LinkedIn and Microsoft - What it means ?

From Brand Perspective: The brand Microsoft always gets associated with Prosumers. The name LinkedIn also attracts Prosumers. It is a great match. However, LinkedIn had a goal of connecting all the working professional under one roof. LinkedIn Brand was only going to add value to Microsoft and not the other way around. 

LinkedIN a league of its own: Facebook connects people in big time (1BN DAU & 60BN messages per day), the distant second in a different league(professionals) is LinkedIn. Facebook for business is supposed to come out soon. Until then there is no competition to LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn Stocks Fell: Back in 2016 LinkedIn stock fell. Google and Facebook have 75% of Ad Spend as per 2016 Trend Report, which leaves 25% of the Ad spend to the rest of these big companies. Also, LinkedIn relies more on subscription based model which is a very tricky business as the people cancel their subscription if they do not see value in it. Even though it is a great place to network which is provided for free, their incremental value that they provide through subscription is not a must have for all professionals. 

LinkedIn Buyout for Start Up Companies:

1. LinkedIn has 400M users with only 25% DAU. 
2. LinkedIn 2016 Q1 revenue was 861 million

Startups only dream of these numbers. But still it is not enough to sustain as an independent company for the next decade. Maybe a 70% DAU with 50%  growth target would have made LinkedIn stronger. But why that may not happen? One factor.

1. Global workforce is different. Mobile users rule the world outside of US.  LinkedIn may not work with a low-end smartphone or on a low bandwidth connection. This is where Facebook and whats app made sure that there was a different app for those users and LinkedIn failed. 

Congrats to my colleagues at LinkedIn for such a graceful exit. I love the product; I would like to see more value for non-subscribed users and lot more value for a subscribed users.