Comment by nswizzle31 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nswizzle31 | Hacker News Reader

I'm trying to incentivize people to build IRL communities instead of AI-related apps because the demand for human interaction FAR outweighs the supply. My platform (https://onthe.town), is basically Shopify for social experience clubs. Anyone can start a club and create events based around bringing random people together IRL based on shared interests. You get your own website and infra that handles signups, payments, and matching.

It's largely based on platform-izing the extremely popular Timeleft app that simply matches 6 random people for dinner. With onthe.town, anyone can create a Timeleft-like app around any concept they're interested in. Some clubs people have created include a golf club (get matched with 3 other people to play golf with), a vinyl record sharing club, a lunch club for biotech networking, and a club to meet other parents for dinner.

There was a startup in my region who got popular with the simple idea of having a website/service that manages simple events, like talks, presentations etc.

I think it started with mostly students using it because there used to be a lot of university-related events like these, and eventually they’ve become the standard platform for that, at least in the State. It was all pretty simple, it managed payment etc. and you’d get a QR code by email or in the app that could be scanned in the entrance.

Love the idea. From the FAQ section on the website:

> Organizers can keep a portion of sign-up or event fees

Isn't this a given? Don't event organisers expect to keep the entire sign-up fee for themselves when they host an event? The website banner reads:

> Build an IRL community. Get paid for it.

I was under the impression that onthe.town will pay the organisers from their own pocket for organising the event, but that does not seem to be true.

Really appreciate the feedback. The idea right now is that you set up a club and attendees pay a small amount for each event, and then we take a small (~10%) fee for selecting the venues, doing the matching, and handling payments for you.

But I do love your idea and it's something I'm pursuing. We are matching people to meet at venues (restaurants, golf courses, etc) and it makes sense for venues to pay to be selected. That money would go to organizers and the events could be free. It's just a harder B2B problem to convince companies to sponsor communities.

Ultimately, clubs will have the flexibility to be run in multiple ways - from free, to business-sponsored or attendee-funded, to even onthetown-sponsored as you suggest.

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