

nReduce: an alliance of hackers - joemellin
http://www.nreduce.com/

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gue5t
I think the headline is misleading. This seems to be an alliance of startup-
oriented folks. Hackers would generally avoid the weasel-words and
centralization: "virtual incubator" and reliance on a site that presents
itself as more or less a monolith. I also don't see where investment and
sponsorship fall into hacking. Computers are cheap enough that neither is
really necessary to do interesting work, even if new hardware is required.

My guess is they said "hackers" when they meant "Hacker News readers".

~~~
skrebbel
Word. It's nasty how HN is diluting the term "hacker" to include things like
"an MBA dropout with an idea". The whole assumption that "if you're a hacker,
of course you want to start a business" is just so far away from reality that
it's silly.

~~~
coopdog
I don't know, I regard it as pretty hackerish to solve 'the money problem'
once off and spend the rest of your life hacking.

Getting crazy rich and becoming a rockstar entrepreneur, not so much, but
automating the rent and bill problem once and for all by coding something to
bring in money, just one in a long string of problems a 'hacker' might
consider solving in their lifetime.

~~~
antihero
Hackers think outside the box, it's not about getting more money, it's about
how to avoid needing it.

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lpolovets
It's a tiny bit frustrating that they only allow signing up via a Twitter
handle. IMO,

Email-based signup > Facebook-based >> Twitter-based

On top of that, the permissions indicate that nReduce wants to post Tweets for
me. Um, no thanks.

~~~
railsjedi
Ease of implementation mainly. Plus one less email/password to have to worry
about. And what founder doesn't have a twitter account, it's sort of as
essential as email at this point.

We won't post tweets. We added write permission so we could help organize
groups together. Twitter doesn't really make it easy to choose exactly what
permission you want to pick. It's write all or nothing.

~~~
daeken
Not to hijack the thread too heavily, but is there an easy way to add Twitter
handles after you've signed up as a startup? I submitted just with one
cofounder's and need to add more (forgot to throw them all in). Thanks, and
this is a great idea; looking forward to participating.

~~~
railsjedi
Yep, just go to <http://s12.nreduce.com/startup/edit>. Let us know if you have
any issues editing your team profile.

Thanks!

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mrkmcknz
I've joined as part of the NRS12 batch and I can't wait to collaborate and
share my progress with other founders.

Hopefully the community will graduate some awesome startups and will give the
next batch some program klout.

My biggest worry is that this batch works well and a number of companies raise
investment and we see thousands upon thousands of startups flooding the
process the next batch.

However I'm stoked to be part of this.

Manchester UK participant.

~~~
michael_fine
I think the great thing about this is that it's scalable. It's purely a
community driven effort - you host dinners at your own location, collaborate
with other teams, get mentors. The benefit of nReduce isn't it's selection,
like YC, it's the community. So, if this grew to thousands, that would be
great, making everyone better off and more successful.

~~~
j2labs
Or dilution will take place because there are no filters to keep the quality
high.

~~~
lazerwalker
I'd like to think that local communities will have at least somewhat of a
filter for ignoring people who don't consistently make progress from week to
week.

~~~
TimJRobinson
Unfortunately it's kind of hard to kick someone out of a meeting when everyone
is just a member and on equal footing.

I've been in so many meetup groups which started off with really smart hard
working people that have been slowly run down by tire kickers and dreamers
coming along each week but never actually making any progress on their
company.

EDIT: Ah just noticed in the FAQ that they kick teams out who don't ship,
awesome, good to see them keeping the quality high.

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jermaink
@nReduce I think this is a really nice approach and I´m pretty sure I will
join the demo day. It´s a nice experiment and taking "self curing" patient
communities into account, an evolutionary and self organized community can
work really good.

Hint: The more you want to be like YC, the less you will be like YC. nR is nR,
give it it´s own shape in the communication.

and... thank you for integrating the "Follow Discussion" Button. I just
updated the git right here. <https://github.com/jermaink/hnfollowbutton>

Renamed from "Follow Discussion" from "View Discussion" which makes more
sense. Also some compatibility issues solved.

~~~
railsjedi
Hey, great feedback! Yeah, we've changed around the intro copy. Also updated
the HN Follow button css. Thanks!

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sanjayparekh
I run Startup Riot (startupriot.com) and we'll be in Seattle on August 8th for
our event. I would love to figure out a way to have nReduce teams
attend/participate/present at our event. Joe or whoever can hit me up if you
guys are interested. @sanjay or hit the contact form on our site. I would have
pinged you guys directly but there isn't an easy way to do that on your site.
Regardless - good luck with the first class. More startups making progress
can't be a bad thing.

~~~
joemellin
Hi Sanjay,

Thanks for the note, I will DM you.

-Joe

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eragnew
Is this open to individuals? I've got a ton of ideas, and I'm a hacker. I just
need some help with being able to leave my current job.

~~~
railsjedi
Yep, if you can ship every week we'll take you. Take a leave of absence at
your job and see if you can build something amazing this summer.

~~~
aarondf
I know this comment wasn't meant glibly, but "taking a leave of absence" isn't
usually an option. FYI.

~~~
railsjedi
Really? I've found companies usually prefer it over quitting. Financially it
may not be an option though, that I can understand.

~~~
aarondf
I can only speak to my industry (public accounting) in my location (Texas,
US), but there are a line of qualified candidates ready to fill my seat should
I choose to quit. Or should I choose to ask for a leave of absence.

~~~
railsjedi
Good point. I'm fully immersed in the current bay area bubble so I sometimes
lose perspective.

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wamatt
What does the team behind nReduce get out of it? Deal flow lead bounty?

Not trying to be cynical I'd just like to know what the incentives are other
than "let's just be awesome".

Apologies if it was explained somewhere, I did look but didn't see anything
obvious.

~~~
railsjedi
Actually, the main motivation for me to start nReduce was so it would exist,
and I could be part of it. I really wanted something like YC for my startup
lizibot.com, and since YC wouldn't have us, we figured we'd try to solve our
own problem.

I'm also thankful some great people (like Joe) have stepped up as partners and
will be taking it over so I can focus on my startup.

~~~
njx
I have applied to nReduce but my main question remains, "How are you going to
execute this?"

If everyone is at the startup stage someone with more experience (more than
one) needs to be available to help make connections. We need someone who can
review each other's work and submit to different news site and media. This is
a great idea but there needs to be a plan for execution.

A startup or a product without exposure is nothing. The benefit of being part
of Ycombinator or other incubators is not the initial funding but the
following guaranteed exposure (atleast one writeup by TC, mashable etc) and
helping with connections.

We need similar kind of thing and I have got some ideas how we can collaborate
on this

~~~
TimJRobinson
I'd say this is in the works, especially if a few great startups come out of
it. Y-Combinator didn't start out being well known and covered on every tech
site either.

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ken
I think this is a neat idea, and I'd love to try it. It seems a bit odd to
hold meetings at a bar, but that's not necessarily a dealbreaker.

But sadly, due to random bad luck I can't do it: my Tuesday evenings are
spoken for. (It's one of the very few times during the week that I have a
fixed schedule. Let's call it a sanity preservation activity.) If nReduce was
on, say, Wednesday evening (or Tuesday morning), I'd sign up.

If the expectation is for people to take a leave of absence (or quit) from
their job, anyway, then I would have scheduled it during the day, as most
extracurricular activities (IME) are in the evenings.

~~~
joemellin
Hi Ken,

We are just scrappy guys putting this together, we needed a place that was
open at night and that you could meet at : A Bar.

We have no expectations on whether you are employed or not, just if you can
build great product.

Best, -Joe

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david_shaw
So how does this work for remote teams that would miss a (full) week? Just
update the next week with what shipped?

I am planning on attending a conference at the end of July (BSides Las
Vegas/DEFCON, for those wondering), which would probably take me completely
out of the running for shipping _anything_ that week.

I am still very interested, but have other responsibilities as well. How would
this work?

~~~
railsjedi
Sure, as long as it's only a week, that's fine. Definitely gotta ship
something the previous and next weeks though.

Looking forward to having you!

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wildmXranat
Toronto, Canada needs a hug over here. Any teams or members willing to
partner-up so that we can rock this baby across the finish line ?

~~~
railsjedi
Just added Toronto to the RSVP list.

We'll put up an RSVP page soon that shows what the counts are for each city.

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vnchr
Signed up, in St. Louis. I can get more teams signed up locally. I'd
appreciate any input on how a team farther from the primary tech hubs should
take advantage. I figure either we can host a dinner with a few other local
teams casually and try to make it out to another Demo Day. Thoughts?

~~~
joemellin
We have a whole system for remote teams. The are treated the same as teams
with physical locations and will be meeting with their group mates via video
conferencing, online tools etc.

Please sign up, it is going to be awesome!

~~~
vnchr
Cofounder already signed us up, I guess I'm catching up still. I think to do
it well, I'd like to get at least 1 or 2 nearby startups at our level
participating with us. I'm glad the remote components are there too. Excited
to be a part of this.

Also, I'm an Associate Partner at a local VC fund. What else do you suggest
for how investors can support or encourage this activity prior to Demo Day?
Thanks for watching the comments.

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creamyhorror
Oh, so this is what happened to NCombinator. I initially thought this was
something else very similar.

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odnamra
I'm most curious about the role mentors will play in nReduce. From what I
understand, mentorship is the secret sauce at YC and TechStars. It also seems
like the hardest type of person to attract to a fledgling operation (compared
to hackers and investors).

~~~
railsjedi
We've got some interesting ideas here. From the mentors we've talk to already,
a lot of them love the fact that they can start by offering "micro-
mentorship". Giving startups advice with just 1 hour a week time commitment
(split into 15 min chunks per startup they help). And they can do it from the
comfort of their home.

That'll require a bit of curation by the nReduce team so the mentors only see
the valid, honest questions submitted. But we're working on a way to manage
that workload (between the nReduce partners and moderators).

What mentors get out of it is being exposed to lots of early stage startups
and possibly find some great teams that they enjoy working with and can step
in as official advisory roles if there's a fit.

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deepGem
Registered from Bangalore, India. Haven't seen anyone from the subcontinent
replying to this post.If there are any, we can start a group here or head down
to Singapore once a month for the tuesday dinners. Tiger airways has cheap
fares.

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palguay
When you say "Ship every week " what does it mean ? Is it a feature ? Can a
bug fix be considered a "ship for a week" ? . Are there any parameters on how
you decide someone shipped this week

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jvrossb
Quick correction to the how it works page - Singapore is not in China.

~~~
railsjedi
Oops, boneheaded mistake. Fixed now, thanks! :)

~~~
cocoflunchy
And there's a little typo on the /how page "funtionality".

~~~
railsjedi
That's the "fun" version of functionality :) Fixed now

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tgasson
And FAQ on the help page links to #faq, should be faq.html

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railsjedi
Fixed. Thanks for the tips!

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shaharris
Application form doesn't seem to do anything (maybe it shut off the day before
it starts?). Clicking "submit" just takes you to the top of the page. No
contact form to complain to. :(

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tansey
Just signed Curvio up for it. We're already launched, but we have a half dozen
new features/products to launch this summer, so hopefully this helps us stay
on track even better! :)

~~~
joemellin
Perfect! We are a mix of pre launch / post launch companies. Excited to have
you on board!

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albertpoghosyan
Interesting idea! But I can't understand the practical usage of it. We
delivery what we do to our customers, and get feedback, why should we deliver
it to bunch of hackers? :)

~~~
railsjedi
Great point! nReduce is __not __your customer. Your customers are your
customers. nReduce is there to remind you and to motivate you to ship to your
customers every week. Our goal is to motivate, plain and simple.

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njx
I just launched last week and still have lot more to do. Can you describe How
it might work out with demoday, meetups etc with East coast or folks not in
the valley.

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ilaksh
I tried to sign up a few weeks ago, didn't get a response.

~~~
joemellin
Can you try again?

There were some error in our form where peoples email addresses weren't saved
correctly.

~~~
ilaksh
OK, thanks.. actually I just got an email, so maybe I was signed up already,
sorry.

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dgabriel
If there's a Boston area dinner, I'm interested.

~~~
joemellin
I think we are few teams shy of a boston group, do you know any more boston
teams?

~~~
aba264
I'm in the Boston area and this sounds quite interesting. However, I am by
myself and all I would be able to ship are screenshots, logic/sequence
diagrams...I am trying to build a web software for small businesses but can
only do the graphic portion. Would that work?

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tjsnyder
For those of us bootstrapping while holding jobs, is it ok to not be full time
for this as long as we are shipping?

~~~
railsjedi
Yep. If you can ship every week, maintain a fulltime job, and not go
completely bonkers in 12 weeks we'd love to have you! :)

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grigy
Sounds very interesting, but I may not be able to join this summer. Is it also
going to be biannual?

~~~
railsjedi
Yep, we'll see how it goes. We're hoping to have more batches!

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agotterer
Can I be a startup and a mentor?

~~~
railsjedi
Yep, definitely

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tim_church
Great idea. Anyone else signing up from Zurich?

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bmelton
Since somebody has to ask stupid questions -- what if I launched a new,
different product every week?

I get how confusing that might look at demo day, but could one 'graduate'
doing things that way?

~~~
joemellin
That is totally fine. We are not judges your idea / path.

In fact, inherent in our system is that their is no one person or group of
people who can say yeah or neigh on all startups.

What our system does is we document your progress, so we try to answer the
question, can this team execute on an idea.

Then the quality of the idea / traction / investor interest takes over from
there.

The question is if when I launch an investor sees my progress, what will it
say about my team?

Also, some people are joining just to be a part of the community and not
really for the demo day. Our goal is to help startups, so we welcome all
types.

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shootthemoon
Sounds fun. I have a great idea but I'm still flying solo, looks like you need
a team

~~~
joemellin
First and foremost you need to be able to execute on your idea.

If you feel like you can do that solo, please sign up!

