Caliber 推出面向职场人士的消息应用
过去多年，在 LinkedIn 的阴影下，多家创业公司试图提供新方式，尤其是基于移动端的方式，帮助企业员工相互通信，发掘企业市场的某些细分领域。今天，一款名为 Caliber 的新应用带来了一些不同之处：该应用并未试图与 LinkedIn 直接竞争，而是提供了一款互补的工具，一方面帮助用户与当前的 LinkedIn 联系人聊天，而另一方面则帮助用户扩大自己的职场关系网，同时屏蔽掉垃圾消息。
Caliber 推出于 去年夏季 ，最初是一款类似 Tinder 风格的应用，帮助人们建立职业联系。该公司首席执行官安德里斯·布兰科（Andres Blank）表示，最初这款应用的用户数已达到 2 万，但 Caliber 的团队随后意识到，用户真正想要的并不是这样的模式。用户不只需要联系感兴趣的人，还希望能向职业联系人发送消息。
不过，开发面向商业用途的消息应用也有着自身的困难。用户需要创建包含职业信息的帐号，在平台上搜索并查找适当的联系人。而最重要的是，这样的应用需要避免垃圾消息的泛滥。
我发现，专注于这一领域的许多其他应用都遭遇了垃圾消息的困扰。创业公司开发有趣的社交体验，帮助企业员工建立联系，但垃圾消息似乎很难得到控制。
如果你的建议和观点很有价值，或者说别人有求于你，例如你是一名颇有成就的风险投资家，那么你将会收到大量的好友请求。无论加入什么平台，你都会收到许多这类消息。对这样的用户来说，参与这种平台将变得困难，甚至导致他们不想参与这些平台。
关于 Caliber，有趣的一点在于，该公司的解决方案专注于解决上述问题。
这款应用的用户帐号基于 LinkedIn，因此可以了解用户之间的职业社交关系。如果两名用户已经是 LinkedIn 联系人，并且同时使用 Caliber，那么就可以在这一应用中互发消息。而如果其中只有一人使用 Caliber，那么 Caliber 用户可以通过该应用发送 LinkedIn 站内信给非 Caliber 用户。如果双方并没有在 LinkedIn 上建立联系，那么用户可以通过 Caliber 发送加好友请求。
此外，与大部分社交应用不同，当有消息到来时，这款应用并不会立即向用户发送推送通知。因此，你不必为回应烦人的推送通知而苦恼。在一星期末，Caliber 会将用户收到的请求汇总并进行排序，随后再呈现给用户。用户的 LinkedIn 联系人，以及 Caliber 中的热门人物会出现在这一汇总清单的前列。因此，用户可以更好地决定与谁建立好友关系，并知道为何要建立这样的关系。
与 LinkedIn、Facebook，以及大部分社交网络不同，所有未回应的请求将会在一周时间后消失。
这并不会阻止他人再次尝试加为好友。不过，这一举措能使加好友流程更加智能、更加简单。
与此同时，如果你需要扩大自己的职场关系网，那么可以通过 Caliber，基于人们的职业经历，例如职位、技能和公司，来查找其他用户。
目前，Caliber 应用仅支持联系人之间的消息发送，而未来，该团队还希望支持视频通话、文件共享，以及会议活动邀请等功能，并将支持的社交网络扩大至 Twitter 和 AngelList。最终，该公司希望通过企业级功能获得收入，例如与客户关系管理（CRM）系统的连接，帮助企业招聘者或人力资源经理获得数据，以更好地招到专业人才。
不过，Caliber 也存在一个潜在的问题。该应用基于 LinkedIn，而后者以往似乎不太愿意支持第三方应用生态系统。例如近期，LinkedIn 宣布 只向合作伙伴开放完整的应用程序接口（API）。Caliber 正在申请成为 LinkedIn 的合作伙伴，但目前尚未成功。不过布兰科仍对此充满希望。
“从短期来看，可以说，我们的服务和 LinkedIn 站内信之间有些许相似之处。不过从长期来看，我们将成为一款单纯的通信应用。”他表示，“LinkedIn 更多地关注用户的身份和简历。我认为，我们可以与他们互补，同时也为他们的平台做出贡献。”他指出，Caliber 可以帮助人们在 LinkedIn 上建立联系。
目前，Caliber 团队位于纽约，共有 5 名成员，正在完成种子轮融资。布兰科也是 一名天使投资人，曾成功创立并 出售 Pixable。除他之外，该公司的其他创始人还包括 TechStars 成员克里斯·卡尔梅恩（Chris Calmeyn）。他此前曾是 Piictu 的负责人，以及 Travelocity 的产品经理。
目前，这款新应用可以 通过 iOS 和安卓平台下载 。
Caliber Debuts A Messaging App Designed For Business Professionals
A number of startups in years past have tried to carve out their own niche in the business networking space under the looming shadow of LinkedIn by offering an alternative way to connect with industry colleagues, often on mobile. But today, a new app called Caliber is offering a slightly different take on the concept: instead of trying to compete with LinkedIn directly, its service offers a complementary tool that lets you chat with your LinkedIn contacts as well as grow your network without being overrun by request spam.
Caliber itself first launched last summer, but initially offered a Tinder-like app for making business connections. That app grew to 20,000 users, but the team realized that it wasn’t quite what people wanted. Users didn’t want to just connect with other interesting people, they wanted to be able to reach their business contacts and message them, explains company co-founder and CEO Andres Blank.
However, building a messaging app for business use presents its own sorts of challenges. Users have to create accounts that include their professional identities, they need to be able to search for and find the right people on the platform, and most importantly, the app needs to be careful to not encourage spam.
That latter problem is something I’ve seen a number of other attempts in this space gloss over – startups would create these interesting social experiences for connecting industry colleagues, but they would never address the issue of spam.
That is, when you’re someone whose advice or insight is valuable, or you’re someone who’s in demand – think, for example, a VC getting hundreds of pitches from entrepreneurs – you become overwhelmed by the number of requests to connect or incoming messages on any platform you join. For these sought-after users, the problem makes it difficult for you to participate, and it even discourages you from doing so.
What’s interesting about Caliber is that it has focused on developing a solution to this problem.
The app leverages LinkedIn to build out its user profiles and understand who’s connected to who. If two people are already LinkedIn connections and are both on Caliber, they can message each other in the app. If they’re connected on LinkedIn, but only one person uses the app, the app lets you send a LinkedIn InMail to the non-Caliber user. And if both users are not connected on LinkedIn, one user can send a request to connect with the other on Caliber instead.
But the app doesn’t barrage users with requests the minute they come in like most social apps do. There aren’t buzzy push notifications forcing to you to respond to each incoming invite. Rather, at the end of the week, Caliber presents a list of your requests and it ranks them for you, showing those first where you have mutual connections or the person is popular within the app. This allows you to make better decisions about who to connect to, and why.
Then, unlike on LinkedIn or Facebook or most other social networks, all the unanswered requests just disappear after a week’s time.
That doesn’t prevent those same users from trying again later, but it does make the process of growing your network – smartly – a lot easier.
Meanwhile, if you’re the one in need of expanding your network, you can use Caliber to seek out users based on their professional experience, including their roles, skills and companies.
Currently, the Caliber app only enables messaging between contacts, but in the future, the team wants to expand the app to support things like video calls, file sharing or appointment scheduling, as well as connecting to contacts on other networks, like Twitter or AngelList, for example . And eventually, it wants to generate revenue through business-level features, like support for connecting with CRM systems, or the ability to generate data that could help recruiters or hiring managers find in-demand professionals.
One potential problem Caliber could face, however, is that it’s being built on top of LinkedIn – a company which doesn’t have a good history with regard to supporting its ecosystem of third-party apps. For instance, it recently began limiting full API usage only to partners. Caliber is applying for partnership status, but hasn’t been granted this yet. However, Blank is hopeful.
“Right now in the short-term, you could say there are some similarities [between us and what LinkedIn] does with InMail, but in the long-term, we’re a pure communications app,” he says. “LinkedIn is much more about identity. It’s about your resumé…I think we’re complementary to them and we also give back to their platform,” Blank notes, adding that Caliber can help people establish a connection on LinkedIn, too.
The company is a team of five based in New York and is now closing a seed round. In addition to CEO Blank, an angel investor who previously founded and sold Pixable, the startup is co-founded by Chris Calmeyn, a TechStars alum and previously head of product at Piictu and a product manager at Travelocity.
The new app is available for both iOS and Android.
来源：techcrunch.cn
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Entelo 要帮助科技公司兑现员工多样性承诺
在过去的一年中，我们看到 很多公司发布了员工多样性报告 ，其中揭示了女性和少数族裔在科技行业代表性不足背后的数字。这些公司在发布报告的同时也承诺要改善这种状况。
Entelo 认为自己的 算法 可以帮助科技公司兑现这些承诺。
Entelo 是一个平台，企业可以在上面搜寻职位候选人。Entelo 的客户中有我们熟悉的科技公司，既有微软，也有 Lyft 这样快速扩张的公司。
去年，该公司推出了一款多元化工具，让企业可以在招聘时找到合适的女性和少数族裔候选人。到目前为止，已经数十家公司采纳了这款工具，其中包括 Yelp 和多家财富 500 强企业。
利用大数据，Entelo 平台的一种算法可以帮助公司匹配候选人，即通过这些人的社交网络资料来比对性别、种族或从军经历方面的要求。该平台会抓取人们公开发布的信息，比如在社交网络上填写的性别和种族等个人资料。
科技行业的多样性问题有很多根源。正如我们从那些 大张旗鼓的法律诉讼 中看到的，很多公司的职场文化并不利于多样性的形成。此外还有一个 人才管道的问题，女性和少数族裔学习 STEM 学科（指科学、技术、工程、数学，比如计算机科学）的概率要低于白人男性。
不过，Entelo 希望解决招聘过程中存在的匹配问题，该平台的方法是让科技公司更容易找到符合多样性的职位候选人。
“你总是会想为一个职位招聘到最佳人选。”Entelo 首席执行官 乔恩·比什克（Jon Bischke）说，“要找到那个人，你应该从多样性的人才池中进行招聘。”
比什克说，Entelo 的工具旨在帮助你扩大那个人才池的规模。他表示，当处于初期阶段的创业公司进行招聘时，他们常常不会考虑到打造一支多样性的团队。
“公司是通过人际网络启动的。”他解释说，“情况很有可能是，一家公司早期的工程师会跟公司创始人很相像。”
比什克认为，如果公司及早把视线投向人际网络以外，那么科技行业的多样性问题是能够改善的。公司越早开始考虑多样性，那么随着公司规模增长，他们的多样性就会越丰富。
“太多的公司直到聘请了 40、50、60 名工程师时才开始考虑多样性。”他说，“到了那个时候，要说服一名女性加入团队可就真的很难了。”
比什克说， 谷歌决定在去年发布多样性报告 ，这改变了科技公司看待多样性的方式。他表示，现在公司受到了压力，他们需要发布报告展示那些数字正在改善。
“如果那些数字变得更加糟糕，那可头疼了。”他说，“它提高了赌注。”
比什克称，Entelo 从自己的客户那里看到了多样性工具的市场需求。Entelo 本身正在迅速扩张，它现在的客户数量超过了 200 家公司。
Entelo 最近聘请了一位新的销售副总裁 山姆·伊斯特（Sam East）。伊斯特表示，在跟多样性的客户举行会议时，招聘多样性求职者的话题经常被提出来。
“这个话题一次又一次的出现。”他说，“几乎每一次销售会谈都把重点放在了我们平台的多样性方面。”
Entelo 本身也是一家科技创业公司，比什克说，该公司试图有意识地招聘多样性的技术员工。在其技术团队，每 10 人当中就有 3-4 名女性。
对比什克来说，把这款工具推向市场也是一件私事。
“我家里有一个 2 岁的小女儿。”他说，我希望她成长在一个她可以做任何事的世界当中。”
翻译：王灿均（@何无鱼）
Entelo Wants To Help Companies Hire Diverse Employees As They Scale Up
In the past year, we saw a string of companies release diversity reports that exposed the numbers behind the underrepresentation of women and minorities in tech roles. Along with those reports came commitments to do better.
Entelo thinks its algorithm can help tech companies follow through on those promises.
Entelo is a platform that businesses can use to search for job candidates that has been adopted by familiar tech companies, from Microsoft to fast-scaling companies like Lyft.
The company introduced a diversity tool last year that allows companies to find qualified women and minorities as they hire. So far, it’s being used by dozens of companies, including Yelp and several Fortune 500 brands.
Using big data, the platform has an algorithm that helps companies match with candidates who have social profiles that indicate they meet gender, race or military requirements. It draws on information already publicly available, such as self-reported data on a social network like gender or affinity group memberships.
Tech’s diversity problem stems from many sources. As we’ve seen from high profile lawsuits, workplace culture at many companies does not foster diversity in the field. There’s also a pipeline problem in which women and minorities do not study STEM subjects like computer science as frequently as white men.
But Entelo wants to fix the matching problem in hiring by making it easier for tech companies to find diverse candidates.
“You always want to hire the best person for the job,” said Entelo CEO Jon Bischke. “To find that person, you should be hiring from a diverse pool.”
Bischke said Entelo’s tool is about helping you expand that pool. He said often when early startups are hiring, they don’t think about building diverse teams.
“Companies get started through networks,” he explained. “Odds are the early engineers in a company are going to look a lot like the founders.”
Bischke believes diversity in tech could improve if companies look outside that network early. The earlier companies start thinking about diversity, the more diverse they will be as they scale, he said.
“Too many companies wait until they hire 40, 50, 60 engineers to think about diversity,” he said. “By that point it might be really difficult to convince a woman to join the team.”
Bischke said Google’s decision to release a diversity report last year changed how tech companies view diversity. Now he says there is pressure for the companies who released reports to show the numbers are improving.
“If those numbers get worse, there’s going to be a lot of head scratching,” he said. “It’s raised the ante.”
Bischke said Entelo saw a demand for a diversity tool from its customers. Entelo itself is expanding quickly, now serving more than 200 companies.
Entelo recently brought on a new vice president of sales, Sam East. East said hiring diverse candidates comes up frequently in meetings with diverse customers.
“It’s coming up again and again,” he said. “Almost every sales conversation is focusing on diversity as aspect on our platform.”
Entelo is also a tech startup itself, and Bischke said the company has tried to be conscious of hiring diverse tech employees. Of the ten members of its tech team, there are three to four women.
For Bischke, bringing this tool to the marketplace is also personal.
“I have a 2-year-old daughter at home,” he said. “I want her to grow up in a world where she could do anything.”
来源：techcrunch
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2015年03月23日
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SmartHires：帮助创业公司在相同投资组合中寻找科技人才
目前，寻找出色的科技人才仍是一个不小的挑战。正因为如此，奥巴马政府在本月早些时候向一个名为“TechHire”的新合作计划拨款 1 亿美元，试图填补美国 IT 行业当前存在的 50 万个<a Combinator 投资的 SmartHires（大家千万别将它与人才招聘网站 SmartHire 或求职搜索网站Smart Hires 混淆）创建了一个创业公司优秀人才推荐网络，试图解决这一难题。
SmartHires 背后的创意是，将人才留在投资方的投资组合网络内，是一种更好的选择。SmartHires 联合创始人斯蒂芬·克莱特兹尔（Stephan Kletzl）告诉 TechCrunch 网站，“许多创业公司将优秀人才完全拒之门外，如果将他们留在这个大家庭，结果可能会更好。”
SmartHires 是由克莱特兹尔及其双胞胎兄弟克里斯蒂安·克莱特兹尔（ChristianKletzl）以及戴维·佩奇森梅斯特（David Pichsenmeister）等三人共同创建的，因为他们发现找到顶尖人才是非常困难的一件事。斯蒂芬·克莱特兹尔说：“有些人才因招聘主管未能慧眼识珠而遭到拒绝，我们将这些人添加至‘被拒绝名单’中，一旦招聘主管的人脉圈中恰好有人需要，我们可以进行推荐。”
克莱特兹尔兄弟希望能将最有才能的人选留在某个投资人的投资组合中，一旦该投资人资助的其他创业公司需要人才，就可以将原本储备的人才推荐给他们。
SmartHires 的运作机制如下：获 Y Combinator、SV Angel 和其他投资公司等投资的创业公司招聘主管看到一份不错的求职申请，但对方又不太符合公司当前需要的人才类型。但招聘主管不是将此人的简历扔到一边，而是将它们添加至公司投资方的整个投资组合网络中。根据这一网络其他创业公司掌握的信息，该网络中的某个创业公司对这种人才趋之若鹜。
在硅谷，不少创业公司都是基于类似创意构建的，有些甚至就在 Y Combinator 网络内。例如，作为另一家获得 Y Combinator 投资的公司，HigherMe 专注于寻找合适的零售业人才；Hired 则是总部设在硅谷的一家创业公司，试图给科技企业挖掘合适的人才；SmartHires 不同于这些公司的独特之处在于，它依赖于圈内人推荐，而不仅仅是依赖于简历。
不过，SmartHires 的商业化模式类似于 Hired。同 Hired 一样，如果求职者最终在 Y Combinator 的投资组合网络内成功找到了工作，那么 SmartHires 会从求职者获得的年薪中抽成 2%。
成功推荐求职者的人不会获得任何报酬，但他可以提前接触到名单中的求职者，这样，如果求职者恰好是他们中意的人才，那么就可以捷足先登了。斯蒂芬·克莱特兹尔说：“他有可能会与那个在本公司被拒的求职者成为朋友，因此一旦有机会，可以将对方挖到自己的公司来。”
SmartHires 平台目前主要针对于 Y Combinator 的投资组合网络。据斯蒂芬·克莱特兹尔介绍，在所有申请加入 Y Combinator 所投资创业公司的人当中，至少 70%最终会获得这些公司的面试机会。Zenefits 和 Weebly 等一些创业公司已经聘用了 SmartHires 推荐的人选，或是正在对 SmartHires 推荐的人选进行最后的面试。
Y Combinator 的“演示日”活动即将举行，克莱特兹尔兄弟目前主要忙着准备这件事，但他们说 SmartHires 下一步的工作重点是为更多的投资组合网络储备人才。
YC-Backed SmartHires Helps Startups Find Tech Talent Within The Same Investment Portfolio
Finding good tech talent is a challenge right now. The Obama administration poured $100 million into the new TechHire initiative this last month to fill half a million open IT jobs in the U.S. for that reason. Y Combinator-backed SmartHires (not to be confused with the recruiting site SmartHire or job search site Smart Hires) tackles that challenge with the creation of a startup referral network for strong job candidates.
The idea behind SmartHires is that it’s better to keep talent within investor portfolio networks. “Many startups end up rejecting great candidates but it’s better if they stay in the family,” SmartHires co-founder Stephan Kletzl told TechCrunch.
Kletzl and his co-founder and identical twin brother Christian Kletzl started SmartHires, along with David Pichsenmeister, after seeing how difficult it was to find top talent. “Smart people are getting passed on and added to the rejection list when there might be someone within the hiring manager’s network that needs them,” Stephan said.
The brothers envision keeping the most talented candidates within certain investor portfolios, thus adding to a stronger pool of candidates for the startups those investors have funded.
It works like this: hiring managers at startups within YC, SV Angel or some other portfolio family see a great applicant that doesn’t exactly fit with what they are hiring for. Rather than just adding the person’s resume to a stack of rejections, the hiring manager can add them to that portfolio network of startups. Other startups within that network can see that a certain startup within the network has vouched for that candidate.
There are a lot of startups within Silicon Valley working on similar ideas, some even within the YC network. HigherMe, another YC portfolio company this batch, focuses on finding good retail employees. Hired is a Silicon Valley-based startup that hooks candidates up with tech companies. SmartHires is unique to these other recruitment companies in that it works on network referrals instead of just a resume.
The way SmartHires makes money resembles the Hired model. Like Hired, if a candidate takes the job within the portfolio network, SmartHires takes a 2 percent cut of the annual salary offered to that candidate.
The person referring the candidate doesn’t get paid for it, but they do get earlier access to candidates on the list if they refer top talent. “He’ll more likely get friends of the rejected candidate to apply at his startup and he’ll make the rejection email easier on him and the candidate,” Stephan added.
The SmartHires platform is mainly working within the YC network at the moment. At least 70 percent of those candidates applying within the YC network got interview requests with YC-backed companies, according to Stephan. Startups like Zenefits and Weebly have already hired candidates or are in the final stages of interviews from someone referred to them through SmartHires.
YC demo day is coming up and the Kletzl brothers are mainly focused on that for now, but they said the next steps would involve building out to more investor portfolio networks.
来源：techcrunch
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