Ask HN: Does this seem like an interesting idea? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Does this seem like an interesting idea?

8 pointsjmtame7 comments

It seems that it's fairly easy if you're recently out of college to find a cofounder and do a startup. However, once you've moved and been in a job for a while, your network dissipates. Would it be interesting to have some community that would allow you, as an employed hacker, to find other hackers to work on side projects with?

The idea here is that people join medium-sized startups to find people to potentially work with on bigger projects. Eventually you can quit your job and go work on the startup full time.

I've thought about putting together an e-mail list of people who want to work on side projects. There are people with ideas, and there are people who just want to join someone and hack on something.

If this seems interesting, how would you structure this? Would an e-mail list be good enough?

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> Would it be interesting to have some community that would allow you, as an employed hacker, to find other hackers to work on side projects with?

I'd just go to local programming meet ups, hackathons, subreddits, github to new a few. Even on the internets I often see Sydney based hackers and it ain't exactly the tech mecca of the world.

I think the relationship is better if you meet in a way where the focus is not on networking but doing something else. The worst meetups are ones designed for networking. I hate those. It is like a shark tank and leads to very stinted conversations in my experience.

An idea for you:

Create impromptu 'popup' 1 hour hackathons. Name a cafe and a time, and anyone who pops up with a laptop you just work on something together, or share ideas or whatever.

You could get the idea started the good old boot-strappy way - set one up in your city every day (Mon-Sun) at a different location, and you and a friend turn up so that if anyone else turns up there will be at least 3 of you so it wont suck.

Make them find you via the website. Then if it catches on and grows add another venue, and you and your friend split up, so now you have two meet ups happening every day. Etc.

I kinda like this idea myself @bbcbasic. I think it would work on the west coast or nyc especially.

You had an idea and now you want to jump in and build. Take some time to research and analyze first. There are plenty of find-a-cofounder websites out there. Have you figured out what the typical experience is for their users? Have you talked to any of them or been through the process yourself?

+100 to this comment.

I recommend checking local Meetups(www.meetup.com). I have yet to be in any city where there aren't people just like you who are just looking for people to build cool stuff with.

I also believe that is actually the main objective of most Hackathons.

"I have yet to be in any city where there aren't people just like you who are just looking for people to build cool stuff with."

Try coming to my city :/

Assembly was doing this & pivoted to an entirely new idea/model.

Here's the old version: https://cove.assembly.com/

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