Competing against LinkedIn

Scroll through LinkedIn for a couple of minutes and you’re bound to find one of those crazy corporate anecdotes and a bunch of variations of the “I’m pleased to announce…” post. While the platform is still one of the most efficient ways to find opportunities, some of you feel it’s “lost its purpose” and “has become more of a social network than being a top-notch professional network.”

That’s one of the areas Peerlist is hoping to improve. The community-led professional network has work profiles at its core, which are aimed at designers, developers, indie hackers, and creators. This means it enables you to showcase your work directly from Github, Dribbble, Substack, Medium, DEV, Hashnode, YouTube, and Product Hunt. You can also add custom projects and credentials.

As far as the social element goes, Peerlist helps you discover people based on the skills and work they are doing. You can keep your network organized by adding connections to custom lists. This kind of organization also extends to the feed, where you can contextualize your posts as opportunities, books, URLs, and events.

Social apps are notoriously difficult to build and grow. Peerlist’s focus on the utility of building a profile to showcase your experience is an interesting growth strategy. We’ve seen this in past successful companies – think filters on Instagram and video creation on TikTok.

Other similar platforms include Golden Kitty Award winner, Contra, which gives freelancers flexible, commission-free opportunities, and Showwcase, a professional network built for people who code. Polywork (backed by Youtube founders, among many others) is another popular LinkedIn alternative.

• Laverie is like Airbnb for luxury accessories. You can borrow and lend items such as designer bags from others.

• PhotoRoom is now a web app. The tool allows you to create professional product images and provides features like background removal and erasing of unwanted objects.

• This project management Notion template lets you create and manage sub-issues, auto-estimates due dates, and tracks progress across projects, sprints, and tasks.

• Content creators – ViralMoment shows you top TikTok content and viral trends in your niche.