The future of nReduce

I've been in nreduce for a couple months now and I think it's a great program. The startups are very mixed in terms of goals--some are working on side projects, others are building real businesses with real customers, revenue, and all that. The community has been extremely helpful, and it's a good way to connect with people facing similar problems.

This is a bit of a glowing review, but as far as my goals of accountability and connections, it's been hugely helpful for me. And honestly, not having to give up equity or take investment is a pretty great deal.

Two months later, I can say that the decision to join nReduce was a right one. The requirement to ship every week keeps you motivated; this is exactly what I needed. As I said in my intro video, "My name is Alexander and I never finish (personal) projects." I'm sure there are many other developers who have 90%-ready projects but never get to showing them to the public.

If you are one of these guys, consider joining nReduce. It's been two months now and Feetlot.com just got its first users (who are loving it; and if you buy shoes online, check it out). I honestly think that if I hadn't joined nReduce, there would have been no alpha by now.

There is one month left till the demo day but already now I can say that I've reached my initial goal of launching an alpha and getting first visitors.

Thank you, nReduce. Keep it up!

Hmm. I signed up for this when you launched in June, and so far I haven't received any email since mid-June when you told me about a meetup in SF. I assumed this project was dead, actually, since I haven't heard anything from you since then, and I'm surprised to read you've been doing meetups and even have an online community.

You might want to dig up whatever email list I'm on and let us know that you're still around and have changed your model.

I'm glad to know you aren't just focusing on Bay Area startups, by the way--there are so many startups outside that area that could benefit from what you're doing. Cheers to that!

We've received a lot of constructive feedback from other startups over the last couple months in nReduce, and it has generally been a nice experience. For that reason alone, it has been pretty valuable to us.

The new approach to "demo day" that nReduce is going for will hopefully be something that helps entrepreneurs get exposure in a more meaningful way. If it's done right, I could see it as a serious AngelList alternative; they seem to be interested in building tools that let developers show off their skills on a micro/functional way. This is much more appealing than a system that relies more heavily on getting attention through mutual friends and connections.

Having said that, I'm still kind of wary about the 10 startup demo day approach that is based on "investor rating" of the companies, mostly because it's not really clear what that means. Other people questioned the potential for investors to be more inclined to care about specific types/markets of startups, and I think that's a valid concern. However, I think that since they're planning on making it a monthly thing, it could potentially make it a lot easier for niche startups who have a solid product to get some real attention.

One of the few things that differentiates nReduce from other founder meetups (Hackers & Founders, 106 miles etc.) is the online platform they have built to manage weekly video checkins (before & after videos) and private groups where other founders can choose what other startups to pair with and share constructive feedback on what groups are building.

Rather than meeting another founder briefly over a beer and having an inkling of whether they are killing it, you can very quickly see based on the weekly checkins who is making real progress and who you want to engage with further. Plus, founders who engage deeply with other founders on their platform get more community points (think karma) that unlocks other benefits like mentor access.

Now they are exposing these very valuable weekly progress reports to potential investors. Much as Suster writes in his "Investing in Lines, Not Dots" post (http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/11/15/invest-in-line...), investors want to see how you progress. Seems like a big value add to the seed investing ecosystem.

In case anybody is wondering about the name:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus#Reduction

nReduce has been incredibly helpful to our startup and I'm super psyched that Joe and Josh have been able to put dev resources into building what's turned into one of the most useful resources to keep our startup motivated and shipping things every week.

I helped kick off the initial idea a few months ago, and it's morphed into something way different and in my opinion way better than what I initially was aiming for.

I haven't joined nReduce, but I thought it was a great idea and it inspired me to start a smaller weekly coffee meetup of product creators in my city. I call it the "Iterators" group. Similar concept: we are all working on stuff so meeting weekly and sharing feedback, status, etc. is a great way to stay accountable and share experience.

You can do a lot of interesting things when you meet weekly instead of monthly.

Another startup guy at nReduce here. Because of the time differences (I'm in India) I'm not able to participate actively in the community. I know I should learn to wake up early. What has really helped me are the weekly builds. I just missed uploading one update and I'm feeling so bad I couldn't do it on time. Needless to say, you get what you put in to the program. So far, it's been a self discipling tool for me.

Another nReducer here - we're on a distributed team, and bootstrapping. Since making a team-wide move was not a possibility for us, nReduce has been an amazing opportunity.

Great work so far from the nReduce team, and the startup team interactions are super-helpful.

We are really excited about helping entrepreneurs. Please let us know if you have any questions?

nReduce has been great for Spark. The weekly checkins, combined with frank advice from our fellow teams, makes for a serious kick in the pants drive to ship constantly.

I would recommend nReduce for any startup.

If there's one gripe, it is in the use of binary peer ratings to determine who gets to move on - it really encourages gaming the system, rather than focusing on doing your best work.

nReduce has been invaluable for us at PolarMeter. We especially benefited from the weekly kick-in-the-butt to show what you've accomplished, the honest no-bs feedback from other founders and the chance to meet and build relationships with other teams during nReduce Tuesdays.

Joe and Josh have done a great job so far, keep it up and things will get even bigger and awesomer!

I've also been in nReduce since it started and I think it's a great community.

+2cents

The nReduce program has been really great for my team so far.

I signed up the first day I heard of nReduce and got deeply disappointed when they required twitter access to log in.

I hope they changed policies.