What exactly is revenue?

What is the process to approach a public company to propose a revenue-sharing service on an idea that I have?

• I have a kick-ass idea that would generate significant revenue if LinkedIn would agree to cooperate with me on it. So far, my strategy would be: Develop the web-site showing-off the idea (making it professional and scale it to realistic volume). This may take up to 3 months. Get in touch with a contact of mine in California and offer him a 6 month deal for 10% of the revenue related to any deal signed during that period. Through my contact, get LinkedIn to sign a NDA Present the concept and offer a 50%-50% revenue sharing with them. I am thinking the kind of revenue behind the idea could generate at least $2/user/year for about 5% of LinkedIn users. There is also a potential to generate revenue from businesses. Since LinkedIn has 259 million users, we are looking at about $2.5M/year. These numbers are conservative. How do I make sure LinkedIn do not run with my idea?

• Answer:

  Very difficult indeed. I doubt they would be interested in such opportunities where revenues are deemed to be too low from their perspective. Could you not set this service up without their buy-in? If it's successful, then it will create an acquiring opportunity for them. In the early days, I contacted Linkedin via Reid Hoffman to discuss a partnership for edocr, just after Slideshare was allowed in. We could not get in. Fellow Webmission08 company Huddle did managed to get in, but for whatever the reason, I do not think the relationship was effective. I believe it took Slideshare a significant effort to get in, which at the end resulted in their exit.