Introducing Fowndr: A private network for startup founders (invites) | Hacker News Reader

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

stugreen.com

43 pointsstulogy31 comments

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.

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-t...

Being outside a major tech community myself, I can see the value of the site (if it's like Forrst).

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!

"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."

Weird analogy - I don't see it. I don't know anyone who would think that way in 2011, particularly if we're talking about founders, and double-particularly if we're talking about founders making a pitch.

I agree that "fowndr" is goofy but, to me, it's goofy in a way that might appeal to 15 and 16yos. Not my thing but I don't think it's meant to be so no problem.

I'm not saying you should pitch in a suit today, but I am saying that picking a domain name on the basis of projecting that you spent money on it today is like wearing a suit used to be. That's why I called it an old argument. I'm also not saying that this would be a bad choice. There has been much talk of someone spending $350,000 on a domain name, and one of the interesting arguments in favour was that the domain could easily be resold if necessary. You can't do that with a suit.

The first two points seem like non-constructive scab picking that could apply to almost any project launched around here.

1. Glif, Wii, Flickr or Forrst are hardly any better. Unless they're generic words, names become valuable. "Y Combinator" itself is a pretty weird name for a business if you ignore the context of everything it has gone on to do and represent. "Fowndr" only sounds cheap now because it's new and doesn't have any history.

2. Why does it matter if the barrier is low? Any barrier that cuts down the useless 90% is fine. The term "founder" is self selecting anyway. I know at least 90% of my Twitter followers wouldn't self identify as "founders" and the 10% who do (whether they are or not) would still likely find such a community useful (assuming it takes off).

Your third point is more serious and this is an area where he'll need to do a lot of work. I'll certainly be trying to help Stu a little with his efforts because I see some value in what he's trying to do (from the "Forrst for founders" POV).

Wii works very well -- it's unique and can be thought of as "we play together" and "whee! this is fun!"

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.

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.

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?

"some conversations will be different?"

...and that's worth building an entirely new product and trying to move select people from HN to it?

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.

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.

HN is optimized towards links and news, despite the high quality Show HN and similar posts we get frequently. HN is also optimized toward a small content/big audience model which makes it hard to throw ideas around.

A site aiming to be the "Forrst for founders" would give entrepreneurs (budding or established) a space to throw around ideas, small screenshots, or bits of business knowledge that are just too "small" for HN.

Fowndr: Putting the 'own' into 'founder'? ;)

Good luck, anyway.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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"?

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.

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.

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

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.

Where are you getting this message? I'm not seeing it.

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?

Might be the load. Had about a thousand visitations in 20 minutes.

I think I saw this on Quora the other day.

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