Investors and advisors use Via’s referral-based hiring platform to introduce top talent to the companies they support.

Since we launched On Deck a few years ago, our mission has always been to help top talent start or join their next company. A few months ago, we launched On Deck Fellowship, to help people start their next company. (https://medium.com/@beondeck/the...) Now, we’re thrilled to announce a product dedicated to helping people join their next company. We all know that the best hires come through trusted referrals. Via’s hope is to streamline & boost the amount of referrals that people are able to make, and thus the new opportunities candidates are able to find. Let us know if you have feedback and hopefully we can help ya’ll find your next thing, whenever that time is.

First off, thanks to @nickabouzeid for hunting Via! Nick (and @nivo0o0) are making referrals to their portfolio companies alongside 150 investors from Sequoia, Benchmark, LSVP, a16z, General Catalyst, Susa, Box Group, and many more. We’re also grateful to angels like @justinkan, @jonathanswanson, @briannekimmel, and @delk for raising their hands to participate in Via from day 1. On Deck launched 3 years ago on Product Hunt. We're excited to be back on PH sharing our first digital product here today! The team that built Via is @emmalsalinas, @kunalsh23, and of course @eriktorenberg. We’re happy to be here to answer your questions. We’re especially delighted to be here to help you find your next thing!

Unbelievably proud of this team! Just the beginning... 👀🚀 @julianweisser, @kunalsh23 @emmalsalinas @eriktorenberg

Smart idea. Plugging my profile: https://via.beondeck.com/ryanhoover

Have seen this idea flourish in Spain with trycircular.com and could not welcome more this type of product. Wish you the best with it!

Like this focus on referrals as that's how most of hiring seems to happen nowadays. I wonder how @beondeck team think about two things: 1. If the product helps get referrals from impressive folks how do you avoid it creating even more for for people who have limited time? Meaning if the top investor is the bottleneck isn't me asking for a referral just making more work for them. If I'm the young scrappy up and comer who wants a referral I presumably have more time than the top investor. At some level is asking for referral shifting the burden up the chain? 2. Vetting. I think I'm a decent entrepreneur. But it probably takes weeks (or hopefully days) of working with me to prove i'm not full of it. If I'm asking for a referral from someone I only follow on twitter and have no real connection with how do you/they process the vetting aspect. I can write a great referral request and a stunning cover letter . . . . . but at the end of the day the real work is not sending the referral but determining if I'm worth referring. Hiring is such an fascinating challenge and only getting worse. Very interesting to see how your team approaches this 🤜🏻🤛🏻🤜🏻🤛🏻

This is brilliant. As someone living outside the SF/SV area, I can see this being a very useful tool for not only learning about what companies to join, but getting that critical "vouch/cred" from influential contacts which previously felt quite challenging to get due to lack of proximity. Question: - Is there any paid/monetization play here? Long term? I clicked around and didn't see anything obvious. Wondering if it's truly altruistic and self-sustaining (via funded backers) or perhaps will be revenue-generating through placement fees or premium subscriptions of some kind.