How LinkedIn became our best friend

I’m going to tell you the little story of how LinkedIn has played a huge role in the development of IKO. I could even say “Why the infidelity of your best friend can turn out to be the best thing that ever happens”… There’s a real lesson to be learnt from this story so let me talk you through it step by step.
 

Step #1 : A Great Opportunity

 
When the IKO project was born a few years ago, we were living in an environment of open eco-systems. This was an exciting place where major leading companies (Twitter, Google, Facebook or LinkedIn) aimed at surrounding themselves with powerful eco-systems to make their solution indispensable. They flirted with all the software suppliers on the planet encouraging them to invent applications based on the data of these Web giants. Seeds had already been planted to create a market hegemony but coders (like ourselves) saw a great opportunity to build a new solution based on free data.

Lots of companies (including ourselves and our competitors) started to use free and exclusive resources (API) to create new forms of added value for their users. At that time, IKO was a sales tool providing several benefits, leveraging the free data from Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

Now and then we reminded ourselves of the risk of depending on the generosity of these huge companies! But then we thought, as long as the business was going well, what the heck, if you see what I mean.
 
All the eco-systems proposed by these companies at that time had something in common: no contract. As a result, no associated costs and no business model.

Step #2 : A small slap in the face to put things straight

 
With hindsight, the best thing that ever happened to us was the deflagration which took place in September 2012: LinkedIn USA suddenly decided to block all data access. A minute before, our users were working away with their LinkedIn network. The next minute, everything just stopped functioning. You can imagine just how great was that… !

We never really understood why this happened. We had not broken any rules or commitments and were certainly not competitors for the LinkedIn offers such as Sales Navigator. When all said and done, it had happened !

After several transatlantic exchanges, things began to pick up and we had access again to LinkedIn data. In this lapse of time however, we had started to lose our enthusiasm. We were stung by the harsh reality of being dependent on a free third party. That’s what’s made all the difference: it was impossible to continue to build on a moving sand bank and a review of the foundations was imposed: To which of our client’s pain points does IKO provide a solution ? What is our value proposition? How can we deliver our value without being dependent on a third party?

It was during this period that our consumption of Sushi and bottles of Burgundy strangely exploded (no sorry we don’t go for the usual pizza–beer stuff !)
 

Step #3: Sushi Evenings - Proof of Efficiency

 
When you already have an installed solution at your clients, you cannot just start from a blank page. That would be far too simple. You need to start from point A (use LinkedIn data) and go to point B (refuse to use LinkedIn data) whilst being careful never to impact the value of the solution for your users.
This transition from A to B lasted for about 18 months, an eternity for the R&D in a start-up! One project in two was more or less associated to this transition: contracts with data suppliers, development of specific tools to collect web data, integration of new data, etc.

We paid particular attention in rethinking our value proposition. The new IKO replies to a simple pain point (growth in turnover), with a strong value proposition (detection of prospects with strong purchasing probability). We can deliver our value via data partners with whom we have secured contracts.

As recently written by our client SunTseu on their blog, we are now clearly differentiated: while IKO detects the best leads to prospect, LinkedIn allows to engage with them. Our market is in «predictive lead generation» and our competitors are Lattice Engines, InsideSales, Fliptop, Infer, Leadspace and 6sense.

Although we still have a long way to go, this fundamental work on our offer and data has had a real positive impact: over the last 12 months, we have almost tripled our business volume, gained a hundred new clients in Europe and we are hiring 20 additional staff in 2015. Our technological turn has just been recognised by Gartner analysts (the bible for software editors) who have just rewarded IKO as Cool Vendor 2015.

Last year we celebrated this strange event: the end of our dependence on Twitter and LinkedIn. Zero data acquired outside a contract which secures. Certain newcomers to the team may not realise the extent of this journey. For sure, they did not witness the explosive event of 2012. On that day, LinkedIn raised fear and made us aware that you cannot rely on a free source. On that day, LinkedIn did us the greatest service ever!

Step #4 : The Business lesson

This coming 12th May, LinkedIn has announced the official end of the free access to their API data for all software companies in the world. I wonder whether numerous companies will ask themselves about stopping their project or re-development. If they have the chance to be in our situation in 2012 (with funds, growth and an excellent Sushi delivery service) then these entrepreneurs could do well and continue their project.

Since 2012, the wind has also turned at Twitter and at Viadeo and quite a few other great start-ups (who were still dependant on these giants) have been forced to stop their activity. I’m thinking of Seesmic (killed by Twitter), Appgratis (killed by Apple) or Pealk, which boldly used the LinkedIn API to propose a recruitment solution far better than the LinkedIn HR offer. I am surrounded by half a dozen other start-ups which have had the same experience and have been forced to stop their activity.

We try not to repeat the same errors: when Xing, the social network for German speaking countries asked us in 2013 to integrate their API, we replied by requesting first a contract. We asked to pay but this was not anticipated. Lost in translation.
Saying no to freebies seems to be rather unnatural. But it is sometimes vital in business.

In short : « It’s not that smart to build in your neighbour’s garden”.