Clockout - Network Socially

I will preface that I was "approved," so I’m not just bitter. I downloaded this app because I thought maybe there'd be some kind of fun IQ test I could try to "win," but evidently "intelligence" is simply determined by whether you went to a highly ranked school. No quiz at all! There were only like 8 options for professions and none of them was remotely related to what I do (design), nothing remotely creative at all. There was also a category where you choose hobbies and you were just supposed to select a standardized test. I suppose you're just supposed to select the one that you have taken, but I don't think you were able to choose more than one and I'm not sure why a standardized test would be considered a hobby. There wasn't a way to indicate your score or anything so I guess you're just showing off the fact that you've taken the LSAT or something? The ad I saw said it filtered only "smart people." Inherently that's already problematic, but I signed up out of curiosity and to see if I'd make the cut. The description once you're inside the app "meet ambitious people," is much more accurate, because clearly this is catered to corporate yuppies and finance bros. I suppose the notion of choosing an app that "filters only smart people" should already be an indicator that it will be full of obnoxious yuppies, but warning if you are at all interesting or creative or intellectual, or believe intelligent people could have gone to city college(!), this probably isn't the app for you... also you are not able to proceed with creating a profile unless you sync all of your contacts...

I don’t believe at all they only accept 10% of applicants given the people I’ve seen on it and the fact that to even launch your account, you have to refer 4 people who can skip the “line”. They make this big deal about your profile standing out, so imagine my surprise when many of the people in my field who also “stood out” are still in school or very entry level positions. I haven’t come across a single profile so far that I’ve thought “wow, I really want to connect with this person”. I do fully believe in helping the next generation of workers up, people did it for me, but if I’m going to essentially be a mentor in my 30s, why am I paying a $100 fee to do it? I actually really do enjoy the mentor type role, but that’s not the crowd that is promoted as this app serving. The events hosted are similar to those I get invited to on LinkedIn already (and the LinkedIn ones don’t come with a cancellation fee if something comes up), so I’m struggling to justify the cost at all. I cancelled before my free trial was even up. I think it is good in theory, but it has a long way to go in practice to meet the expectations it markets itself to and justify the cost.

Clockout is a great concept and platform to leverage meeting liked minded individuals and connecting with professionals. It allows you to blend the professional and humanity in us. I love the ability to join and create clubs that enable further connectivity and belonging - through conversation and meetups. I believe there is an opportunity area is to leverage the platform to create more network effects and better engagement. Perhaps developing a channel within the app for sharing content to learn from, and/or creating a weekly podcast sessions that can allow connectivity, belonging and learning across varied topics. You can also create a process to preapprove or allow content sharing or highlights from meetups, to further drive more engagement and attendance. Developing more infrastructure will help increase membership and its value add, and perhaps create varied subscription opportunities based on willingness to pay models. Keep up the great work.