A model for a Startup Community Website
19 July 2009
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Web 2.0 startup Logos :)
Since long, I have been dreaming of taking part in an active startup ecosystem that is as highly developed as that of the mighty Silicon Valley. But, once I realised that the dream is not so achievable in the near future, I began thinking of creating a startup community website that tries to build an ecosystem and develop a platform for them to interact. I know, you will say there are many like that, but my idea is different from the current scene. So, I started observing the startup community sites like Headstart, Proto and Your Story. I tried to create the following model for my ideal startup community website. My model here is decided upon comparing them with the very famous StartupNation.Another article that loosely influenced this is AnandNataraj's blog post( I intially tried to get involved in this, but looks like Anand has stopped working on it).
So the proposed features in the community website are:
- Central and Sub Blogs
- Startup and Member Profiles
- Interviews
- Service Providers
- Resources
- Forum
- Chat/IRC
- Calendar
- Classifieds
Central and Sub Blogs: This Blog will first be fed with very generic and task-based posts like 'What is a partnership firm?', 'How to write your accounts?' etc.The content will be written by qualified personalities- Legal issues by legal advisors, Accounting by CAs etc.The motivation for the authors is from the publicity they get and the trust they develop.Non-qualified persons' articles are not into this section.The rather abstract posts like '5 common mistakes of Entrepreneurs' etc., will be written by any of the community members and are posted in the sub-Blogs. Select articles are publicised on the homepage.
Startup and Member Profiles: This will be a user edited wiki that profiles the members and startups - almost like CrunchBase. It lists all the details about the startups and also categorizes them as well as possible. If a visitor wants to know all web-based ecommerce startups, then he should be able to using the categories. The wiki will be writable by only mods who are provided with the company/member information by the concerned persons. It will have the maximum information possible. This, in my opinion, is the most difficult taks of all.
Interviews: This will be a place for interviews with the Entrepreneurs, VCs and other emintent persons. To be interviewd you need not be an established persoanlity. You need to be as famous as at least one person would like to interview you :) Obviously, the individuals, be it interviewer or interviewed, both are motivated to provide their interview due to the ezposure they get.
Service Providers: A database of stakeholders important in running of a company but not employees of it - like Charterer Accountants, Lawyers, Landlords, Brokers etc. They will be user submitted and user rated so as to build credibility. Can be used as a resource for deciding upon a stakeholder. Can be made as a directory.
Resources: This contains resources, downloads for important documents like Resumes, IT Returns, Partnership Deed samplesn etc. This would be taken from publicly available reources and modify them to the needs and put for download. This is oen another category where user contribution is less but usage is more. So requires to put our work into this.
Forum : A forum is always the best choice in running a site which requires user activity. This does also require a forum. This will nurture activity based communities, their meets and discussions regarding those using this arena. All planning for meetings and everything is done here. In future may be a wiki also wikl be needed for this task. Usergroups are used to categorize as web-based , offline startups etc. Can be used to arrange chat sessions, meetings etc. It can have a marketplace (other than the classifieds one), VCs , Entrepreneurs, Students categories etc.
Chat/IRC : A simple chat system or may be an IRC node(I don't think IRC suits well due to relative ignorance about its usage) which will be used to onduct regular chat sessions targetted at specific topic. They are helpful when visitors can't allocate tim3e for a real world meet. Poto implements this kind of system weekly.
Calendar: This will be a publicly hosted calendar where users can add startup events and important meetups etc. Will be very useful if it can implement mail notifications for subscribed events.
Classifieds: It is the same as your guess goes. It will be a place where any one can post their classified. It can also be developed as a professional marketplace. StartupNation has a very good implementation of this(ofcourse, not relevant for Indians )
I have written all this at one-go. Due to me writing it twice in a row and not checking back, there might be some typos and some unclear ideas. As you know you can always comment here and get clarified or advise or correct me. After all, more comments means I am out of this No-Reader No-Content Cycle :)
