I am thinking about putting up a website for startups that would help sales by getting referrals from other startups.<p>The basis for the idea is threefold:<p>1. There is a lot of goodwill in the startup world (recent Offer HN posts are evidence). Many startup people I know would go out of their way to help their peers as long as they are not direct competitors.<p>2. Startup founders have a lot of human capital: they know and on a daily basis talk to many people who are potential clients not just for their own companies, but for their peers as well.<p>3. The most complicated part of business for most startups is sales (customer acquisition).<p>The idea is to put up a website where one could register a startup, provide basic information: name, product description (15-second pitch), target group. Startups with matching target groups would be informed about each other (I am thinking regular emails), and with some luck and good will would refer potential customers to each other.<p>Yeah, the idea is hopelessly naive, but maybe it could just work out?
Funny you should mention that. First private beta of my site that does fairly much what you described going live tomorrow.<p>It is for all businesses though, not just startups.<p>I have been working on this one for about 4 months (from idea to build)<p>It would be great to have some more people to try it out in a week or 2 if you are interested?
Cool. Sort of like a more detailed link swap... startups could offer discount packages with each other, offer each other as up-sells, etc. For certain markets I think it would work really, really well.<p>When I'm ready to ship my next project, I would definitely use a site like this if it existed.
Sounds like an online version of BNI (<a href="http://www.bni.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.bni.com/</a>). Would it work on a completely altruistic basis though? With BNI you at least get some real world networking at the meetings.