51 ms·
Show HN: I built a community for women entrepreneurs and makers
- mariedm 7y agoHello HN, today I’m presenting you Women Make. I use to struggle to find fellow women entrepreneurs so I created a group on Telegram. Since then it grew to 500+ members. I felt it was time to make a website to go with the group. Happens I learned Node JS last year, which I used with mongoDB and Telegram's API to build a forum. Members can interact with the website thanks to a bot. And here is the result! Let me know what you think, any feedback is welcome!
- anthilemoon 7y agoThis is one of my favourite communities on the Internet. Lots of thoughtful, stimulating conversations. Thanks so much Marie for building and managing Women Make.
- aabbcc1241 7y agoGood to know you found a case there people actually desire to join your community. I tried a few attempts to build platforms for some niche or relatively general communities but failed to reach critical mass. That turn into 'speaking with the air'. The platforms I built are not for profile, not even having any ads, just made with good mind but seems I didn't catch a real need.
- mariedm 7y agoBuilding a community takes a lot of time and energy, and even with that it doesn't necessarily works.
- tmaly 7y agoCongrats! I am curious, does having 500 people in a single channel present any challenges?
- mariedm 7y agoActually yes. More people and more activity means more moderation. And I think it's the time you realize if your foundations are strong enough. Moderation really is everything, and it's a lot of work to make people understand what are the values of the community, what is tolerated or not, etc. while making it welcoming. If you made that clear since the beginning, it's easier to handle later. And members might actually help you too, they become messengers, they also represent the community.
- syrusakbary 7y agoCongrats on the launch!
- gtirloni 7y agoThis is awesome! Congratulations and keep up the good work, this is much needed!
- umvi 7y agoThis may be a dumb question, but I'm assuming this is a women-only community?
- mariedm 7y agoIt's not a dumb question. I made Women Make open because I think a change is only possible together (making women and other underrepresented folks more visible). Which means everyone is welcome, including men, as long as they are here to empower women.
- newswasboring 7y agowhat would empowering women entail? Helping them to make stuff, answer there questions? So does that mean men are not allowed to get questions answered? Or is it about the community/morality guidelines? Because if its not an exclusively female forum, I don't understand it's purpose.
- mg794613 7y agoWhat I understood from it: We are still dealing with heavy inequalities today. To change this we need anybody wiling to change this.
- mariedm 7y agoExactly. We need to talk, to listen to each other, and more importantly to understand each other. I think it is very important. Women cannot “fix” this issue alone on their side, we need everyone involved.
- mariedm 7y agoA few examples of what it means: answering questions, listening, offering your help and advice. Men are allowed to ask questions as long as they are contributing to the community. That being said, Women Make is here to promote women, and on a moderation level, I will always make sure women are being put at the forefront.
- davidmott 7y agoGreat idea! Best of luck!
- _tkzm 7y agolol, fuck off
- dang 7y agoWe've banned this account.
- DarkCrusader2 7y agoWhy not delete the comment too, since it is completely unnecessary?
- umanwizard 7y agoHN doesn't delete comments, AFAIK (if you browse with showdead on you'll see far worse than this)
- DarkCrusader2 7y agoWow, I just tried it and had no idea. I can kind of understand now why there is so much hate towards the "orange site" on twitter and some other spaces.
- dang 7y agoThe HN community wouldn't like it (to put it mildly) if we deleted things based on what we consider unnecessary. They're a curious bunch who want to be able to see everything and decide for themselves. On the other hand, most users don't actually want to wade through the dreck; they just want the option. The solution is: we don't delete comments outright unless the author asks us to. The most we'll do is kill them, which means they get marked as [dead] and are visible to users with 'showdead' set to 'yes' in their profile.
- anon9001 7y ago> They're a curious bunch who want to be able to see everything and decide for themselves. That's why I turned showdead on, but I find it's also helpful to calibrate to the norms of the community. I'd recommend everyone at least be aware of the option and give it a try for a bit.
- theasteve 7y ago@mariedm awesome community, curious on what tech stack you used? back end and front end. Congrats, looking forward to hear about how it goes with this project.
- cercatrova 7y agoI like the site, it's quite fast. Seems to be similar to dev.to in speed and functionality.
- mariedm 7y agoThank you, but I think dev.to is built with ruby.
- mariedm 7y agoThank you, I used nodejs + mongodb for the back end and jquery for the front end.
- theasteve 7y agolove the feel of your site, great job. I think you would really enjoy this podcast https://mastersofscale.com/caterina-fake-build-a-more-human-internet/ https://mastersofscale.com/caterina-fake-build-a-more-human-... It talks about building community focus tech. I think you should take a look into it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pezo1919 7y agoCan you please elaborate how does emphasizing gender difference help women in business? Don't get me wrong I do believe it works, I am just curious about the psychology.
- mraudiobook_com 7y agoIt's sexism. By excluding one gender and elevating another. That's how it works
- mariedm 7y agoLike I said the first reason why I created Women Make is because I couldn’t find fellow women makers. There are several reasons for this: women are less visible in general, and also tend to less promote themselves. Gathering us is an opportunity to find allies, but also models, people from who you can inspire from and find the strength to do what you want to do. That being said, it doesn’t have to be exclusive. I am myself part of several communities, and most of them are not emphasizing on women. But I’m glad I have a place like Women Make for certain topics and to know I’m not alone in this.
- pezo1919 7y agoI see, thanks. "People from who you can inspire from" - do you mean you might have higher "basic level" of connection with the same sex? Or are there also topics you can get into? Seeing im downvoted up there: these are honest curious questions, I want to understand better how these social things work. And I'd be glad if I could understand more here, because unfortunately my previous attempts to understand similar social constructs failed (unfortunately I've been told multiple times by women that as a man something is not my business at all and I was not even let understand the nature of the relations.)
- ajiang 7y agoIf I had to guess, you're not being down voted for intellectual curiosity, but rather how you frame the question. There are many ways you could have framed the question, but the way you did sounds like you're challenging the premise of what OP is trying to do. Someone built something. If your first response is "Why did you build this thing?" or in your case "Please elaborate why you think building this thing helps?" it comes across as being intentionally and unnecessarily negative, even if perhaps your intent is not to do so. If you are actually curious, a few similar ways to frame the question: - How have you seen your work impact women? - What are the most meaningful ways this community has helped your users? All positive ways of framing the similar "I'm curious how or why this works" question.
- temptemptemp111 7y agoUnfortunate that the definition of "empower women" is help them do whatever they please, even if it is self destructive... Which is what we're seeing everywhere today.
- mraudiobook_com 7y agoSeems oddly sexiest, why? Obviously a MenMake version would be unacceptable but this is?
- zarathustreal 7y agoIt is of course sexist, but, much like other stereotypes in this age, it's deemed acceptable as a sort of punishment for what is considered to be the crime of having worked to accumulated opportunity. Eventually logic and reason will disappear and civilization will collapse, resetting all accounts of privilege. Don't try to fight the rising tide, the moon has its phases. Gather that which cannot be taken (knowledge) and do your best to pass it on to your progeny, they will be the ones ready to rise when the waters recede.
- trumbitta2 7y agoLet the mansplaining begin
- dang 7y agoPlease don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN. It only makes this place even worse.
- trumbitta2 7y agoYou're right, I just gut-reacted to the first comments.
- DoofusOfDeath 7y ago> It only makes this place EVEN worse. @dang, I believe you need a day off :) But seriously, just in case you're feeling a bit down about HN lately, I really appreciate the work you guys do to make this a good place for discussion. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Well done.
- amingilani 7y agoI just want to echo this as someone who's just asked a question about how this could be similar to MenMake ;) we can be really bad as a community but thank you for the great work you do, dang and sctb.
- dang 7y agoNot feeling down. "Even worse" is a sort of trope I use in such comments (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=2&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22even%20worse%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=2&prefix=false&qu...) because I have the feeling that it reduces friction a little bit. I think you're the first user who's ever commented on it!
- DoofusOfDeath 7y ago> I think you're the first user who's ever commented on it! Yeah, well, I'm kind of oblivious sometimes :) But I don't regret taking the time to thank y'all for the work you do, regardless. Rock on.
- frereubu 7y agoHonestly, some of the comments here (if you show dead ones) just prove the need for a community like this. @mariedm - congrats! Love the design. Edit: One suggestion - a personal peeve is when a site flashes up a "subscribe" modal when I've only been on the site for a few seconds. Not sure what the conversions are like on that, but personally I'd be more likely to do that if I'd had a chance to look around.
- mariedm 7y agoThank you. And you're right. I implemented this popup and wanted to change the timing because I also think it's too fast to appear. I just didn't take care of it yet.
- GuB-42 7y agoOoh, I hate these. Maybe I hate these even more than the ones that appear immediately. I don't know how most people react to these popups. I think there are stats since I guess that people who put these on their websites also put all sorts of trackers, but for me, it is often a signal to simply close the tab and never come back. The reason is that it completely breaks my focus. I am reading an article, browsing stuff, and find it interesting. Then the popup pops. Now, I am distracted and start to think. Is it that interesting? What am I doing here? Then tell myself I have better things to do than stay on a website with aggressive popups. And if the content really is good, I will just close the popup and continue reading. I mean, I am in the middle of a good article right now, I have better things to do than filling some form. Don't worry, if your content is so good that I want to subscribe, I will find your button, you don't need to shove it in my face.
- Igelau 7y agoI don't have the attention surplus to hunt down a "No thanks" or a tiny "X" that's been tucked away somewhere while I'm trying to read something. If I can't dismiss the modal by pressing ESC or clicking on the overlay, I've already stopped caring about the message and left.
- 7y ago
- blowski 7y agoWhat do you not get from, say, Hacker News or StackOverflow that you're trying to fill with WomenMake? Genuine question, not a snark.
- xeromal 7y agoI'll give you an example that I personally deal with. I have a Tesla Model S and I use the /r/teslamotors subreddit daily. Ever since the Model 3 came out, a HUGE majority of users are Model 3 owners and they drown out any specific discussion on the Model S or X. Any time I ask a question on the daily thread, I get answers from people who don't really know what they're talking about in regards to specifics of my car. I can't easily ask if anyone's had this issue with their S like mine because 1 out of every 100 user owns an S and all the Model 3 discussion drowns us out. Having a community specifically targeting a small sect of people can be a great thing. They feel like they'll get answers from people just like them.
- edm0nd 7y agobut isn't that exactly how reddit works? Model S owners need to populate something like /r/TeslaModelS and then your issues are solved.
- therealdrag0 7y agoSounds like the implication is HackerNews shouldn't be a website, it should just be a subreddit.
- x1hhhh 7y agoSo, I'm going to create "MenMake" and promote it like this (original below): "A few examples of what it means: answering questions, listening, offering your help and advice. Women are allowed to ask questions as long as they are contributing to the community. That being said, Men Make is here to promote men, and on a moderation level, I will always make sure men are being put at the forefront."
- towndrunk 7y agoI wish people would stop with throwing up dialogs/alerts/signups when I start to scroll. I can't believe people think this is a good idea.
- supernintendo 7y agoThank you for making this, what you’re doing is so important. I was wondering if your site is inclusive toward trans women? I didn’t see any mention of it on your About page so I thought I would ask. Looks great by the way and I’m excited to see it grow!
- mendelmaleh 7y agoWhy does it need to be mentioned? If they consider themselves women, isn't 'Women Make' enough?
- fwip 7y agoThat'd be nice, but there are some women-only spaces that are specifically hostile to trans women.
- self_awareness 7y agoCan you give an example?
- sieabahlpark 7y agoBattered women's shelters, but I agree with the ban.
- uwuhn 7y agoTori Amos fan forums.
- chasontherobot 7y agoTERFs
- fwip 7y agoThe Michigan Womyn's Music Festival is a well-known example.
- mariedm 7y ago
- sansnomme 7y agoLike Elpha but better?
- dorena 7y agoThat's exactly what I hope too... Do you have experience with both platforms? what do you like or don't like about them?
- mariedm 7y agoI think we are working on different ideas. Women Make is more focused on entrepreneurs and makers, whereas they are more into tech career advice (maybe like a LinkedIn for women). Also, Women Make is an indie project.
- dorena 7y agoI was a member there when they just got started and the idea back then was to make a HN for women and there were more women building stuff in the beginning, now the topics have drifted away from that. (Unfortunate, from my point of view, but maybe people like it more this way)
- bluegears 7y agoIt looks like Women Make also has some career summary content as well as women-in-tech trends and the like. All very valuable, but what makes it geared specifically toward entrepreneurs and makers? Is it meant to be advice about building a product?
- cocochanel 7y agoFrom the site guidelines, > Don’t mansplain, be respectful and remember to give the floor to women. That being said, all members are welcome to participate in all discussions... And keep in mind that the purpose of Women Make is to put women at the forefront. Presumably the site is primarily for women, may I suggest perhaps a better choice of words? Although I find it unfortunate that we have to create a separate community based on gender, I hope you succeed in creating a positive community for women.
- molteanu 7y ago> Although I find it unfortunate that we have to create a separate community based on gender. Agreed.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mariedm 7y agoI'm not English native so copywriting suggestions are more than welcome. How would you have said it?
- chance_state 7y agoBy avoiding pejorative, sexist words like "mansplaining".
- downerending 7y agoI heard this word used in a meeting just this week, and it was quite shocking. I almost just got up and walked out. It's sort of like calling someone a "deplorable"--if you want to get people on your side, it's not a word to use.
- LegitShady 7y agoI did walk out of a meeting where that was said and reported it to HR. The person was reprimanded officially. If you disagree with someone and blame it on their gender you may be a sexist.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- amingilani 7y agoThere's a dead comment at the bottom that I'm surprised is dead since it echoes the same thought I have. Seems oddly sexiest, why? Obviously a MenMake version would be unacceptable but this is? —mraudiobook_com I recognize the need to empower more women in general, especially coming from a country ranked 151 out of 153 countries on the Global Gender Gap Index Report 2020[0]. And I see that you've put a lot of hard work building this and it looks really good. That said, is building a community where one class of gender is prioritized over another healthy? How is it better than a MenMake? In my country, it's perfectly legal for employers to write "preference will be given to female [or male] candidates" or for businesses to create services specifically for a gender, like female drivers in ride-sharing services for female passengers. I find these to be well-meaning but ultimately sexist polices making it okay to treat people differently based on gender, which it already is here, sadly. I also recognize that this is your own community and you're free to do with it as you wish, so please don't interpret this comment as a demand or anything. I'm just trying to understand something better myself. [0]: See Pakistan, https://www.weforum.org/reports/gender-gap-2020-report-100-years-pay-equality https://www.weforum.org/reports/gender-gap-2020-report-100-y...
- root_axis 7y agoI'm not a woman, but I imagine that when you're a woman in a male dominated community it can create a lot of anxiety to participate in the community because women are often harassed or dismissed because of their gender or appearance. The harassers are almost always a small minority, but it only takes one persistent asshole to ruin your day and discourage you from participating. From what I can tell, the goal of this community is just to offer women a place to feel comfortable without being denigrated or receiving harassing or suggestive PMs.
- somehnguy 7y agoIn that case wouldn't it be a better solution to aggressively remove those who harass others about personal things rather than the topic at hand instead of making a site where women specifically are treated as a special/protected class?
- sosexist 7y agoSo sexist. Lol at you men defending this. Imagine the other way around. “Men welcome?” Then name it Everyone Make then.
- rhacker 7y agoYou're like the guy showing up with a white power t-shirt.
- ronsor 7y agoArguably, the people aren't upset that there is a female-oriented space, but rather that the same kind of male-oriented space would likely be seen as "problematic" or "hostile."
- whatshisface 7y agoWould anyone really want to join a male-oriented space? Most guys probably wish they could get girls to come to their D&D sessions...
- michaelt 7y agoHistorically, there have been all-male golf clubs, gentlemens' clubs† and working mens' clubs. So there's been demand there at some points in history. And I assume there are men-only gay bars and erectile-dysfunction support groups. † https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White%27s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White%27s not strip clubs.
- klipt 7y agoAnd didn't feminists call most of those men-only groups sexist and demand they be opened up to women?
- dvdhnt 7y agoI totally see this perspective. My hunch (no evidence) is that it was fine until people started using these groups for discussing business/politicking. So, basically the groups were corrupted. Once business or decision making starts to happen, the groups become exclusionary. That's my best guess.
- Proziam 7y agoUnfortunately, once enough people come together they almost universally decide to do something "productive." It's not uncommon for folks from the same church/school/club to go into business together, for example. The same is true for 'feminist' groups as well. Plenty of politics and business gets discussed and it's often deemed "politically incorrect" to criticize such things in the current climate. Personally, I am pro-groups of any kind. People should be free to associate in life or in business with others who share their views and values. However, I do wish that there wasn't such a negative view of groups/systems men create or join. Another commenter mentioned men's shelters, but that's just the tip of the iceberg on that particular issue.
- vsyu 7y agoCongrats! This is awesome.
- jellicle 7y agoGeneral advice for mariedm - be prepared to ban quite a lot of accounts at their first offense, think about IP bans, email verification, banning proxies, etc. If some of the various online communities of, um, hard to pick a term here that someone won't take offense to, but you probably know what sort of communities I'm talking about - if they take an interest in your site, you'll need heavy defense, and quick reactions, to avoid major disruption. Maybe all comments from newer accounts should go through moderation before being posted? Or have that as a switch that can be turned on when the attacks happen? Good luck.
- ralusek 7y agoI like the image previews/thumbnails that appear in the threads from the actual site. I assume you're rendering/screenshotting the site for mobile/desktop in order to generate the previews. Is there a particular tool you're using/that you'd recommend? Headless Chrome, PhantomJS, NightmareJS? Do you just wait an arbitrary amount of time to assume the necessary visuals have loaded/rendered, or is there a feedback mechanism to indicate when it's ready to be captured?
- mariedm 7y agoThank you, I'm using webshot-node (which relies on PhantomJS) but I might actually change. It doesn't always work well. There are different options (like waiting for the website to respond, or waiting for a specific amount of time), but even by tweaking those parameters it's not always reliable. I might give a try to capture-website soon.
- ralusek 7y agoWill check those out, thanks.
- jpxw 7y agoCan you define the word woman?
- Infinitesimus 7y agoAssuming you're not being snarky, I think it generally refers to people who identify/present as women for this site (I defer to the creator tho) Obviously it's tricky now that we are coming to terms with gender fluidity but as the population of non-binary/gender fluid people grows, there will be spaces created to address related challenges unique to the group.
- robertfrost 7y agoIt's called a kitchen
- celticmusic 7y agoIn case you or anyone else is not aware, there's the FEA (Female Entrepreneur Association). https://femaleentrepreneurassociation.com/ https://femaleentrepreneurassociation.com/
- jhow15 7y agoFantastic Marie! The website is very sleek + nice, and the community itself looks awesome.
- goblin89 7y agoGender-segregated communities seem like a mixed bag. On one hand, like the single-sex schools of yore, they may provide an opportunity for disadvantaged who can’t access “mainstream” communities. On the other hand, their existence appears contrary to the general inclusivity trend, and if “mainstream” communities as a result acquire an excuse to be implicitly pro-male (since there are female communities, and explicitly male communities are considered unacceptable) then it must suck for those who do not strongly identify with either female or male gender. It is hard to admit that our society really is still at a stage where gender exclusivity is necessary—but, given the number of female-only communities, it must be the case.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- throwaway91733 7y agoVCs hit on women, and as a rule also do not give women money - the numbers quoted in this article are 2.2%: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/change-harassment-silicon-valley-change-law/597373/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/change-har... I will never try to get VC funding because it's just not worth the time investment for those odds. Therefore I welcome communities for women entrepreneurs because we unfortunately on average must have different game plans compared to men. We also have to deal with different BS, such as employees hitting on us. Fortunately this has not happened with me with any customers yet. I put forth effort to avoid that.
- RangerScience 7y ago> Happens I learned Node JS last year Neat! Have you ever heard of curried functions? I only recently started using them in JS, and they've completely (and positively) revolutionized how I write Javascript (both backend and front).
- RangerScience 7y agoWhat's with the downvotes?
- jraph 7y agoI didn't downvote, but your comment seems a bit off-topic (presenting a random js feature in a thread that is not really about this, and there is nothing really extraordinary in the fact that the OP learned NodeJS last year - good for her!). See also steerpike's comment with which I agree. Your intent may have been sharing this feature that makes you enthousiastic so I can understand that you may find the downvotes frustrating. Don't lose your enthousiasm though, it's a great thing. You may want to review the HN guidelines, they discourage discussing downvotes.
- RangerScience 7y agoThanks, that's exactly the situation. Thank you for the support, as well. I had forgotten HN discourages it!
- steerpike 7y agoIn case you're genuinely curious, I suspect you're being downvoted because your parent comment comes off as incredibly gatekeepery[0]. It's also illustrative of a very common occurrence in tech circles where the moment a woman mentions competence in a certain technology the first response of men around her is to throw technical questions at her in a way they simply don't in instances where a man mentions the same thing. [0]https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gatekeeping https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gatekeeping
- 7y ago
- maps7 7y agoIn my city I see women conferences, in my work I see women events and women supporting each other and on the internet I see women communities. I am a man but don't think of myself as a man more than as a person. This thought process is a privilege of course but I do end up feeling left out.
- pell 7y agoVery nice project, I hope you can drive up engagement some more. It will be great to see more discussions and projects on there.
- matt_the_bass 7y agoThis looks great! I’m not a woman but my daughter will be eventually and she already likes to make. Any reason why you chose to build your own vs use existing infrastructure (ie your own subreddit you moderate, closed facebook group, etc)? I’m not intending to sound critiquing, I’m interested in learning more about your insight.
- mariedm 7y agoI started with a Telegram group so I was relying on an existing infrastructure at first. Then when the community got bigger, I thought we needed a website, as an extension of our private group. I don't think it would have make a lot of sense to create a new group on another platform like Facebook or Reddit (since we were already using one).
- matt_the_bass 7y agoGood points! Thanks for the reply.
- Uptrenda 7y agoNice idea OP, and the design seems very friendly and welcoming. I would only say one thing (and IDK how this is going to go down): but IMO, it makes more sense to me to discourage men from posting completely - and I say that as a guy myself. Why am I saying this? Because there's already plenty of places that are primarily filled with / run by / used by men. I think if you want to have a female only site then no one should really get offended by this. I do think females probably have many different experiences than men in the tech space and having a place where it's more normalized to share them is a good idea. Without rules for a community like this it will just get diluted and you'll end up with Hacker News 2.0. I've seen communities like this work really well in the past but only with good moderation and clear rules. Having a place like this is also a great way to understand people a little better - i.e. listening instead of speaking (if you're not a female.) just my thoughts. let them downboats flow~
- suifbwish 7y agoIf you make a site that says individuals not allowed to post in it because of the group they were born into, there are many who are going to make it their hobby to cause problems for you. After reading all of the well thought out comments above, it is becoming more clear that special group only spaces exist primarily because there are those who don’t like to be challenged or be required to explain themselves in order to feel special. Unfortunately that’s not how life works.
- joegahona 7y agoI have been wondering why "women" is used as an adjective so much these days -- "women entrepreneurs" -- rather than the word "female." "Women" as an adjective has a very 1950s, almost Ralph Kramden-type vibe to it. "Women drivers" and the like. We wouldn't say "men nurses."
- brockwhittaker 7y agoI think people tend to think of "female" as a bit clinical of a term.
- llampx 7y agoWomen are women, men are males.