On the heels of
announcing record level financial results and member engagement numbers for the first quarter of 2013, Linkedin is celebrating their 10th anniversary with more than 3,700 employees and 225 million members worldwide.
Started in May of 2003 by Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly and Jean-Luc Vaillant, the founders initially set their goal on growing their member base to make Linkedin a valuable site for searching and networking with other professionals.
According to an interview in June 2009 on CNN Money, Hoffman admitted that the first challenge for Linkedin was growing the number of registered users, “I’m a huge believer in getting a million people, getting them engaged, and then building a business model on top of that,” said Hoffman.
Linkedin waited two years after its start to launch any revenue-generating business lines. In 2005, with well over a million users, the company began rolling-out four premium services: Linked Jobs, Linkedin Business Accounts, and Pro and Personal Plus subscription plans. Since then, Linkedin has launched a number of other profitable products, with annual revenue projected to reach somewhere between $1.430 billion and $1.460 billion by the end of 2013.
This year, Linkedin upgraded their search technology and revamped apps for iPhone and Android users. According to Linkedin’s blog, the site continues to grow at a speed of two members per second.
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