Not a smaller LinkedIn. A different job.

The short version

LinkedIn is where your professional record lives and where your industry talks to itself. It is open-ended by design: anyone can be approached, the profile is a CV, and the feed is the product. It is very good at being that, and nothing here is an argument against using it.

The Gantry is scoped to a room. It exists for the fortnight either side of an event you are going to: who is going, which of them is worth your evening, and the small number of conversations you can realistically start. Then it gets out of the way.

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

Connections, not leads

The distinction sounds like semantics and it decides the whole design. A lead is a row you captured and will work through a sequence. A connection is a person you will still know in two years.

So The Gantry has no lead export and no bulk outreach. A nudge names its intent before it says a word, so the person receiving it knows what they are accepting. Introductions are logged only when the other side confirms them, which means the record is of things that actually happened rather than things that were sent. Your skips are private and stay that way.

Why the cap

A limit on how many people you can approach is unusual enough to look like a pricing trick, so it is worth saying plainly what it is for. If everyone in a room can message everyone else, the room becomes a volume exercise and the messages stop being read. A handful of asks per event means each one is considered, and being on the receiving end of one is not an imposition.

It is 2 per event on the free tier, 10 as a Premium Member, one per person per event, and declining is easy. Nobody is embarrassed and nobody gets a second attempt.

What a profile is for here

A CV tells you where somebody has been. It is a poor guide to whether a conversation is worth having tonight. The Gantry leads with what someone is working on right now and the topics they will happily be asked about, which is the information you would actually want thirty seconds before walking up to them.

That is also what makes the delegate list worth anything. A printed list gives you a name, a company and a title for everyone in the room. The Gantry gives you the same list with something on it, which is the thing people pay for.

Use both

This is not an either or, and pretending otherwise would be silly. Keep your record and your industry reading where they already are. Use The Gantry for the specific job of walking into a room already knowing who you are there to meet, and keeping the two or three relationships that come out of it.

Common questions

Is The Gantry a LinkedIn alternative?

It does a different job. LinkedIn is a professional network with a public feed, a profile that serves as a CV, and a reach that is effectively everybody. The Gantry has no feed and is scoped to events you are actually attending, with a capped number of people you can approach at each one. Most people who use The Gantry also use LinkedIn.

Why does The Gantry have no feed?

Because a feed changes what the product is for. Once there is something to scroll and something to perform for, the incentive shifts from meeting people to being seen. The Gantry wants about ten minutes of your attention, twice, around an event you were going to anyway.

What does The Gantry cost?

Event owners pay nothing. Attendees pay £15 a month inc VAT for Premium Membership, and the free tier is genuinely usable: 30% of the Rooms, 30% of any room you join and 2 nudges per event.

Next: how this differs from a conference app, or what each platform in this market publishes about its pricing.