4 ms·

A weekly assemblage of startup founders in Palo Alto

52 points by mlchild 13y ago

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
You get my vote simply for the domain name. Perfect - an elevator pitch in a URL, with self-selection filter built in.
jyothi 13y ago
This is a great initiative. But it might need way more customization and polishing and set rules before it can help founders with problems at hand or direction or anything that matters. Good things where even VC meetings can't help: 1. Founders have better on the ground idea on petty things but important in a way and tedious to solve. eg. food in office or affordable monitors that are great, a specific case of an employee etc 2. Founders can relate to problems, help solve or collaborate in solving together. eg. technical issue in infrastructure or log processing say. 3. Boosts morale and can provide some light even after a week of bad sales or VC meetings. Some can even make you see the truth or accept it if the situation is truly negative 4. Business opportunities - VCs most always connect startups to pilot with portfolio companies and other startups. This can bring early clients and introductions However I see some critical issues with this model: 1. People need many sittings to understand the product landscape, persona of the founder or the team to provide relevant suggestions or advise - which means either known people have to meet or it needs the same set of people to meet again and again 2. Moderation can be an issue. With known friends who are founders it is easy to converse & open up on issues - but with a random group it might become chaotic or a silent dinner. 3. The moment the meeting is unpredictable (not consistent week on week) in terms of value the zeal to attend would fade over time. 4. Given the unknown value of such a meeting you do not have a measure to value this time against a release you planned to do or an interview or even some mundane task at hand which has to be finished. I am a startup founder in India. Given we lack the ecosystem even when VC/angels are involved it is only founder-networks to bank on here. These meet-ups have worked well only with founders who are friends/ex-colleagues.
- dannowatts 13y ago
  i think you may be missing the rather casual, light-heartedness of what they're doing and instead you're taking it far too serious. good thoughts for a discussion about seriousness, but maybe not applicable for this specifically.
EdJiang 13y ago
I completely thought this was a reference to http://incubatorincubator.com/ http://incubatorincubator.com/ - one of their joke Incubators was "YNotCombinator". On a more serious note, how is this different to something like http://www.nreduce.com/ http://www.nreduce.com/ ?
- jacquesc 13y ago
  nReduce had it's in person meetings last summer. Since then it's morphed into more of an online collaborative community. I'd love to see weekly dinners happen again under a different group, as they were pretty valuable when we did them.
sneak 13y ago
It seems tacky to engage in such blatant logo use. (I understand that parody is fair use— I don't believe in copyright anyway. I just think that it's lame that all you did was rotate it. You're capitalizing on a brand that you did not develop.)
kriro 13y ago
The favicon is elite. Good luck.
Brajeshwar 13y ago
From the guys behind strikingly.com?
five18pm 13y ago
McAfee web gateway flags this site as 'Malicious site.' Something to check there.
wes-exp 13y ago
Lost me at the 10pm meeting time.

52 points by mlchild 13y ago

You get my vote simply for the domain name. Perfect - an elevator pitch in a URL, with self-selection filter built in.

This is a great initiative. But it might need way more customization and polishing and set rules before it can help founders with problems at hand or direction or anything that matters. Good things where even VC meetings can't help: 1. Founders have better on the ground idea on petty things but important in a way and tedious to solve. eg. food in office or affordable monitors that are great, a specific case of an employee etc 2. Founders can relate to problems, help solve or collaborate in solving together. eg. technical issue in infrastructure or log processing say. 3. Boosts morale and can provide some light even after a week of bad sales or VC meetings. Some can even make you see the truth or accept it if the situation is truly negative 4. Business opportunities - VCs most always connect startups to pilot with portfolio companies and other startups. This can bring early clients and introductions However I see some critical issues with this model: 1. People need many sittings to understand the product landscape, persona of the founder or the team to provide relevant suggestions or advise - which means either known people have to meet or it needs the same set of people to meet again and again 2. Moderation can be an issue. With known friends who are founders it is easy to converse & open up on issues - but with a random group it might become chaotic or a silent dinner. 3. The moment the meeting is unpredictable (not consistent week on week) in terms of value the zeal to attend would fade over time. 4. Given the unknown value of such a meeting you do not have a measure to value this time against a release you planned to do or an interview or even some mundane task at hand which has to be finished. I am a startup founder in India. Given we lack the ecosystem even when VC/angels are involved it is only founder-networks to bank on here. These meet-ups have worked well only with founders who are friends/ex-colleagues.

dannowatts 13y ago
i think you may be missing the rather casual, light-heartedness of what they're doing and instead you're taking it far too serious. good thoughts for a discussion about seriousness, but maybe not applicable for this specifically.

EdJiang 13y ago

I completely thought this was a reference to http://incubatorincubator.com/ http://incubatorincubator.com/ - one of their joke Incubators was "YNotCombinator". On a more serious note, how is this different to something like http://www.nreduce.com/ http://www.nreduce.com/ ?

jacquesc 13y ago
nReduce had it's in person meetings last summer. Since then it's morphed into more of an online collaborative community. I'd love to see weekly dinners happen again under a different group, as they were pretty valuable when we did them.

sneak 13y ago

It seems tacky to engage in such blatant logo use. (I understand that parody is fair use— I don't believe in copyright anyway. I just think that it's lame that all you did was rotate it. You're capitalizing on a brand that you did not develop.)

kriro 13y ago

The favicon is elite. Good luck.

Brajeshwar 13y ago

From the guys behind strikingly.com?

five18pm 13y ago

McAfee web gateway flags this site as 'Malicious site.' Something to check there.

wes-exp 13y ago

Lost me at the 10pm meeting time.