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I am a single founder and I was really tempted to apply. But I decided I won't. I read all the copy, it is interesting. I went all the way filling the form, un

by soneca 13y ago

I am a single founder and I was really tempted to apply. But I decided I won't. I read all the copy, it is interesting. I went all the way filling the form, until the last question before the submit button. And there it was, the one question that made me (i) stop, (ii) wonder if this was for me and (iii) decide it wasn´t. (i) What made me stop? The field was asking my Google+ account. They say the community will run on it, that is optional for now, but I will have to have one. As I don't have and don't one, I stopped right there to think if it would be worthy. (ii) What made me wonder? Why impose such a burden to enter? I start wondering why they would to put barriers on who gets in, not only about Google+ by now, but submit an application that will be analyzed? They will have no idea who are the best people to get in through this questions. The whole thing started to look like a random selection disguised as an exclusive elite fancy club. (iii) Why I decided not to apply? Because I came to the conclusion that such a community should be open to enter, and the mechanisms to decide how one fits the community or not should be actual contributions on it, not a random, snob bouncer. So for now, I hope someone improves the concept (that promises a lot of value to me), but implement it in a more open way.

oscargrouch 13y ago
Soneca, i've saw in the other thread about stackoverflow that you are from Brazil.. i'm also trying to bootstrap a thing on my own.. and i'm brazilian too.. So maybe we can start this open group.. with two? maybe add more people later? i dont know if i will help you out.. maybe i give you bad ideas.. rsrs.. who knows?! but at least we can try??!
- soneca 13y ago
  sure, my email is on my profile. Let's talk about it...
  - fredguth 13y ago
    Also a solo founder from Brazil. May I join?
    - oscargrouch 13y ago
      i've created the group solofounder@googlegroups.com to make it easy.. I will add "soneca" to the group, since we got his email.. and could you please join in? i think maybe more even people will be in the same boat :)
gregormck 13y ago
We looked at lots of different community software. Cost came into it too - so it came down to Google+, Facebook or Linked In Groups. We chose G+. On iii) we are working on improving this all the time
- mgkimsal 13y ago
  Most community software would give people the option of G+, FB and LI identities, on top of regular email identity. I can't imagine the cost/hosting of something like buddypress or elgg would be all that burdensome, which would give you multiple social logins as well as keeping things in-house vs under google's control. You're trying to go after a rather single-minded crowd (solo founders) and you may end up losing a fair amount of value from people that won't bend to your identity requirement.
  - eropple 13y ago
    I'm not a regular G+ user but I'd rather use G+ any day of the week over either BuddyPress or Elgg (because they're terrible) and I am certain that these guys have way better things to do with his time than write a better community portal. It is burdensome and it's presumptive of you to expect him to burn his time on something that benefits a tiny outlier of the audience. To be honest, I'd be less interested if it was populated with people who care that much about waving their Not Google+ flag because trivialities like that should be a very low priority for people in that solo-founder bucket. Thanks, gregormck and crew! It's a great idea, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of it. I'll be looking into it this evening.
DenisM 13y ago
As a single founder with experience I feel compelled to give you an advice: the biggest danger you're facing is worrying about the wrong things. When you get company you can talk abou things you are worried about, and having talked it out loud you get a better grip on it, and even some feedback. When you're all by yourself, you might start worrying about something that's not worth the attention, or even get obsesses with most inconsequential things. Where I'm going with this is that the choice of login providers is the most inconsequential thing, and yet you allowed it to get in the way of meeting a potentially great company.
- soneca 13y ago
  Google+ was just number i). And number i) was just what made me stop to think about the rest. Number ii) and iii) are the reasons I didn't apply and are consequences of me having time to think, not directly of number i). TL;DR: Google+ was not the reason I didn't apply.
- ronaldx 13y ago
  The choice of login provider is one of a few consequential things - for most tech services, it's extremely important to minimise friction and get people to use your service. If you've decided on Google+ as your login provider, your bounce-out rate is going to be particularly high, for several reasons including the parent poster's point. That could still be the right decision for you, but it's worth worrying about.
ngpio 13y ago
> The whole thing started to look like a random selection disguised as an exclusive elite fancy club. In starting a few "exclusive elite fancy" internet clubs over the past decade, I've noticed that random selection is usually sufficient for an initial batch of members. The trick is to quickly grab a chunk of those first members and invite them to think on what membership criteria will best serve the community. > What made me stop? The field was asking my Google+ account. They say the community will run on it, that is optional for now, but I will have to have one. As I don't have and don't one, I stopped right there to think if it would be worthy. I agree that Google+ is an annoying barrier to entry. A private subreddit is my first choice for these sorts of things, but it would probably be a bit limiting in this scenario. Higher bandwidth communication between individuals with strict, human identities is clearly desired, and Google+ is designed specifically for this. If I were looking to start a limited-entry online community today, I'd probably start with a Gazelle[1] instance and build off of it as necessary. [1] http://whatcd.github.io/Gazelle/ http://whatcd.github.io/Gazelle/
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
lugg 13y ago
re (i) I kind of feel you missed the point a bit. I recently picked up a google+ profile simply for hangouts which the new nexus makes it tricky to ignore. I don't really want to deal with a google+ profile but I have a feeling the lowest barrier to entry for this kind of group is exactly google hangouts. Seamless and nice to use. re (ii), I have a feeling this is a very initial implementation that will one day implement automatic matching, but for now, they're doing some "manual backend magic" to match people up with the right timezones, and say for me: I need help with finance, and can give help with ecommerce they can match this much better on their own. re (iii) You are already speaking to the community you are talking about right now. We don't need another hacker news or #startups on freenode. What we do need is a small (4-5people small) tight knit group of individuals who we get along with and can discuss intricacies of our business plans without the whole world seeing. I imagine the matching process will get a bit more open down the line in regards to matching process. What I would like to know is how we will deal with people who don't fit right with the group or go dark and what not.
mrjatx 13y ago
I understand your disinterest in signing up for a service to sign up for ANOTHER service but keep this in mind- I'm sure very few of us on HN or in the entrepreneur community don't have accounts on at least one of the common OAuth sources (Google, Facebook, Twitter). Back in the early 2000s, when I was a kid, I signed up for probably hundreds of forums and each time I did it I had to manually create an account which usually consisted of about 20 of the exact same questions. It was extremely tedious, and as I got older and began to value my time more and more if I went to a site that expected me to answer 20 questions to join a community that I possibly wouldn't ever use again I'd just close the tab. Now we have OAuth available and it's convenient and awesome. Let's not go back to those old days.

by soneca 13y ago

oscargrouch 13y ago

Soneca, i've saw in the other thread about stackoverflow that you are from Brazil.. i'm also trying to bootstrap a thing on my own.. and i'm brazilian too.. So maybe we can start this open group.. with two? maybe add more people later? i dont know if i will help you out.. maybe i give you bad ideas.. rsrs.. who knows?! but at least we can try??!

soneca 13y ago
sure, my email is on my profile. Let's talk about it...
- fredguth 13y ago
  Also a solo founder from Brazil. May I join?
  - oscargrouch 13y ago
    i've created the group solofounder@googlegroups.com to make it easy.. I will add "soneca" to the group, since we got his email.. and could you please join in? i think maybe more even people will be in the same boat :)

gregormck 13y ago

We looked at lots of different community software. Cost came into it too - so it came down to Google+, Facebook or Linked In Groups. We chose G+. On iii) we are working on improving this all the time

mgkimsal 13y ago
Most community software would give people the option of G+, FB and LI identities, on top of regular email identity. I can't imagine the cost/hosting of something like buddypress or elgg would be all that burdensome, which would give you multiple social logins as well as keeping things in-house vs under google's control. You're trying to go after a rather single-minded crowd (solo founders) and you may end up losing a fair amount of value from people that won't bend to your identity requirement.
- eropple 13y ago
  I'm not a regular G+ user but I'd rather use G+ any day of the week over either BuddyPress or Elgg (because they're terrible) and I am certain that these guys have way better things to do with his time than write a better community portal. It is burdensome and it's presumptive of you to expect him to burn his time on something that benefits a tiny outlier of the audience. To be honest, I'd be less interested if it was populated with people who care that much about waving their Not Google+ flag because trivialities like that should be a very low priority for people in that solo-founder bucket. Thanks, gregormck and crew! It's a great idea, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of it. I'll be looking into it this evening.

DenisM 13y ago

As a single founder with experience I feel compelled to give you an advice: the biggest danger you're facing is worrying about the wrong things. When you get company you can talk abou things you are worried about, and having talked it out loud you get a better grip on it, and even some feedback. When you're all by yourself, you might start worrying about something that's not worth the attention, or even get obsesses with most inconsequential things. Where I'm going with this is that the choice of login providers is the most inconsequential thing, and yet you allowed it to get in the way of meeting a potentially great company.

soneca 13y ago
Google+ was just number i). And number i) was just what made me stop to think about the rest. Number ii) and iii) are the reasons I didn't apply and are consequences of me having time to think, not directly of number i). TL;DR: Google+ was not the reason I didn't apply.
ronaldx 13y ago
The choice of login provider is one of a few consequential things - for most tech services, it's extremely important to minimise friction and get people to use your service. If you've decided on Google+ as your login provider, your bounce-out rate is going to be particularly high, for several reasons including the parent poster's point. That could still be the right decision for you, but it's worth worrying about.

ngpio 13y ago

> The whole thing started to look like a random selection disguised as an exclusive elite fancy club. In starting a few "exclusive elite fancy" internet clubs over the past decade, I've noticed that random selection is usually sufficient for an initial batch of members. The trick is to quickly grab a chunk of those first members and invite them to think on what membership criteria will best serve the community. > What made me stop? The field was asking my Google+ account. They say the community will run on it, that is optional for now, but I will have to have one. As I don't have and don't one, I stopped right there to think if it would be worthy. I agree that Google+ is an annoying barrier to entry. A private subreddit is my first choice for these sorts of things, but it would probably be a bit limiting in this scenario. Higher bandwidth communication between individuals with strict, human identities is clearly desired, and Google+ is designed specifically for this. If I were looking to start a limited-entry online community today, I'd probably start with a Gazelle[1] instance and build off of it as necessary. [1] http://whatcd.github.io/Gazelle/ http://whatcd.github.io/Gazelle/

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

lugg 13y ago

re (i) I kind of feel you missed the point a bit. I recently picked up a google+ profile simply for hangouts which the new nexus makes it tricky to ignore. I don't really want to deal with a google+ profile but I have a feeling the lowest barrier to entry for this kind of group is exactly google hangouts. Seamless and nice to use. re (ii), I have a feeling this is a very initial implementation that will one day implement automatic matching, but for now, they're doing some "manual backend magic" to match people up with the right timezones, and say for me: I need help with finance, and can give help with ecommerce they can match this much better on their own. re (iii) You are already speaking to the community you are talking about right now. We don't need another hacker news or #startups on freenode. What we do need is a small (4-5people small) tight knit group of individuals who we get along with and can discuss intricacies of our business plans without the whole world seeing. I imagine the matching process will get a bit more open down the line in regards to matching process. What I would like to know is how we will deal with people who don't fit right with the group or go dark and what not.

mrjatx 13y ago

I understand your disinterest in signing up for a service to sign up for ANOTHER service but keep this in mind- I'm sure very few of us on HN or in the entrepreneur community don't have accounts on at least one of the common OAuth sources (Google, Facebook, Twitter). Back in the early 2000s, when I was a kid, I signed up for probably hundreds of forums and each time I did it I had to manually create an account which usually consisted of about 20 of the exact same questions. It was extremely tedious, and as I got older and began to value my time more and more if I went to a site that expected me to answer 20 questions to join a community that I possibly wouldn't ever use again I'd just close the tab. Now we have OAuth available and it's convenient and awesome. Let's not go back to those old days.