From LinkedIn challenger to shutdown: Polywork’s journey offers crucial lessons for product managers. Dive into this postmortem analysis to uncover valuable insights.
They never provided sufficient additional value over LinkedIn. Even if they had became a strong competitor, it would be easy for LinkedIn to copy their few benefits.
Don't forget that they also started working on another product called profile.com under the polywork banner before they closed down. They announced it on their LinkedIn.
Great analysis, Elena. I used it the first months, I liked it. Then, it was weird but somehow interesting when they turned into a website builder... At the end of the day, people don't want many websites or portfolios to visit just a standardized view in a trusty place so they can see if they want to do business or not with someone... So, I think they misread the correct value proposition to compete.
They never provided sufficient additional value over LinkedIn. Even if they had became a strong competitor, it would be easy for LinkedIn to copy their few benefits.
Don't forget that they also started working on another product called profile.com under the polywork banner before they closed down. They announced it on their LinkedIn.
Nice addition to the storyline, I wasn’t aware of it!
Here 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7175522000952545280/
As a certified linkedin hater, I was puzzled by the pivot and assumed right then it was over.
Great analysis, Elena. I used it the first months, I liked it. Then, it was weird but somehow interesting when they turned into a website builder... At the end of the day, people don't want many websites or portfolios to visit just a standardized view in a trusty place so they can see if they want to do business or not with someone... So, I think they misread the correct value proposition to compete.