I Spent 20 Years Learning How to Connect People. This Week, 130 Pioneers Helped Me Break Everything.

There’s a moment every founder dreads.

It’s not the sleepless nights or the 3 AM doubt. It’s the moment you open the doors and let real people into something you’ve poured your soul into—knowing it’s not perfect. Knowing it will break.

This week, I lived that moment. And it was the most exhilarating experience of my life.

Twenty Years in the Making

Before I tell you about this week’s beautiful chaos, I need to take you back.

Twenty years ago, I launched AffiliateShowcase.com. It became my first site to break into the top 1,000 websites globally.

I didn’t fully understand what I’d built. I just knew one thing: people desperately wanted to connect with other people. And if you could be the bridge between two minds that should meet, magic happened.

That insight led to jvAlert.com, which hit #362 globally on day one—not in some niche category, but among all websites on the internet. Then came Tobri.com, where I first began exploring how to visualize networks. It cracked the top 3,000 sites while still in beta. Millions of connections made.

But here’s what haunted me through all of it:

I could bring people together. But I couldn’t help them see their network.

You have connections you’ve built over years, maybe decades. Friends who know friends. Former colleagues at companies where you need introductions. But can you visualize who’s connected to whom? Can you discover the hidden pathways to opportunities you’re seeking?

Of course not. Every networking platform shows you the same thing: an endless, scrollable list. Not connected. Just… listed.

I’ve spent twenty years knowing there had to be a better way.

The Problem Nobody’s Solving

LinkedIn has over a billion users and generated $16 billion last year. By any metric, it’s successful.

But ask professionals about their experience and you’ll hear the same frustrations: overwhelming spam, algorithms that reward engagement over value, and generic connection requests that have increased 300% since 2020.

Here’s the deeper problem:

LinkedIn shows you who you know. It doesn’t show you how you’re connected.

Your network isn’t a list. It’s a living graph of relationships with structure, pathways, and hidden clusters of influence you don’t know exist.

Somewhere in your network right now, there’s a chain of introductions that could change your career. A connection-of-a-connection hiring for your dream role. A cluster of professionals who share your values.

But you can’t see any of it.

Until now.

What We’re Building

ConnectLab.live combines two decades of community building, modern AI, and graph visualization that lets you literally see your professional relationships.

Instead of scrolling lists, you explore your network as an interactive visualization. Nodes represent people, groups, and objects. Lines represent connections. Patterns emerge that were always there but never visible.

You discover your former colleague is connected to the investor you’ve been trying to reach—through a mutual friend you’d forgotten.

You see three people in your network all work at a company you’re researching, giving you multiple warm introduction paths.

You identify clusters of professionals in your niche that LinkedIn’s algorithm never showed you.

You stop managing a contact list. You start navigating a living network.

Every person, group, and object gets an AI-generated profile that builds SEO-optimized presence across the internet. Connection categories go beyond “friend” or “follower”—business, family, fan, mentor-mentee. The full complexity of human relationships, finally captured.

The Alpha Launch: Beautiful Chaos

Let me tell you about my week.

Wednesday: We opened doors to 130 alpha members—free and Pro subscribers with real networks and real expectations.

Thursday: More bugs than I knew existed.

Friday: Over a dozen production updates. In a single day. My documentation library hit 1,028 files—some over 200 pages—and I accepted that keeping them current was impossible because everything changed by the hour.

Here’s what nobody tells you about launching:

Bugs are proof of progress.

Every bug meant someone was actually using the platform. Someone was pushing buttons I’d barely tested. Someone cared enough to report what wasn’t working.

One user found an edge case that only occurred with exactly 47 connections of a specific type. Another discovered a performance issue when zooming into particular node clusters. Each report was a gift. Each fix made us better.

This is what building something real looks like. Messy. Humbling. Exhausting.

And absolutely magical.

The Window That Won’t Stay Open

Right now, ConnectLab.live has 130 members. Small. Intimate. Manageable.

You can still claim your preferred username. Still form the first groups in your industry. Still establish yourself as a founding member.

But that window is closing.

Think about being among LinkedIn’s first 1,000 members. Or forming the first Facebook group in your industry. Early movers had one thing in common: they recognized opportunity before it was obvious.

Right now, joining ConnectLab.live isn’t obvious. We’re in alpha. We have bugs. The experience is “bleeding edge” in the truest sense.

But here’s the truth about waiting for things to be “ready”:

By the time something is obviously ready, the opportunity has passed. The usernames are taken. The influential groups belong to someone else.

Perfect timing doesn’t exist—only early timing and late timing.

Who Should Join Right Now

Strategic Connectors: You understand your network is your net worth. You’ve built relationships intentionally but always felt like you’re managing them blindfolded. ConnectLab.live gives you literal vision.

Network Architects: You’re responsible for relationships at an organizational level—business development, partnerships, team leadership. You need relationship intelligence that’s never existed before.

Early Adopters: You’re not intimidated by “alpha.” You’ve been early to platforms before and seen how first-movers gain advantages that can never be replicated. You understand the bugs are the price of admission.

Why I’m Really Building This

I could give you the business case. AI-powered professional networking is projected to exceed $200 billion by 2030. Graph technology is exploding. The timing is perfect.

But that’s not why.

I’ve spent twenty years watching brilliant professionals miss opportunities because they couldn’t see the pathways in their own networks.

We have more “connections” than any generation in history. And we’ve never been worse at actually using them.

That’s not a technology problem. It’s a visibility problem. ConnectLab.live solves it—not by adding features to the same broken paradigm, but by fundamentally changing how you perceive your network.

This is my biggest project. My most important project. The culmination of everything I’ve learned about bringing people together.

And it’s finally real.

The Invitation

Join the ConnectLab.live alpha today.

You’ll get immediate access—bugs and all. You’ll become part of our pioneer community. You’ll have direct influence on what gets built. You’ll claim your presence before the rush.

There’s a free tier to explore. There’s Pro at $39/month for the full experience.

Twenty years ago, I started helping people connect online. AffiliateShowcase broke the top 1,000. jvAlert hit #362. Tobri let me first explore visualizing networks—and hit the top 3,000 while still in beta.

This week, 130 pioneers stepped into something new.

Will you be next?

https://ConnectLab.live

All the best,

Ken McArthur

Best-Selling Author and Producer

KenMcArthur.com
ConnectLab.live
The Impact Factor Movie

Questions about the alpha? Drop them in the comments or connect with me directly. I’m personally responding to everyone interested in this journey.

#ProfessionalNetworking #StartupLife #NetworkVisualization #Entrepreneurship #FounderJourney #EarlyAdopters