Allan Margate, co-founder, started the network on the idea that a community can help you find new customers or earn you extra money. He notes how, on the one hand, sales people waste a lot of time on cold calls, and, on the other, people have all sorts of leads that aren't valuable to them but are valuable to a particular sales person.
"We like to think of this of Linkedin meets Craig's List," Margate said.
Sales people can list the information they're looking for. A lot of people might be able to supply a lead at a particular time, but they may not know the sales person is looking for that lead. They may know, for instance, that someone's car broke down and the friend will need to buy a new car soon. For a referral fee, people can offer their leads. An electrician might want to do cross referrals with a plumber.
"All of us have this knowledge about people who are looking for something in a certain time window," Margate said. That's when the lead is valuable."
The matchmaking servcie could work for all sorts of business purposes. But right now the company will focus on how to generate sales leads for business people.
Margate, a CPA who created another site dubbed Wage Exchange, started the Pleasant Hill, Calif.-based business a year ago with co-founder Ben Thomas. They have bootstrapped the whole effort. Competitors include a variety of small sites: SalesConx.com, Myndnet.com, FaceContact.com, and Inquisix.com.
LeadVine is free for now and is intended for just about everyone. Others limit their efforst to business professionals or charge a percentage of a negotiated referral fee. Nobody has much of an audience at the moment, according to Compete.com. Margate said he will adopt a business model later, after the free service gains traction.