5 ms·

Introducing Fowndr: A private network for startup founders (invites)

43 points by stulogy 16y ago

Dramatize 16y ago
Could be interesting. Looking forward to seeing it when it's live.
bvi 16y ago
Great job on the design (based on the screenshot). It looks very elegant. How are you going to differentiate between a "startup" and a "weekend project"?
- stulogy 16y ago
  Thanks. Well, I guess that will be up to the people handing out invites - it will be up to the community to decide 'who gets in', but the fundamental requirements would be that they are founders or co-founders of a Startup that is less than 3 years old and is actively committed to building a business. Thoughts welcome.
  - malandrew 16y ago
    I would err on the side of vigilance first like Forrst did. It's easier to let it be more open then to try to close it up.
jsavimbi 16y ago
I think I saw this on Quora the other day.
TamDenholm 16y ago
Got to say, i'm aware of Stu and followed one of his earlier startups, projectbubble, he did really well with it and developed it by listening to the users. I expect Fowndr to be successful as well.
weego 16y ago
It's all well and good having people invite people they know, but isn't the hardest part of starting out the problem of not knowing people? Are people starting out not your target group? If so, will active founders who are running their business really share that much interesting chatter rather than just links a la HN? Also if like-minded people invite like-minded people isn't there a massive groupthink effect?
- stulogy 16y ago
  I would imagine that founders already in the network would want to encourage young, new and ambitious founders by inviting them in to the network. There they would be able to share their startup with the community and learn a lot in the process.
  - natch 16y ago
    We already have HN for that, though it's less exclusive and cliquey, and, dare I say it, less ageist than what you are suggesting.
baberuth 16y ago
8:04am EST: Slight problem... Something is wrong with the database, please bear with us. Unable to connect to your database server using the provided settings.
- stulogy 16y ago
  Where are you getting this message? I'm not seeing it.
  - baberuth 16y ago
    stu, i got it when trying to click through the HN link. 8:07am: tried it again because i saw your response and it worked. the upside: nice tight 3 min window to check your apache logs?
  - stulogy 16y ago
    Might be the load. Had about a thousand visitations in 20 minutes.
bmcmanus 16y ago
Honest question -- what's the real utility of a founder network like this above, say, actively participating on HN regularly? Forrst is so useful because it's specialized. I don't see that (yet) here.
- raganwald 16y ago
  HN is growing, and with growth comes a dilution of focus. Inevitably there will be subsets of the community who feel their needs aren't being met on HN. For example, if HN has 99 employees for every one founder, what do you think will happen if you try to discuss how to set up options and vesting such that in a liquidity event, the employees are still bound to the company and won't quit when they discover they have new bosses? You aren't going to get the same conversation as if you just discuss the question with other founders. I'm not saying the HN discussion will be less valuable, but can we agree that some conversations will be different?
  - bmcmanus 16y ago
    "some conversations will be different?" ...and that's worth building an entirely new product and trying to move select people from HN to it?
    - raganwald 16y ago
      I have no idea if it's "worth it." What you see is the sweat of Stu's brow, not mine. All I can say is this: If you celebrate the idea of founding things, then you celebrate the idea of building entirely new things and finding out if it's worth it, and dealing with people who complain that the old thing is good enough. Also, I could be wrong about this, but I don't see people moving to it any more than people moved from HN to Facebook or vice versa. Different communities for different purposes.
- kwis 16y ago
  HN is a place for people who are interested in web startups not a place for founders. There's overlap, but it's simply not the same audience. Somebody who is actively spending their life trying to grow a business doesn't have time to "actively participate" in HN, because HN is a timesuck. It's largely filled of stories that have little or no impact for somebody who is actually on the ground, executing their business. None of this means that HN is a bad place. But active participation in this community is a bad idea for the entrepreneur whose target market is something other than startups.
mpclark 16y ago
Fowndr: Putting the 'own' into 'founder'? ;) Good luck, anyway.
cletus 16y ago
I hope, for your sakes, this isn't your business but just a side project. There are several reasons why I say this: 1. The name "fowndr" makes you look cheap. Why? Because the domain name was no doubt unregistered. Basically it looks like you went looking for a domain name that you could get for $10 for a year; 2. What defines a founder? As HN bears witness, anyone with a weekend to spare on a pet project can (and do) declare themselves a founder, some rightly, many not. But with the barrier to entry for starting an Internet business being practically zero, "founder" doesn't really mean all that much. 3. What value proposition are you providing founders? YC provides benefit by the connections, the social proofing and mentoring of PG & co and the brand, which has come to mean quite a lot. Quora seems to be the place to go for the Valley insiders to talk to each other. The motivation behind invite-only seems to be to create this air of exclusivity, like a private club. Creating that pedigree such that people will want to be a part of your exclusive club and derive some benefit from it is incredibly difficult. At this point I think it would take some serious names on it or behind it or some other similar form of momentum, which I just don't see.
- Dramatize 16y ago
  I think this article by Stu might explain his motivation behind the site a bit better: http://stugreen.com/blog/2011/01/running-a-startup-outside-the-valley http://stugreen.com/blog/2011/01/running-a-startup-outside-t... Being outside a major tech community myself, I can see the value of the site (if it's like Forrst).
- raganwald 16y ago
  The name "fowndr" makes you look cheap. Why? Because the domain name was no doubt unregistered. Basically it looks like you went looking for a domain name that you could get for $10 for a year; This reminds me of the old argument that you need to wear a suit when demo-ing your app. If you show up in khakis and a polo shirt, people might think you're too cheap to buy a suit. Sure, we know that the suit has nothing to do with your app or your business, but still we care about it. It's a little like being a peacock. No, these feathers don't help me catch more food, but carrying them around must prove that I'm the Alpha cock. Interesting in a way: It's easier and cheaper than ever to launch new businesses, so now that simply getting the code running no longer costs $1,000,000, we ask founders to spend their money on something else just to prove that they're spending money!
natch 16y ago
Building a tool that just enables further development of cliques seems not so great. Of course it's great for you, since you get to be in on all the cliques, one way or another, if not by membership, by having a birds-eye view of all the data. Personally cliques rub me the wrong way, not just because of jealousy, but also because open exchange with others outside your comfort zone leads to more opportunities.
- petercooper 16y ago
  It's only a problem when people confine themselves to their cliques. I'm in a few invite-only communities online but I don't define myself by my membership and I take part in so many other communities that I get the bigger picture and the "open exchange" you mention too. You really can have the best of both worlds. Some things benefit from being slightly locked down. For example, I'm a member of a paid marketing and SEO forum where people share ideas, tips, and observations that often takes months to hit the blogs (or never at all). While anyone can join, merely having that "curtain" encourages people to say and share things that they don't want coming up in Google.
asanwal 16y ago
The challenge with a group for startup founders is that it's a very heterogeneous group, and there is little to "qualify" members (I don't think invites will cut it) On the other hand, something like Forrst for developers and designers is for a group that is more likely to have some more commonality which is useful in creating a community. One thought is to do this vertically. So for me as an example, I'd love to connect with founders of B2B information services. Yes, that maybe too niche, but I have a lot more in common with those founders than a mobile gaming company founder. Look forward to seeing how this evolves. Good luck.
aysar 16y ago
I think it has potential, though not surprisingly quite a few sites have recently launched with similar objectives.

43 points by stulogy 16y ago

Could be interesting. Looking forward to seeing it when it's live.

bvi 16y ago

Great job on the design (based on the screenshot). It looks very elegant. How are you going to differentiate between a "startup" and a "weekend project"?

stulogy 16y ago
Thanks. Well, I guess that will be up to the people handing out invites - it will be up to the community to decide 'who gets in', but the fundamental requirements would be that they are founders or co-founders of a Startup that is less than 3 years old and is actively committed to building a business. Thoughts welcome.
- malandrew 16y ago
  I would err on the side of vigilance first like Forrst did. It's easier to let it be more open then to try to close it up.

jsavimbi 16y ago

I think I saw this on Quora the other day.

TamDenholm 16y ago

Got to say, i'm aware of Stu and followed one of his earlier startups, projectbubble, he did really well with it and developed it by listening to the users. I expect Fowndr to be successful as well.

weego 16y ago

It's all well and good having people invite people they know, but isn't the hardest part of starting out the problem of not knowing people? Are people starting out not your target group? If so, will active founders who are running their business really share that much interesting chatter rather than just links a la HN? Also if like-minded people invite like-minded people isn't there a massive groupthink effect?

stulogy 16y ago
I would imagine that founders already in the network would want to encourage young, new and ambitious founders by inviting them in to the network. There they would be able to share their startup with the community and learn a lot in the process.
- natch 16y ago
  We already have HN for that, though it's less exclusive and cliquey, and, dare I say it, less ageist than what you are suggesting.

baberuth 16y ago

8:04am EST: Slight problem... Something is wrong with the database, please bear with us. Unable to connect to your database server using the provided settings.

stulogy 16y ago
Where are you getting this message? I'm not seeing it.
- baberuth 16y ago
  stu, i got it when trying to click through the HN link. 8:07am: tried it again because i saw your response and it worked. the upside: nice tight 3 min window to check your apache logs?
- stulogy 16y ago
  Might be the load. Had about a thousand visitations in 20 minutes.

bmcmanus 16y ago

Honest question -- what's the real utility of a founder network like this above, say, actively participating on HN regularly? Forrst is so useful because it's specialized. I don't see that (yet) here.

raganwald 16y ago
HN is growing, and with growth comes a dilution of focus. Inevitably there will be subsets of the community who feel their needs aren't being met on HN. For example, if HN has 99 employees for every one founder, what do you think will happen if you try to discuss how to set up options and vesting such that in a liquidity event, the employees are still bound to the company and won't quit when they discover they have new bosses? You aren't going to get the same conversation as if you just discuss the question with other founders. I'm not saying the HN discussion will be less valuable, but can we agree that some conversations will be different?
- bmcmanus 16y ago
  "some conversations will be different?" ...and that's worth building an entirely new product and trying to move select people from HN to it?
  - raganwald 16y ago
    I have no idea if it's "worth it." What you see is the sweat of Stu's brow, not mine. All I can say is this: If you celebrate the idea of founding things, then you celebrate the idea of building entirely new things and finding out if it's worth it, and dealing with people who complain that the old thing is good enough. Also, I could be wrong about this, but I don't see people moving to it any more than people moved from HN to Facebook or vice versa. Different communities for different purposes.
kwis 16y ago
HN is a place for people who are interested in web startups not a place for founders. There's overlap, but it's simply not the same audience. Somebody who is actively spending their life trying to grow a business doesn't have time to "actively participate" in HN, because HN is a timesuck. It's largely filled of stories that have little or no impact for somebody who is actually on the ground, executing their business. None of this means that HN is a bad place. But active participation in this community is a bad idea for the entrepreneur whose target market is something other than startups.

mpclark 16y ago

Fowndr: Putting the 'own' into 'founder'? ;) Good luck, anyway.

cletus 16y ago

I hope, for your sakes, this isn't your business but just a side project. There are several reasons why I say this: 1. The name "fowndr" makes you look cheap. Why? Because the domain name was no doubt unregistered. Basically it looks like you went looking for a domain name that you could get for $10 for a year; 2. What defines a founder? As HN bears witness, anyone with a weekend to spare on a pet project can (and do) declare themselves a founder, some rightly, many not. But with the barrier to entry for starting an Internet business being practically zero, "founder" doesn't really mean all that much. 3. What value proposition are you providing founders? YC provides benefit by the connections, the social proofing and mentoring of PG & co and the brand, which has come to mean quite a lot. Quora seems to be the place to go for the Valley insiders to talk to each other. The motivation behind invite-only seems to be to create this air of exclusivity, like a private club. Creating that pedigree such that people will want to be a part of your exclusive club and derive some benefit from it is incredibly difficult. At this point I think it would take some serious names on it or behind it or some other similar form of momentum, which I just don't see.

Dramatize 16y ago
I think this article by Stu might explain his motivation behind the site a bit better: http://stugreen.com/blog/2011/01/running-a-startup-outside-the-valley http://stugreen.com/blog/2011/01/running-a-startup-outside-t... Being outside a major tech community myself, I can see the value of the site (if it's like Forrst).
raganwald 16y ago
The name "fowndr" makes you look cheap. Why? Because the domain name was no doubt unregistered. Basically it looks like you went looking for a domain name that you could get for $10 for a year; This reminds me of the old argument that you need to wear a suit when demo-ing your app. If you show up in khakis and a polo shirt, people might think you're too cheap to buy a suit. Sure, we know that the suit has nothing to do with your app or your business, but still we care about it. It's a little like being a peacock. No, these feathers don't help me catch more food, but carrying them around must prove that I'm the Alpha cock. Interesting in a way: It's easier and cheaper than ever to launch new businesses, so now that simply getting the code running no longer costs $1,000,000, we ask founders to spend their money on something else just to prove that they're spending money!

natch 16y ago

Building a tool that just enables further development of cliques seems not so great. Of course it's great for you, since you get to be in on all the cliques, one way or another, if not by membership, by having a birds-eye view of all the data. Personally cliques rub me the wrong way, not just because of jealousy, but also because open exchange with others outside your comfort zone leads to more opportunities.

petercooper 16y ago
It's only a problem when people confine themselves to their cliques. I'm in a few invite-only communities online but I don't define myself by my membership and I take part in so many other communities that I get the bigger picture and the "open exchange" you mention too. You really can have the best of both worlds. Some things benefit from being slightly locked down. For example, I'm a member of a paid marketing and SEO forum where people share ideas, tips, and observations that often takes months to hit the blogs (or never at all). While anyone can join, merely having that "curtain" encourages people to say and share things that they don't want coming up in Google.

asanwal 16y ago

The challenge with a group for startup founders is that it's a very heterogeneous group, and there is little to "qualify" members (I don't think invites will cut it) On the other hand, something like Forrst for developers and designers is for a group that is more likely to have some more commonality which is useful in creating a community. One thought is to do this vertically. So for me as an example, I'd love to connect with founders of B2B information services. Yes, that maybe too niche, but I have a lot more in common with those founders than a mobile gaming company founder. Look forward to seeing how this evolves. Good luck.

aysar 16y ago

I think it has potential, though not surprisingly quite a few sites have recently launched with similar objectives.