Professional networking doesn’t need to be a buttoned up, hyper-formal event. Professional networking can be as easy as swiping right.

Our pairing algorithm is similar to that of eHarmony’s, but assesses both personal AND professional interests to suggest individuals that would be worthwhile to network with. From there finding the right opportunity, is as easy as:

Valor Connect can be used in a number of different contexts: general networking, at an event, with an alumni network, or as part of a professional organization. Our initial customers have been in the academia space -- that is, career centers on college campuses looking to enhance alumni networks and help college students jumpstart their career.

While it may seem like Valor Connect is going head-to-head against LinkedIn, we are not competitors. Valor Connect is a precursor to LinkedIn. LinkedIn is useful for storing your existing professional connections, but not so great for meeting new ones. The process is typically: meet someone in person at an event, through a connection, etc., and then connect on LinkedIn. The process on Valor is the opposite: meet on Valor, then connect in person at an event, conference, over the phone, email etc., and ultimately connect on LinkedIn. Meet on Valor, then connect on LinkedIn.

When you think about it, professional networking really isn't all that different from dating. Interests, personalities, and goals have to be aligned for a good partnership to work, no matter the nature of the relationship. In a world where Tinder makes dating easy and eHarmony makes it efficient, why not make professional networking equally as simple and efficient?

That’s our vision at Valor Connect, and we’re using that vision to help uncover opportunities and enrich professional lives by empowering people to easily build their career network.

The Valor Connect app is available for iOS and Android. We have nearly 2,000 users and have partnered with three university career centers/alumni offices across the country. We’ve been growing fast with minimal marketing, but now we’re ready to really kick Valor Connect into high gear. Join us!

At Valor Connect, we believe that people are your #1 asset®. It’s 100% true that who you know often matters more than what you know. That’s precisely why networking is so crucial in building a career.

But we also understand the inherent problem with this system: the traditional networking process is awkward, time-consuming and inefficient. People often fall short of their full potential because they can’t find the RIGHT people to connect with to locate the RIGHT opportunities for them. Networking at events is particularly challenging, and meeting interesting people is often a crapshoot, coming down to how many different people you can bump into in the hopes of finding the right contact. Our founder, someone who most would consider an elite networker, experienced this first-hand.

At a networking event in the fall of 2014, he found himself in a room with 250 people. Out of all those potential game-changing connections, he ended up running into five attorneys in a row. Completely nice people, but just not what he needed at the moment. The whole time he’s trying to create an escape plan to get out of this conversation and go talk to people he actually wants to chat with. Those conversations ended up being wasted time for both parties.

He knew that there were people in the room who could benefit him (and who he could help), but he couldn’t tell who they were just by looking at them. Later on that night, he thought back on this frustrating experience and went back to the drawing board, trying to figure out how to make the process of finding the right people to connect with in situations like that less… random. He started to draw connections to the dating industry, which has made it so easy to not only meet new people, but the RIGHT people.

Your next great contact is waiting. All you have to do is swipe right.

With the Valor Connect mobile app, connecting with inspirational people is only 5 steps away:

All the benefits, none of the awkwardness -- and it takes a few minutes a day. Networking simply works on Valor Connect.

Valor Connect builds private, custom-branded, in-app communities for all the schools,professional networking events, organizations, etc. we partner with. 

Through the administrator portal…

Event admins can see all the event attendees, LinkedIn data, and all the other usage data like amount of swipes per user, who is getting the most swipes, etc. Essentially, the event organizer can easily see how successful their event was.

Schools can track student/alumni engagement and pairings easier than ever before, in real-time, and with valuable stats.

Valor Connect has three primary use cases:

General networking for all users on the app. Our general Valor Connect community is available to everyone and can be a great resource for anyone from hiring managers looking for candidates, to young professionals looking for some advice on breaking into an industry, to professionals looking to explore other industries, and everything in-between.

Schools connecting students with alumni. Students know that alumni are a great source of opportunity, but they don’t naturally know how to network. Our private customized in-app communities present networking in a normal functioning way for them. For alumni, Valor Connect simply means less effort. They want to help students succeed, and we facilitate that process.

Events connecting people before they get to the event. Event organizers love Valor Connect because we provide an enhanced way for their attendees to make valuable connections before, during, and after events, while also obtaining potent metrics to really understand and know their attendees.  

Since launching in fall 2015, Valor Connect has gained nearly 2,000 users through a mostly grassroots effort. We’ve sold the platform to 3 schools (University of the Pacific, Northeastern Seminary, and Florida International University), and one event group so far, and are in talks with dozens more universities across the country. Valor Connect users aren’t just individual job seekers/professionals, but we also partner with university career centers too who want to track engagement in their alumni networks.

We have a number of updates coming to Valor Connect in the near future as well:

• Agendas & attendee list for events
• Premium features
• Attachments (resumes, cover letters, etc.)
• Direct calling through the app
• In-app sponsorship opportunities for event organizers to sell
• Web-based access to platform

Make sure to request access to the business plan tab of this profile for an inside look into Valor Connect!

Andy is a lifelong entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was 14 and grew it to include several employees over the next four years. He sold the company to a competitor before leaving for college at Bucknell where he studied management, economics, and philosophy.

During his senior year at Bucknell, Andy realized that many of his peers greatly struggled with networking. He also found himself looking for a better way to maintain and strengthen his important professional relationships. But these ideas were pushed to the sidelines when he graduated Cum Laude in 2011 and moved to New York City to work for Goldman Sachs.

After two years in finance, Andy resigned to focus full time on his company. Over the last three years, he’s worked with a number of experienced leaders, investors, and advisors to develop and refine his product management and leadership skills. A serial networker, he’s fascinated by the science behind networking and professional interactions.

Jake was a Senior Analyst at AGC Partners where he advised emerging growth companies on mergers and acquisitions and private placement financings within the software and digital media sectors. Jake has extensive experience working with growing technology companies in two major U.S. tech hubs, Silicon Valley and Boston. Jake graduated from Trinity College with a BS in Economics.

Drew leads our quality assurance testing team and oversees a portion of company operations. While in college, Drew founded and ran a tourist concierge company, Leland Concierge. He holds an MS and BS in Mechanical Engineering from Bucknell University.

Dave co-founded Insight Consulting Group in the early 1990s. Along with his colleagues, he built the company into a results driven provider of strategic and technical consulting services, focused primarily on the pharmaceutical industry. The firm was sold to a public company where Mr. Rossi stayed on as CTO and transitioned the day to day management of the business to the acquirer.

True to his entrepreneurial roots, Dave then co-founded Sapien Software, LLC, one of the first true enterprise class SaaS based global HRMS systems brought to market in the U.S.  Throughout his tenure with Sapien, Mr. Rossi has led the adoption and development of SaaS based technology delivery models for global software utilized in more than 80 countries. As co-CEO/CTO at Sapien he deployed a wide variety of successful global HRMS/HCM systems within several Fortune 500 companies.

• Andrew Banks: Managing Director at Talent Partners; former board of directors at Monster.com
• Mark Cirilli: Co-Founder & Partner of MissionPoint Capital
• David Dedman: President & CEO of Sumitomo Cryogenics
• John Ernsberger: Co-Founder of StellaService.com
• John Ioannou: President & CEO of JSI Associates; former IBM executive
• Tony Salvaggio: Founder of Computer Aid Inc.
• Eric Santanen: Professor of Information Systems at Bucknell University
• M. Benjamin Howe: CEO of AGC Partners