Venture Hacks Branches Out From Blogging, Launches Recommendations System

Venture Hacks, a blog dedicated to helping entrepreneurs navigate the world of venture capital, has launched a new social network of sorts around the idea of professional recommendations.

Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists can use the sub-site, simply called Recommended, to track who and what others think highly of, and to indicate their own affinities as well.

It’s structured much like Twitter – users set up profiles and subscribe to each other, then review recommendations made by others and make recommendations of their own.

Recommendations can be made for both companies and people themselves (entrepreneurs or venture capitalists). Membership is currently by invitation only, although you can request an account if you think you travel in the right circles. Companies, venture capital firms, and people all have profiles where you can find information about track records, teams, outside resources, and more.

The overall idea behind Recommended is to lubricate the process by which members of the startup community network and determine who and what is popular.

While the current set of features is fairly limited, co-founder Babak Nivi says that Venture Hacks has plans to create a more sophisticated online ecosystem for the venture capital community. His co-founder is Naval Ravikant, who runs The Hit Forge and co-founded Epinions.