IntroNet
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
IntroNet was a professional-networking startup formed in late 2013 by Mike Krupit and Martin Babinec. Billed by the press as a LinkedIn-killer, it built tools — IntroNet Connector, Groups and Open Network — for making, tracking and managing professional introductions on the web and inside Gmail. The product found devoted users among super-connectors, but after two product iterations and running out of cash, the founders shut the servers down on January 6, 2017; the assets were later acquired by New York SaaS firm SAM.AI in 2018.
02 / IntroNet FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
IntroNet died the classic death: it never found product-market fit before the cash ran out. CEO Mike Krupit wrote a detailed postmortem admitting the market was too narrow — the product was loved by super-connectors like himself, but that audience could not sustain a company. They were solving a pain (LinkedIn sucks) rather than a real problem (I cannot find expertise), and the product demanded a behavior change users would not make. Without customer activation or a path to investor interest after two iterations, Krupit and Babinec shut it down rather than invest further.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Product or service closed
as of 6 Jan 2017 IntroNet Connector, Groups, and Open Network were shut down after founders stopped further investment; later 2018 residual IP sale to SAM.AI does not negate prior shutdown.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
A product your power users love can still have a market too narrow to build a company on
- 02
Solving a pain (LinkedIn sucks) is not the same as solving a problem (I cannot find expertise)
- 03
No product-market fit before the cash runs out is a math equation, in Krupit's own words
- 04
Shutting down after two iterations beats a third: the founders kept hunting for an asset buyer instead