WEEDLE, THE latest venture from serial entrepreneur Iain McDonald, has broken cover this week and is now open for business.

As reported on these pages last October, Weedle is a website that allows you to find people with specific skills based on recommendations from people you know. The company launched with wine and nibbles at its Dublin offices on Wednesday night.

Mr McDonald’s previous venture, Perlico, successfully carved out a niche reselling Eircom services and was acquired by Vodafone in 2007, with Mr McDonald pocketing €12 million for his 20 per cent stake.

Records at the Companies Office show he is reassembling some of the Perlico team for Weedle. The other directors are seasoned technology entrepreneur Jim Mountjoy, the Euristix founder who now sits on the board of Science Foundation Ireland; and Malcolm McDonald, Iain’s father.

Weedle didn’t give too much of the business model away at the launch, other than to say it would sell advertising on the site. If it’s going to do that successfully, it’s going to have to scale up quickly and attract a large user base.

This week’s soft launch attracted a lot of chatter online – not all good – and the site already has a lot of profiles. Entering the crowded social networking space dominated by Facebook requires courage. Mr McDonald’s track record with Perlico suggests he has the guts for a fight.