Pineapple, an app that’s aiming to reshape skilled networking for Gen Z, is officially launching to the general public at this time. The thought behind Pineapple is to provide younger professionals a solution to community with others via a visible story profile that’s form of like a digital portfolio. For now, the platform is simply available on iOS.
The skilled community is the brainchild of Pineapple’s 22-year-old co-founder and CEO David Diamond, who acquired an early begin in tech as a product design intern at Intercom at age 15. Diamond was initially rejected from Intercom after making use of with a regular paper resume and was additionally instructed he was too younger to work there. After strengthening his resume and constructing a portfolio, Diamond says he landed the function.
“I began to consider how I landed the job and the way fortunate I used to be,” Diamond instructed in an interview. “I questioned, if I needed to put collectively a portfolio, what was the remainder of my era doing? From there, we had a transparent imaginative and prescient of constructing an expert community for Gen Z. We noticed that different networks weren’t precisely representing Gen Z. We needed to make a community that helps Gen Z community with one another and achieve alternatives, relatively than specializing in creating one other jobs board. The objective was to provide customers profiles that basically signify them.”
In 2020, Diamond based Pineapple alongside Oliver Cruise with the objective of adjusting skilled networking for Gen Z. After beta testing the platform with 10,000 customers, Pineapple is now able to develop.
Picture Credit: Pineapple
Diamond says the primary focus of Pineapple is person profiles, that are designed to assist create deep and significant skilled connections by permitting customers to specific themselves in a visible method. The app’s profiles are a cross between LinkedIn and Instagram, as they showcase a person’s introduction, expertise, initiatives and extra in a visible Story-like method.
One other massive a part of Pineapple is Communities, which goal to assist customers discover different people who find themselves keen about the identical factor as them. From VCs to entrepreneurs to designers, there are particular communities for all types of matters. You possibly can see the member listing for every neighborhood and join with particular individuals. Inside Communities, there are Jams, that are threaded conversations for discussions that final for twenty-four hours. Jams can be utilized to go in-depth a couple of particular matter. As an illustration, a founder can begin a Jam to reply questions that folks could have about their journey.
Pineapple additionally consists of an Discover web page the place you possibly can uncover extra Jams, individuals and communities. The app additionally has a TikTok-inspired For You web page that’s designed that will help you sustain along with your connections.
Some might even see Pineapple because the “LinkedIn for Gen Z,” however Diamond says the platform nonetheless has a methods to go earlier than seeking to tackle LinkedIn. Proper now, Pineapple is concentrated on serving to individuals community in numerous methods than LinkedIn is. As an illustration, Diamond says that some younger customers could use LinkedIn to discover a mentor, however Pineapple is the place they will come to community with their friends, study new issues and discover individuals for his or her aspect initiatives. Pineapple additionally isn’t targeted on standing/job updates or the hustle tradition that’s typically related to LinkedIn, Diamond says.
Picture Credit: Pineapple
In the interim, Pineapple goes to give attention to progress earlier than venturing into monetization. When Pineapple is able to add monetization options to its platform, Diamond says the corporate will give attention to serving to creators earn cash. One of many methods the corporate plans to do that is thru creator subscriptions the place standard creators will be capable of supply instructional content material to customers for a worth. As well as, Pineapple hopes to accomplice with firms who will be capable of recruit workers immediately from the platform.
“We need to be the go-to skilled community for Gen Z and folk who’re early on of their profession,” Diamond says. “From a roadmap standpoint, we wish Pineapple to be the plain resolution for people who find themselves beginning their profession. I feel so as to do this, we have to up our sport in terms of profile-building. I feel you need to be capable of construct a mini-website inside Pineapple, and I don’t assume there must be a must ever have a portfolio web site when you have Pineapple.”
By way of funding, Pineapple raised a $1.1 million pre-seed spherical in April that was co-led by F7 Ventures and 500 International. The spherical included participation from angel traders Bradley Horowitz, the VP of product at Google, and Julie Zhou, the previous VP of design at Fb. Diamond says the funding primarily went towards analysis and improvement, together with making key early hires.
Pineapple is kicking off its seed spherical quickly and plans to shut it someday subsequent 12 months.
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