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I like all the new stack forums, I think they're like the fora equivalents of Twitter.

OnStartups seems to be a place where you can ask general questions about start ups, but is there a forum online where you can let others know about your idea and actually start collaborating together?

Kind regards

Pongy

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I don't know of any. Starting a Startup is more like going to war not collaborating together. The latter is more appropriate for writing a research paper. – Ross Apr 24 '11 at 15:51
A space to collaborate would be interesting for some - startups.co.uk for instance, has a forum (never joined myself). I'd be very wary of collaborating via a startup forum, being the one and only place I think talking about my "brilliant idea" might lead to it being actually tried by someone else. But then it depends on what sort of collaboration you have in mind. – Matt Apr 24 '11 at 15:59
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Well I see your points but maybe it's time that entrepreneurs start working together instead of against each other. You know, the intertube is full of information so I bet every idea is already pretty much out there. I'm just saying maybe it doesn't matter that much if information leaks about a project - it's a give and take sort of situation. I would be nothing without the internet anyway. – Pongy Apr 24 '11 at 16:15
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I don't think they are against each other .. I collaborate with several other businesses where our services overlap, making and getting referrals. Beyond that for networking and the like I want to be in a space surrounded by possible customers not other startups - unless I'm stuck with something - I think stackexchange sites perfect for this. When I was still employed and first thinking of going it alone maybe a chat forum would have been just the thing to get me moving. – Matt Apr 24 '11 at 16:31

4 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

I think that the easiest area to collaborate is the marketing plan.

I say that startups will send us the Executive summary of their marketing plans and we will all help them in finding channels and tell them what worked for us.

I think this is the right forum to do it. Let me know if I got it wrong.

Shai

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up vote 1 down vote

I haven't told anyone yet, but I am starting a site to do exactly that! www.American-Startups.com. It hasn't formally launched yet but the registration is open, and if you hurry, you can be the first member :-). In fairness, there are many others. StartupNation.com comes to mind.

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up vote 0 down vote

This forum is called: Dropbox, e-mail, secure wiki, secure file system, secure source control. Startups are usually a secret. You don't want to share your progress and ideas with the world, only with those you work with -- you use dedicated tools for that, not "forums".

a forum may be a place to "meet" someone to work with- but very quickly, the interaction has to be diverted away from the forum.

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If you go to the top navigation, you will see a link for "chat". I think what you have in mind would be perfect for that. Keep in mind, you need 20 reputation points to use it. That is easy enough: just fill in your profile.

I would like to offer an alternative to @ron M.'s very valid position. We are doing a very public reworking of our company that we are documenting as we go in our blog. All this concern of secrecy is a holdover from the dot com bubble. It is all about execution these days. The fact is anyone can "steal" anyone's idea at any time. Getting it done in a fashion that the buying public likes is where the rubber meets the road.

There is a very old Chinese board game called Go. In go, it is the common practice of expert players to tell their opponents the exact strategy they are using to win as they play. A truly great player wins with complete transparency and no opponent can stop them. Business has to be like that, especially online business because you can't hide what you are doing.

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