Ask HN: Review IGF, a site to find co-founders and stay motivated

[astartupaday]

Last year when pg posted his list of 30 ideas, I wrote up full startup ideas for each one on my A Startup A Day blog, one each day for the next 30 days. It was a fun exercise, but thanks in part to some great comments on HN, I learned that for most entrepreneurs ideas are the easy part. The hard parts are meeting the right co-founders and staying motivated to work on something for an extended period of time. Recently I've shifted focus from my blog to building something to help solve those problems, which I call the Italian Graffiti Factory (IGF).

To kick things off, the alpha stage of IGF will be primarily focused on a very specific scenario. I want to bring together potential YC applicants to discuss YC's new RFS proposals (or other ideas) with the goal of finding co-founders, building a prototype, and submitting an application to YC Winter 2010. Along with the site, I'm also planning a series of live online meetups centered around things like co-founder speed-dating, prototype reviews, milestone check-ins, or just open conversations.

Unlike most "Ask HN"-style posts, I'm not necessarily looking for feedback on design and initial first impressions. Instead I would like to hear more generally if you think that these problems are good ones to take on, and if so, what else can be done to help solve those problems more effectively?

Site URL - http://www.igfactory.com

[johnbrunswick]

@astartupaday - This is definitely an interesting idea.

A company that I have been working with is doing some similar - they have created a private, invite only community for connecting with talent, resources, capital, promotion of ventures on a global scale. It is geared toward early stage ventures of all types and the collection of people within the community is great. They are currently partnering with government incubators across the world and various private agencies focused on helping startups.

For more information - take a look at http://www.incunation.com/

Because it is private - if anyone is interested in joining contact Incunation using the "Contact Incunation" link at the bottom of the home page and we can make sure that you are added.

Startups are all about passion! I love to see people do well with their efforts and hopefully this can help someone's venture or ability to support a venture.

[astartupaday]

Awesome, checking it out right now. The primary reason for putting this together is to scratch my own itch, so this sounds very interesting to me.

[johnbrunswick]

Thanks - we would very much like to hear your thoughts. Please drop a line using the contact form and we can sync up. I really like the energy in this forum and this culture is exactly what gets me up in the morning! :-)

[icey]

This is about as minor as it gets, but I thought you might like to know - your contact form confirmation has a typo in it:

"Our team will respond to your inquity within one business day."

I assume you want that to say "inquiry".

[astartupaday]

Already did, looking forward to checking it out soon.

[astartupaday]

Clickable link: http://www.igfactory.com

[icey]

I think the idea is great, but man the signup process is terrible. I went through it with a bunch of b.s. data because it's irritating to have to provide my birthday, zipcode, email address and gender just to take a look at the messages. I don't know if that's a ning thing or not, but it's a real turn-off.

[astartupaday]

Yep, it's a Ning thing. I'll see if I can cut out some of the signup options, thanks for the feedback.

EDIT: Just removed b-day, gender, and location. Thanks again, sorry for the poor 1st impression.

[icey]

Hmmm, it's still asking for birthday and gender when I try to re-register.

[astartupaday]

Strange, I just tried to register as as new user and the only options were for username, password, and birthday. I think b-day is mandatory for legal reasons around online child protection laws.

[icey]

It asked for gender and location on the second page of the registration. Now that I look at it again, it's not mandatory; but that's not very obvious.

Anyways, cool idea, it's just a shame that Ning's signup process is so convoluted.

[brk]

This is a very neat/noble effort. However, I personally would never co-found a company with a person that I essentially found on a 'dating' site.

I see that you "built" this on Ning. Are your plans to actually move it to a more robust platform if it takes off?

[markbao]

Co-founders, like women, are often found randomly.

I found two of mine on Hacker News. They rock.

[aditya]

Two of whom? Women or co-founders? :)

[matt1]

Why does it have to be one or the other? :P

[calaniz]

I don't think it has to be random. I meet most potential partners through organizations. Try a organization like the Junior Chamber of Commerce. Dallas, where I'm from, has one of the oldest chapters in the nation. You could also try Startup Happy Hours and design groups like Refresh. You've got to get out and network.

[mcxx]

How exactly did that happen?

[icey]

Out of curiosity, why does it matter where you meet a potential co-founder? I assume you'd still want to talk / try out a few projects first or whatever; how does the way you made the contact count?

[brk]

My own personal opinion, from direct experience, is that a co-founder is ideally someone that you met non-randomly. You have known or worked with them previously, or have a contact in common that can vouch highly for them.

Of course, you could meet a future co-founder on a 'dating' site, but I would still want to get to know that person over a period of time.

How a person deals with the stresses of making business decisions, handling money and investments, and general product management are not something you get an optimal feel for in a short period of time.

I am sure that there are several people who have met and co-founded a business in a short time window and been happy with the outcome. Just like I know people from arranged marriages or who were married a week after they met, and they are quite happy. But not many people would recommend that approach as having a high probability for success.

[astartupaday]

Thanks for the feedback. I think of this less as a "dating site", but more of a filter to help bring together like-minded people who are interested in accomplishing the same or similar goals. Similar to how gdgt brings people together based on the gadgets they own/want, I'd like to bring people together based on ideas they have. Things like the speed-dating stuff would just be ways to accelerate some of those connections that would have eventually happened organically.

And yes, Ning is not ideal. But for now, I want to put the maximum effort on having great conversations and getting the right people together rather than having the best technological solution. Depending on the feedback I get and the needs of the users, moving off Ning could definitely be a future move.