I hope, for your sakes, this isn't your business but just a side project. There are several reasons why I say this:<p>1. The name "fowndr" makes you look cheap. Why? Because the domain name was no doubt unregistered. Basically it looks like you went looking for a domain name that you could get for $10 for a year;<p>2. What defines a founder? As HN bears witness, anyone with a weekend to spare on a pet project can (and do) declare themselves a founder, some rightly, many not. But with the barrier to entry for starting an Internet business being practically zero, "founder" doesn't really mean all that much.<p>3. What value proposition are you providing founders? YC provides benefit by the connections, the social proofing and mentoring of PG & co and the brand, which has come to mean quite a lot. Quora seems to be the place to go for the Valley insiders to talk to each other.<p>The motivation behind invite-only seems to be to create this air of exclusivity, like a private club. Creating that pedigree such that people will want to be a part of your exclusive club and derive some benefit from it is incredibly difficult.<p>At this point I think it would take some serious names on it or behind it or some other similar form of momentum, which I just don't see.
Got to say, i'm aware of Stu and followed one of his earlier startups, projectbubble, he did really well with it and developed it by listening to the users. I expect Fowndr to be successful as well.
Honest question -- what's the real utility of a founder network like this above, say, actively participating on HN regularly?<p>Forrst is so useful because it's specialized. I don't see that (yet) here.
The challenge with a group for startup founders is that it's a very heterogeneous group, and there is little to "qualify" members (I don't think invites will cut it)<p>On the other hand, something like Forrst for developers and designers is for a group that is more likely to have some more commonality which is useful in creating a community.<p>One thought is to do this vertically. So for me as an example, I'd love to connect with founders of B2B information services. Yes, that maybe too niche, but I have a lot more in common with those founders than a mobile gaming company founder.<p>Look forward to seeing how this evolves. Good luck.
Building a tool that just enables further development of cliques seems not so great. Of course it's great for you, since you get to be in on all the cliques, one way or another, if not by membership, by having a birds-eye view of all the data. Personally cliques rub me the wrong way, not just because of jealousy, but also because open exchange with others outside your comfort zone leads to more opportunities.
It's all well and good having people invite people they know, but isn't the hardest part of starting out the problem of not knowing people? Are people starting out not your target group? If so, will active founders who are running their business really share that much interesting chatter rather than just links a la HN?<p>Also if like-minded people invite like-minded people isn't there a massive groupthink effect?
Great job on the design (based on the screenshot). It looks very elegant.<p>How are you going to differentiate between a "startup" and a "weekend project"?
8:04am EST:<p>Slight problem...<p>Something is wrong with the database, please bear with us.<p>Unable to connect to your database server using the provided settings.