Introducing the Startup Guild: A Community for Entrepreneurs | Hacker News Reader

Introducing the Startup Guild: A Community for Entrepreneurs

justinvincent.com

75 pointsjeffepp19 comments

While overall this seemed quite cool, I had an issue somewhat with the idea of news.startupguild.net. It's described as "A reddit style link rating & comment system dedicated to articles related to 'no-investment, start small, get big'". To me, this is a pretty large subset of what Hacker News is already. If I was a part of this guild, I'd hate to go to yet another website that is probably duplicating a lot of the content from HN, in the same style of Hacker News [ie, upvotes, comments, etc].

I'd much rather have something along the lines of a discussion forum, where people can discuss problems they are having in the startup world (along with relevant links and discussions on them), not ranked by points.

Point taken. I can't be 100% sure what it would end up like, but the intention would be to be very targeted to the subject at hand and not replicate HN.

I must admit only a fraction of HN posts are relevant for me (30% max?)

Interesting idea on the discussion forum, noted :)

I'd really like to have an alternative to news.yc, personally. As a bootstrapper-type that's not so interested in the YC program, news.yc rarely offers the type of community that I'd most want to be involved in.

I don't dislike news.yc, but there's definitely room for competition here.

Hey Justin, I'm working on a site called Sparkmuse (in beta) which aligns with much of what you're describing. Here are some of the things we're working on right now:

tracker.startupguild.net – The fundamental building block of our current community is the "Spark", a description of the problem an entrepreneur wants to solve and the solution want to use. This is an area where people can get feedback and meetup with potential cofounders. Each Spark is divided into stages and will eventually track the progress from idea through execution.

news.startupguild.net- We're building an open discussion area for entrepreneurs to show off their work, ask questions, and have meaningful startup discussions. Somewhat different, but similar in concept I think. I don't want to trample on HN because this community is amazing in itself, but the audience expands beyond startups alone.

blog.startupguild.net – We've been communicating with accomplished entrepreneurs and investors to schedule times for them to come by and give direct feedback on our Sparks. Kind of a direct engagement guest blog post in a manner of speaking.

toolkit.startupguild.net – We're partnering up with a wide range of great tools and services that have agreed to make deals for entrepreneurs trying to build their ideas from the ground up. Another project we're developing is Matchmuse which is like an e-harmony for entrepreneurs, providing recommendations based on a person's expertise, the expertise they need, where they live, and the ideas and feedback they have discussed on the site.

I'd love to team up with you on some of these things. If you're interested, please hit me up, email is in my profile.

Awesome thanks very much. I can see the main difference is your taking a project driven approach and I'm thinking about an entrepreneur/company driven approach.

It sounds like people could potentially meet on The Startup Guild and move any projects they come up with into Sparkmuse after meeting.

The real value that a community like this could provide is the creation of what Justin calls mastermind groups. It reminds me of Sprouter.com but on a much more personal level. The latter is very important in my opinion. Starting a business is something you experience on a very personal level and these groups could provide the help/advice (and possibly support) that a (new) entrepreneur needs to succeed. I do wonder what the "mentors" gain from this time investment.

I like most of the idea and am looking forward to how it grows and develops.

Agreed. The Skype based mastermind group I joined made all the difference for me. I can almost pin-point the date I had my first discussion with them as the turnaround of my business.

There's members of my skype group who make a lot more money than me, but they still ask for my advice on other issues such as tech related stuff, asking me to proof read blog posts, strategy idea bouncing, and other things.

Agree, I am fortunate enough to be a part of the Mastermind group. It's awesome.

Especially for those who are not located in startup hotbeds.

How does one join the Skype based mastermind group? Sounds intriguing.

You suggest it to 4-8 of your peers and then go out of your way to make it happen every 1 or 2 weeks in person or on email/skype.

Self plug: I created a free web app that helps entrepreneurs form "circles of trust" which are mastermind groups really.

http://ongoingfeedback.com

I am looking for feedback to take this further. Thanks!

I think that Justin would agree the key to our current mastermind group is rooted in the fact that we all get on the phone and spend 60-90min together.

Much more valuable than a message board or email thread.

Although, your app seems really interesting as well. I believe they would both be effective and perhaps complimentary..

If potential mentors are passionate about what they do, then they derive value just from sharing it with others.

Given your strong preference for bootstrapping – the first problem the Guild would try to solve is "How can I build a start-up with no investment?" – perhaps it should be called the Bootstrap Guild.

The idea of an entrepreneur powered YC clone is excellent.

This could be even taken to the next level: to foster investment within the community itself; enabling a platform for established entrepreneurs to invest in up & coming entrepreneurs.

'Entrepreneur powered YC clone'---an apt description! A possible interesting investment option would be instead of investing $$$, startup owner can swap 'shares' in their startups. E.g., I have a startup in security but I love somebody's music startup and vice versa, so share-swap can be done. Details that need to be ironed out include trust, valuation of shares, accountability (how do we know that the person we swapped shares would continue to work hard), etc.

Share swaps are a killer idea man. This is going on a bit of an extended tangent - but the vision hints at being a sort of micro-stock exchange for startup entrepreneurs. Neat concept.

This sounds like an awesome idea. Would love to see how it will be implemented specifically.

Hey everyone!

I think we solved this problem, at least in our community. Our first phase is in DFW. We are gathering incubators to start the funding process. We are looking to expand if anyone wants to implement elsewhere. We are very "open-source"

www.techfraternity.com

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