TrustedFor

2/ LinkedIn is useless for most of us because our networks have been polluted by weak and meaningless connections. As a result, discovery of people who can help you rarely happens on LinkedIn—whether you’re looking for advice, co-founders, investors, or new opportunities.

3/ But networks are important! Referrals from people you trust are still the best source of professional opportunity and connection. It just happens offline and manually, meaning you need to be lucky enough to talk to the right person at the right time to get the right referral.

4/ You shouldn’t rely on chance—especially when it comes to your work and your career.

5/ What if instead you had a network that consisted only of 1) ~50 people you trusted and would personally vouch for; 2) ~50 people each of those folks trusted and vouched for? How useful would it be to discover and get connected to that exclusive group of people?

6/ That’s a professional network we’d love to use—so that’s what we built: http://trustedfor.com/welcome  TrustedFor is a new professional network where you connect only with people *you personally* know and respect, and are able to access the people that *your connections* vouch for.

7/ The core mechanism on TrustedFor is simple. You connect with people by recommending people you know for questions like: - Who would you go to for help on designing user onboarding flows? - Who are angel investors who have made an outsized impact on your business?

8/ As you make recommendations, you build a more valuable network of 1st and 2nd degree contacts that can be easily activated when you’re looking for your next role or key team member, looking for collaborators and co-founders, or fundraising for your next venture.

9/ And each time you make a recommendation on TrustedFor, you’re also showing appreciation to the person you recommend. It’s an acknowledgement that says “Hey, I think you’re great at what you do!” Genuine appreciation goes a long way, and it’s far too infrequently shared.

10/ TrustedFor is invite-only—you can sign up for the waitlist: http://trustedfor.com/welcome . If an existing member has already recommended you, we’ll send an invite. The network is seeded with hundreds of YC founders, investors, eng, product and design leaders across the industry.