WGYU is a social network with a mission: matching up young people with mentors who can help develop and guide their careers. Based in London, and set up by Alun Baker in October 2008 with his own money, the site employs two full-timers and 14 contractors.
After three months in beta with 650 users the site is now open to all. Destination? 50 million users, says Baker. So do we need another social network, and can WYGU create enough of an incentive to drag young people away from Facebook?
• What's your pitch?
"WYGU - When You Grow Up - is the Facebook for careers. We provide a profile matching tool to help people understand what they would be good at, and then a mentoring platform to connect with people who have 'been there, done that'.
"We have built a sophisticated psychometric engine to give you a career match percentage – so does your perfect job match your skills and personality? This utilises our WYGUpedia, the largest career wiki on the web, which describes more than 1,000 job roles as well as all university courses and the fast-growing companies information.
"When you've completed your profile, you can then follow, like Twitter, an institution, company, or individual and request a mentor."
• How do you make money?
"WYGU is free for individuals and schools. We have a unique range of revenue models including; highly targeted advertising, corporate subscriptions, corporate mentoring platforms and surveys developed to match education supply with workplace demand."
• How are you surviving the downturn?
"The increase in university fees and the record number of people unable to get university place this year has been a real wake-up call. In a way, this benefits us as it will focus attention on the importance of the right careers guidance but the liquidity side of the market means that we will all have to work harder to raise institutional funding."
• What's your background?
"I am from Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales and read economics at Swansea University. I have worked in IT for 25 years, of late running the European territory for early stage US software companies, and have sat on the board of two International IT infrastructure companies. The latest is Citihub based in London, New York and the Middle and Far East."
• What makes your business unique?
"WYGU is the first social network with the purpose, knowledge and flexibility to make a focused difference on how we find and develop our careers in the UK. We have trademarked the term PSR (Personal Social Responsibility) because we believe that people want to give something back. WYGU gives them that opportunity. We have built a league table system to show who is helping the most – it's fun but with a real purpose."
• Who in the tech business inspires you?
"Steve Jobs of Apple - a game-changer with great concepts, design and products."
• What's your biggest challenge?
"Funding, so that we can get youngsters on the site deliver results and expand the service globally and quickly."
• What's the most important web tool that you use each day?
"I am a fan of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – they're all increasingly valuable for engagement. Microsoft Entourage on my Apple and iPhone make the difference in my daily work."
• Name your closest competitors
"WYGU wants to be for careers what Facebook is for social engagement and games, a platform that many of our perceived competitors can utilise. Our competitors are those we compete with for online time, particularly LinkedIn and Facebook."
• Where do you want the company to be in five years?
"I'd want 50 million WYGU users globally and to be seen as the company that transformed the whole culture of careers advice and development. In the process, I hope we will have massively improved the chances of young people - helping them to find the guidance, inspiration and the jobs that they are best suited to."
• Sell to Google, or be bigger than Google?
"What a wonderful dilemma..."