

The future of nReduce - railsjedi
http://nreduce.com/newmodel

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dave_sullivan
I've been in nreduce for a couple months now and I think it's a great program.
The startups are very mixed in terms of goals--some are working on side
projects, others are building real businesses with real customers, revenue,
and all that. The community has been extremely helpful, and it's a good way to
connect with people facing similar problems.

This is a bit of a glowing review, but as far as my goals of accountability
and connections, it's been hugely helpful for me. And honestly, not having to
give up equity or take investment is a pretty great deal.

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snambi
I agree. There is a mixture of teams in various stages. It is very good to
learn from teams that are ahead of you in terms of learning. I've been
attending the physical meetups in san francisco. Eventhough, the turnout has
reduced steadily over a period of time, I think that is the best part of
nreduce.

~~~
joemellin
Hi,

There is definitely a lot of great things about the local meetups and yes you
are right, unless there is great content it is hard to get people to invest
3-4 hours a week for a local meeting. That is why we are focusing on the
online experience and continually working to make it better / more engaging.

Would love to learn more about what you like about the local events.

Best, -Joe

~~~
fuzzythinker
Sorry for being a HN police, but we don't put our "signatures" here in HN.

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AlexanderZ
Two months later, I can say that the decision to join nReduce was a right one.
The requirement to ship every week keeps you motivated; this is exactly what I
needed. As I said in my intro video, "My name is Alexander and I never finish
(personal) projects." I'm sure there are many other developers who have
90%-ready projects but never get to showing them to the public.

If you are one of these guys, consider joining nReduce. It's been two months
now and Feetlot.com just got its first users (who are loving it; and if you
buy shoes online, check it out). I honestly think that if I hadn't joined
nReduce, there would have been no alpha by now.

There is one month left till the demo day but already now I can say that I've
reached my initial goal of launching an alpha and getting first visitors.

Thank you, nReduce. Keep it up!

~~~
joemellin
Solid! Way to do it!

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apolzon
Have to admit, pretty close to signing up after reading your
experience...quite the push.

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ericabiz
Hmm. I signed up for this when you launched in June, and so far I haven't
received any email since mid-June when you told me about a meetup in SF. I
assumed this project was dead, actually, since I haven't heard anything from
you since then, and I'm surprised to read you've been doing meetups and even
have an online community.

You might want to dig up whatever email list I'm on and let us know that
you're still around and have changed your model.

I'm glad to know you aren't just focusing on Bay Area startups, by the way--
there are so many startups outside that area that could benefit from what
you're doing. Cheers to that!

~~~
nodesocket
nReduce is indeed alive, and quite active in San Francisco. Been involved
since the first meetup. The meetings have been drawing a decent crowd (up-vote
for pizza and beer) and the feedback has been amazing. Joe and Josh are doing
an amazing job, essentially they built a social platform for us in a few
weeks.

~~~
joemellin
Glad you are liking it! Josh is an F'n genius, I am just the guy that messes
around with twitter bootstrap and ordering pizzas! Really glad you are having
a good experience!

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rrbrambley
We've received a lot of constructive feedback from other startups over the
last couple months in nReduce, and it has generally been a nice experience.
For that reason alone, it has been pretty valuable to us.

The new approach to "demo day" that nReduce is going for will hopefully be
something that helps entrepreneurs get exposure in a more meaningful way. If
it's done right, I could see it as a serious AngelList alternative; they seem
to be interested in building tools that let developers show off their skills
on a micro/functional way. This is much more appealing than a system that
relies more heavily on getting attention through mutual friends and
connections.

Having said that, I'm still kind of wary about the 10 startup demo day
approach that is based on "investor rating" of the companies, mostly because
it's not really clear what that means. Other people questioned the potential
for investors to be more inclined to care about specific types/markets of
startups, and I think that's a valid concern. However, I think that since
they're planning on making it a monthly thing, it could potentially make it a
lot easier for niche startups who have a solid product to get some real
attention.

~~~
joemellin
Hi,

Thanks so much for the feedback. Everything in nReduce is a prototype, so we
are going to be monitoring the success of the process we are designing for
demo day. If it doesn't work well, we will go back to the drawing board.

Please keep the feedback coming.

-Joe

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dragones
One of the few things that differentiates nReduce from other founder meetups
(Hackers & Founders, 106 miles etc.) is the online platform they have built to
manage weekly video checkins (before & after videos) and private groups where
other founders can choose what other startups to pair with and share
constructive feedback on what groups are building.

Rather than meeting another founder briefly over a beer and having an inkling
of whether they are killing it, you can very quickly see based on the weekly
checkins who is making real progress and who you want to engage with further.
Plus, founders who engage deeply with other founders on their platform get
more community points (think karma) that unlocks other benefits like mentor
access.

Now they are exposing these very valuable weekly progress reports to potential
investors. Much as Suster writes in his "Investing in Lines, Not Dots" post
([http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/11/15/invest-in-
line...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/11/15/invest-in-lines-not-
dots/)), investors want to see how you progress. Seems like a big value add to
the seed investing ecosystem.

~~~
joemellin
That is our goal! Let us know if you have any other feedback!

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pjscott
In case anybody is wondering about the name:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus#Reduction>

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railsjedi
nReduce has been incredibly helpful to our startup and I'm super psyched that
Joe and Josh have been able to put dev resources into building what's turned
into one of the most useful resources to keep our startup motivated and
shipping things every week.

I helped kick off the initial idea a few months ago, and it's morphed into
something way different and in my opinion way better than what I initially was
aiming for.

~~~
joemellin
Thanks Yo!

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yesimahuman
I haven't joined nReduce, but I thought it was a great idea and it inspired me
to start a smaller weekly coffee meetup of product creators in my city. I call
it the "Iterators" group. Similar concept: we are all working on stuff so
meeting weekly and sharing feedback, status, etc. is a great way to stay
accountable and share experience.

You can do a lot of interesting things when you meet weekly instead of
monthly.

~~~
joemellin
cool, love to learn more about what you are doing : hit me up joe@nreduce.com

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deepGem
Another startup guy at nReduce here. Because of the time differences (I'm in
India) I'm not able to participate actively in the community. I know I should
learn to wake up early. What has really helped me are the weekly builds. I
just missed uploading one update and I'm feeling so bad I couldn't do it on
time. Needless to say, you get what you put in to the program. So far, it's
been a self discipling tool for me.

~~~
joemellin
Yeah, I can attest that it really does help to motivate. Team nReduce gets
pretty hectic at 4pm on Tuesdays getting our video in.

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imperialWicket
Another nReducer here - we're on a distributed team, and bootstrapping. Since
making a team-wide move was not a possibility for us, nReduce has been an
amazing opportunity.

Great work so far from the nReduce team, and the startup team interactions are
super-helpful.

~~~
joemellin
Sweet! Glad it has worked out for you!

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joemellin
We are really excited about helping entrepreneurs. Please let us know if you
have any questions?

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Qworg
nReduce has been great for Spark. The weekly checkins, combined with frank
advice from our fellow teams, makes for a serious kick in the pants drive to
ship constantly.

I would recommend nReduce for any startup.

If there's one gripe, it is in the use of binary peer ratings to determine who
gets to move on - it really encourages gaming the system, rather than focusing
on doing your best work.

~~~
joemellin
Thanks so much for the feedback. The dynamics of the system are very subtel
and we are seeing how things play out over time. The "gaming of the system" if
you look at it looks like it is taking the form of people having to make deals
with other teams. Kind of an interesting dynamic. We will of course revisit
this over time.

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akurilin
nReduce has been invaluable for us at PolarMeter. We especially benefited from
the weekly kick-in-the-butt to show what you've accomplished, the honest no-bs
feedback from other founders and the chance to meet and build relationships
with other teams during nReduce Tuesdays.

Joe and Josh have done a great job so far, keep it up and things will get even
bigger and awesomer!

~~~
joemellin
Glad it has been a good experience for you!

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guscost
I've also been in nReduce since it started and I think it's a great community.

+2cents

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joemellin
Thanks Gus!

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ffpsx
The nReduce program has been really great for my team so far.

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Kilimanjaro
I signed up the first day I heard of nReduce and got deeply disappointed when
they required twitter access to log in.

I hope they changed policies.

~~~
joemellin
Ha! That is because we were hacking and twitter has the easiest oAuth :) I
know kind of ghetto. Now you can sign up with linkedin or email

