I got connected with Akshaya and Andrew as part of the Pear Accelerator this summer. They told me they wanted to take on LinkedIn. I'm impressed with what they have built this summer and how they have grown their community! Here is a note from @andrew_tan1 : Hey PH Community! Thanks for hunting us, Josh! After getting sent home from college due to COVID-19, Akshaya and I wanted to find ways to help our friends who were confused and struggling to find job opportunities. We started by matching students with industry mentors and putting out a collection of companies still hiring, but we quickly realized we needed to scale in order to help as many students as possible. That’s why we decided to build Ladder (formerly Remote Students), a professional community for students to find interesting opportunities, learn from peers, and make meaningful connections online. Sign up on ladder.to to receive our weekly newsletter of internship and full-time opportunities, events, and resources. You will also get priority access to our invite-only community platform for college students!

Hey PH Community! 👋 Thanks for hunting us, Josh -- we’ve loved having you as a mentor. When COVID-19 happened, Andrew and I were shocked by how the pandemic disproportionately affected young professionals. Without a deep network or years of experience, we were all sent home from our universities with little information or support on what this meant for our careers. We were hit with cancelled internships, rescinded new grad offers, and unanswered questions about how to approach career discovery and create authentic connections. As two students suddenly with a lot of free time on our hands, we got to work to help our peers. We started with a mentor matching service, manually pairing 500+ students with industry mentors in tech for 1-on-1 video calls, then launched a weekly newsletter for jobs & internships to 70,000 students. While working on these initiatives, we quickly realized that current professional platforms just didn’t work for our generation, even before COVID-19. With momentum on our side, we set out to build a better career growth platform for the next generation of leaders, thinkers, and creators. Built by students, for students.

Awesome job y’all!

Thanks @joshelman for hunting us! 😻 Introducing Ladder: the best place for the next generation to grow our careers, together. 🎉 ✨ Communities: From Software Engineering to Design to Product Management, communities on Ladder are filled with helpful resources, interesting discussions, and ways to connect with each other in meaningful ways. ✨ Jobs & Internships: We’ve curated thousands of job opportunities and recommend the ones we think you would be most interested in. ✨ Referrals Database: Hundreds of members on Ladder have offered to share referrals for the companies they work at. We believe strong communities are all about giving back and helping each other. ✨ Events: We host industry experts for Zoom Fireside Chats and AMAs so you can learn firsthand from those who have seen it all. Past guests include the Founder of Quizlet, the top Venture Capitalists, and the former Governor of Michigan. ✨ Ladder Chats (coming soon): An AI connector that pairs you with peers and mentors in the roles you’re interested in for 1:1 conversations. Check us out! ladder.to 👈

This is great!

Congrats! This is amazing and the Ladder community is phenomenal - I've learned of so many new opportunities via Ladder :) Excited for the future!

How does this differ from Jumpstart?

??? Looks like a smoke test, there is nothing there.

Great idea! Looks very promising!

Love the redesign guys❤️

Woohoo!! Great job y'all. Excited for your pivot.

I've been using Ladder for a couple of months now, and it's turned out to be invaluable in so many ways. I've found superb opportunities and met amazing people, some of whom have turned into friends. I've mentioned Ladder to nearly every student I've talked to, and I'll do so again - if you're a student, you've gotta be on Ladder.

I love this. I used to run something similar sharing opportunities and building a community here in India, would love to explore synergies. I am at hello@felixjosemon.com, let's chat?

Loving the rebrand! Continually impressed by how this team pushes their product to better serve their users.

Fantastic community – I'm in awe at what Akshaya and Andrew were able to create so quickly. I've been signing up as many students as I can, incredibly valuable product / community...

Awesome idea!

This is amazing! I love the community collaboration. Thank you for creating this!

This is neat! How does it differ specifically from elpha.com?

This is fantastic. Is this only for tech students or for all industries/interests? I agree regarding LinkedIn and how young people are disproportionately impacted. I’ll register and aim to add value further. I would love to be a mentor.

a better version of linkedin?? wow count me in