BranchOut

BranchOut was a Facebook application designed for finding jobs, networking professionally, and recruiting employees.Needleman, Rafe
BranchOut making SEO push with vanity URLs
''CNET''. September 9, 2011.Arrington, Michael
BranchOut Unlocks The LinkedIn In Facebook
''TechCrunch''. July 20, 2010. It was founded by Rick Marini in July 2010, and was, , the largest professional networking service on Facebook.Geron, Tomio
BranchOut Launches Recruiter Tool For Searching Facebook
''Forbes''. October 20, 2011. The company sold its assets to HR Software Company 1-Page in November 2014 and the staff was picked up by Hearst.Lunden, Ingrid
As BranchOut Team Goes To Hearst, 1-Page Buys BranchOut's Assets For $5.4 M In Cash And Shares
''TechCrunch''. November 18, 2014.

History

BranchOut launched in June 2010 as a Facebook app. Rick Marini, the founder and CEO of SuperFan, received a call from a friend asking if he knew anyone at a particular company.Carter, Sam
Entrepreneur: Interview with BranchOut founder Rick Marini
. ''Man of the Hour''. June 27, 2011. Marini knew he had a mutual connection, but couldn't remember the person specifically. He was unable to find the connection by searching on Facebook and asked if SuperFan's Director of Engineering could build a widget to accomplish the task. Marini saw potential in the application and pivoted SuperFan's team to begin development on the product.

In July 2010, Marini launched BranchOut. In September 2010, BranchOut announced a $6 million Series A round of funding led by Accel Partners, Floodgate, and Norwest Venture Partners, with additional investments from founders and executives at Napster, Facebook, WordPress, and Google.Boyd, E.B
Baked In: BranchOut Lets You Manage Your Climb Up the Ladder From Within Facebook
''Fast Company''. February 17, 2011.Rhodri Marsden: Maybe we do need yet another social network?
''The Independent''. June 29, 2011.O'Dell, Jolie
Facebook Job Search App Gets $6M in Funding
''Mashable''. September 16, 2010. In January 2011, BranchOut's userbase grew by a factor of 25, increasing from 10,000 to 250,000.

In May 2011, BranchOut raised $18 million in a Series B round of funding from Redpoint Ventures, Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, and Floodgate.Rao, Leena
Exclusive: BranchOut Raises $18M For Facebook-Focused Professional Network
''TechCrunch''. May 11, 2011.Geron, Tomio
Covering consumer Internet, especially social and start-up varieties
''Forbes''. May 11, 2011.Merino, Faith
Branchout raises $18M, launches Jobs Tab
''VatorNews''. May 11, 2011. Soon after, BranchOut experienced a period of explosive growth, which Marini attributes to superconnectors joining BranchOut, noting that people began to sign up to the service en masse after people like TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington installed the app.Strom, David
BranchOut Could Be a Break Out Hit For Facebook Job Seekers
. ''Read Write Web''. June 20, 2011.Shontell, Alyson
The New LinkedIn-Wannabe On Facebook Gets Nearly 1,000,000 Users In One Week
. ''BusinessInsider''. June 20, 2011. "The week of explosive growth followed a decision to replace a core questions feature (i.e. "Who is most likely to leave work early?) with social job listings on the app's front page."

In May 2011, BranchOut listed 3 million open jobs (sourced from Indeed.com) and 20,000 internships and was active in 60 countries and is available in 15 languages.Fisher, Lauren
BranchOut: A young pretender or a serious contender in the Linkedin game?
''The Next Web''. July 12, 2011. " It's hosted over 3 million job vacancies on the app and is active in 60 countries."SplashCast: BranchOut Reaches Out To Professionals
''SplashMediaLP''. August 10, 2011. "We're in, at this point, over 60 countries, 15 languages, millions of users..."

Despite raising a total of $49 million, BranchOut users dropped and the company relaunched as a 'workplace chat' application.

The current company is not related to the 20th century incarnation. In 1996, Lee Newman and David Ronick had co-founded a site called "BranchOut.com" designed "to help you find people with whom you share common bonds – like your high school, your hometown, your college, your grad school, your company, your industry – even friends of friends." The site started at Ivy League schools only, then opened up to the general public in 1998.

Site structure

BranchOut is a free Facebook application which allows users to create professional profiles that include their work history and education (personal information, like photo albums and status updates, is not included within these profiles).'BranchOut:' Find Work on Facebook
''ABC News''. July 13, 2020. Once the user installs the application, a dashboard is displayed that shows the user's corporate relationships.

BranchOut has three types of enterprise products for job seekers and recruiters: job postings, CareerConnect, and RecruiterConnect. The social job postings feature enables companies to publish job listings on their Facebook fan pages and allows job seekers to apply for the open positions. CareerConnect publishes job posts on a company's Facebook page. RecruiterConnect allows recruiters and hiring managers to search through BranchOut's database, a feature used by HP, Salesforce.com, Box.net, Levi's and Target.Boyd, E.B
BranchOut Adds Tools To Let Recruiters Go Trolling on Facebook
''Fast Company''. October 20, 2011.
RecruiterConnect allows recruiters to search through their network of Facebook friends by job title and company.

BranchOut generates revenue from job posts and enterprise solutions.

Reception

BranchOut has been profiled in ''The Wall Street Journal'', ''The Independent'', '' CNET'', ''The Washington Post'', ''USA Today'', and ''ABC News''. The company was selected to FASTech50, an award given to the most innovative start-ups across the technology industry, and named as one of the top HR products of 2011. BranchOut was also named one of the Top 10 Facebook Apps by Electronic Business Group.The Top 10 Facebook Apps
. ''Electronic Business Group''.

See also

* Academia.edu
* LinkedIn

References

External links

*
{{Online social networking

Meta Platforms applications
Internet properties established in 2010
Companies based in San Francisco