When Did LinkedIn Start? (FULL Answer)
As one of the world‘s largest professional networking platforms, LinkedIn has become an invaluable resource for over 800 million members. But when did this massively successful social media site first make its debut?
LinkedIn was founded in December 2002 by Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly, and Jean-Luc Vaillant. The vision was to create an online community that connected professionals around the world to make them more productive and successful.
After months of preparation, LinkedIn officially launched to the public on May 5, 2003 – making it over 20 years old today. While the platform has evolved tremendously since its early days, the founding mission to "connect the world‘s professionals to make them more productive and successful" continues to drive LinkedIn‘s growth.
Let‘s analyze LinkedIn‘s origins and expansion over the past two decades, with a particular eye toward the platform‘s technology innovation and adoption curve as viewed by a long-time tech industry observer.
Humble Beginnings: LinkedIn‘s First Years (2003-2007)
When LinkedIn launched in 2003, it saw modest uptake with just under 500,000 members signing up in the first year. While tiny by today‘s standards, this was enough to spur LinkedIn‘s founders to keep iterating.
The first major milestone came in 2004 when LinkedIn closed $4.7 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital. This influx of capital helped LinkedIn roll out new features like Contact Import and beef up its infrastructure to handle more users.
Membership growth remained steady in LinkedIn‘s early years:
- 450,000 users in 2003
- 1 million users in 2004
- 4.2 million users in 2005
- 6.3 million users in 2006
In 2006, LinkedIn unveiled its first efforts to transition beyond a basic professional profiling platform by rolling out Services and Recommendations capabilities. This allowed members to descriptively showcase their work and receive endorsements from collaborators.
By 2007, LinkedIn membership swelled to over 13 million members. During this relatively quiet period in terms of product expansion, LinkedIn laid the groundwork for the exponential growth that was still to come.
Professional Networking at Scale: LinkedIn‘s Growth Phase (2008-2016)
LinkedIn‘s growth began accelerating rapidly starting around 2008 as the platform tapped into new opportunities.
That year, LinkedIn debuted its first international site in India to tap into markets overseas. The company also rolled out customized solutions for large enterprises to use LinkedIn for recruiting, branding and lead generation at scale.
Membership figures tell the story of LinkedIn‘s hockey stick like adoption at this stage:
- 13 million users in 2007
- 30 million users in 2008
- 60 million users in 2009
- 90 million users in 2010
- 100 million users in early 2011
In late 2011, LinkedIn saw its userbase surpass 100 million members spanning over 200 countries around the world. The platform was connecting professionals across languages, borders, and business cultures at an unprecedented clip.
Driving this growth was LinkedIn‘s expanding suite of features that delivered more and more value to its user base including:
