I've recently launched Walker, (https://callwalker.net) a connection assistant for students @ business schools. Currently invite/referral-only to ensure the quality of connections. The bill would also be pretty high if it wasn't.

I've been reaching out to college students at business schools in my network to see if they'd be interested in trying it out. ~20% respond, even less actually use it.

My problem - how do you get people to join a networking app with no network on it?

It seems to be a pretty common problem among marketplace-like startups. ~A year ago, I launched a parking marketplace app that did pretty poorly. I'd say the main issue was trying to find renters on an app with no users & vice versa. Could never convince either party to use the app.

I think Walker is a pretty cool product. The feedback from initial users is the best of anything I've launched so far. After a decent-sized network of high-quality contacts, I'm sure growth will be much more sustainable. Just not sure how to get early students interested in joining.

Any thoughts or experience with this? Could social media be the move?