Earlier founder of Decide.com, Brian Ma, was the father of Weave. The headquarters of weave was based in San Francisco, California. Brian Ma being an entrepreneur and investor had also worked with Zillow and Microsoft. He is a passionate problem solver. Considering the difficulty of building traditional connections and to avoid spammy nature, weave primarily furnished the connections looking into your LinkedIn profile.
Competitor of Weave:
Major competitors of weave were Coffee, Blonk and Livekick.
What was the Revenue Model for Weave?
The professional networking app had a premium service with a cost of $15 per month. This premium service had added beneficial services that offer more connections weekly. Also with the added control of whom you are paired with and precise pairing with a close look on your preferences.
Weave has a better edge for various other networking apps because of its AI system. Its potential for creating good fits made it more reliant for customers.
Who were the Investors of Weave?
Weave raised about $630K in the first seed round of funding in May, 2014. Further, it was valued at $2 million after receiving fundings from 7 major investors including Y Combinator, Index Ventures, Vulcan Capital, Eastlink Ventures, and others.
Business Model: How weave worked?
The LinkedIn profile had every information to play as a matchmaker. Then weave would look into your preferences to meet founders, investors, sales, marketing, developers, designers, managers; basically every domain one can ask for. You can imagine how the whole networking process is simplified. All the time wasted in replying to unsolicited messages is saved; you are getting the right person at the right time.
Weave was not limited to traditional matching making app systems, they had a lot more to offer. They launched an ‘AI-based matching’ version which even eradicates the efforts of swiping, small talks and scheduling a meeting with your new formed connection. All you had to do was register on the app, provide a LinkedIn profile in details and a few other information. Every Monday you would be provided with a list of individuals you are matched with and asked if you want to connect to them or not. The system will spend a week to coordinate your preferred timing and schedules to arrange a meet on Fridays. Meet your new formed connection and develop endless good business relations.
Major steps taken by them
- Weave integrated with uber bridging the gap of networking. Uber’s API provided an in-built system of recognizing the meetup location once entered into the weave app. Uber would automatically appear allowing you to choose services to your meeting location.
- For the new riders accessing Uber through weave would be given a free ride (up to $20). Thus establishing great business relations and win-win situations for everyone.
This proved how great decision maker, Brian Ma was by creating a balance between customer service and business relations which many startups lack.
Failure Analysis of Weave
Business did not prove to be financially viable for Weave. Expenses were more than generated profit. Perfect solutions are not always profitable. Founders put a lot of effort in building a perfect product or solution for a problem which is surely loved by the customer. Though the product has a huge market presence it does not have profit margins. The company expenses went off track besides being able to create good network effects.
Possible Fixes
Consistent cash flow is life blood of any business. A viable financial model is necessary to survive as much as customer satisfaction with your product or service. Revenue generated will eventually run dry.
- Look to minimize the expenses carelessly spent on features that are not needed.
- Make marketing strategies looking where your audience is instead of spending tons on every platform. During decision making keep the budget in place.
- Weave could look for alternative means to generate revenue like advertising or giving special offers to only premium service members. This would have attracted people to subscribe to their premium service.
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FAQs:
Who were the Founders of Weave?
Earlier founder of Decide.com, Brian Ma, was the father of Weave. The headquarters of weave was based in San Francisco, California. Brian Ma being an entrepreneur and investor had also worked with Zillow and Microsoft. He is a passionate problem solver. Considering the difficulty of building traditional connections and to avoid spammy nature, weave primarily furnished the connections looking into your LinkedIn profile.
What was Weave?
Today the first thing that comes to mind to bring two strangers together is matchmaking apps. Weave did the same but in a completely different manner. Inspired by the Tinder model of swiping right and left, weave became an essential source for professional connections. Weave played a major role in finding job opportunities for job hunters.
