Thanks Alex! Bram that's a great question. We see this as a big upgrade because even though we re-did the whole app we're still trying to solve the same problem: helping you communicate with the right people to be more efficient professionally.
Our first approach was focused on connecting you with people you don't know. As we continued building the product and observed how people were using the app we realized we stumbled upon a much larger challenge: Why are professional contacts so much harder to message than friends?
There are several work related tasks (like hiring, applying for a job, sales, partnerships and getting expert advice) that require you to spend a lot of time searching who are your right contacts and then sending long and formal emails. We see a huge opportunity in making it much faster for people to interact with their business contacts. By making this process faster you’re able to reach out to more people and in turn you increase your chances of being more productive and successful in your career.
We wrote more about our release here:
https://medium.com/@becaliber/e8...
@becaliber@andresblank Kill.... InMail :)
I'm a longtime user and really like the update. Makes it much more powerful for me. Also you guys didn't lose the 'Tinder-like' mutual interest required for a conversation which is great as it keeps out all them spammy recruiters.
Curious to hear the inspiration behind the new logo. I can't unsee an engine blower: ;)
@becaliber@andresblank@pieterpaul
Caliber is an engine for career growth? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We want our brand to immediately communicate our value proposition: to be able to instantly chat with your professional contacts. This is why we went with a chat bubble. The inspiration for the 3 dots of course is what we see in IM apps when someone is typing a message. It captures the real-time nature of chat and the anticipation of a message. We worked with David at Helvetic Brands for the rebrand. We feel he did an amazing job. https://dribbble.com/helveticbrands
At scale (i.e. have a lot of my contacts on it) this would be ridiculously amazing to do deals.
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This is the "messaging for professionals" app the market has been waiting for. It capitalizes on the ease/functionality of the ubiquitous and clearly preferred-to-email SMS archetype without sacrificing the privacy of more personal contact details like a person's private phone number.
Basically any time you've wanted to network but have been stymied by your phone and needed to grab a card and revisit when you were at a desktop - that's over now. But instead of the gimmicks that have promised to do this in the past, we have an elegant, easy-to-use solution.
Been following Caliber since v1 so really excited to see this update. Messagging anyone on linkedin is always really awkward, so "texting + profesional network" seems like an obvious evolution for the space... eager to see ho this plays out.
@calc It's unfortunate that LinkedIn has basically declared they are going to block startups from building any product currently competitive, or even possibly on their future radar. It's their data and I know they have the right to distribute as they see fit, but in my opinion it's a long-term bad move on their part.
What is your growth plan if LinkedIn blocks you from utilizing their APIs? Have you thought about a Plan B or are just hoping for the optimistic outcome? Just curious as a fellow developer interested in this general space and dissatisfied with LinkedIn consumer-focused products.
@andygcook As mentioned we started by building what we see as a very complimentary product. For this reason we're optimistic. We do plan to integrate with other networks (Google, Twitter) moving forward though LinkedIn is the most natural fit.
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I was one of the early users of its original version few months back, only to see it derailing in a few areas, particularly on web. I see it really evolved for mobile; exploring it now! :)
@vingar Yes, Vinish it was difficult to support multiple platforms. Web was great for iterating/testing especially early on. Ultimately we decided to focus strictly on mobile.
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