

Looking for a designer co-founder - jaredtking

Hi, my name is Jared. I am 21 and just finishing up my junior year as a CS major. For the past 1.5 years I have been working on a side project called Idealist, a collaboration tool. My time has been spent doing market research, building, and pivoting. I have learned some cool things along the way. I am confident that I have found a market to compete in full of paying customers. Idealist is definitely not the first product to the online collaboration space. However, many people are still using e-mail to collaborate because they are unaware of better solutions. I would like to take Idealist to the next step with the help of a co-founder.<p>So, Idealist is a real-time collaboration platform. Initially, I started out building a list-making tool. After some market research and talking with potential customers I learned that distance collaboration is a very common problem. In fact, many people are willing to pay a lot of money to improve their ability to communicate online. (see pg's Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas)<p>So far I have built a web app that is somewhere in between launching and the prototype phase. You can actually sign up for it and take it for a spin at goidealist.com. Currently the focus is on making lists, which I hope to downplay in future iterations. I have also developed an iPhone and iPad app. The iOS apps are unpublished for now because I am still tweaking the core of the service.<p>I am looking for a design-savvy co-founder who wants to try a startup. If distance collaboration is an interesting problem to you then drop me a line at cofounder at goidealist.com.
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josephpmay
Just wondering, why do you think you need a designer cofounder? I just took a
quick look at your site, and truthfully the design looks much better than most
early stage startups. Did you do this design yourself, or did you previously
have someone else doing design that you are no longer working with?

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josephpmay
Also, I would suggest that you allow a larger number of lists for free
accounts (more than the current five) but instead limit the number of private
lists (in fact, I would argue that all lists created by free users should be
public).

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jaredtking
I actually did the design myself so I am glad that you do not think it too
horrible. ;-) Initially I had a business co-founder (bad idea) which did not
work out. Doing the design is much more difficult to do myself than the
coding. Having somebody else to bounce ideas off of also helps tremendously.

Also, I agree with you that free accounts should not be limited to 5 lists. In
the next release this limitation will be removed. In its place collaboration
features will be limited for free accounts. Forcing free accounts to make
public lists is an interesting idea that I am going to consider. Thanks for
the ideas!

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EMRo
The app looks great imho. Well done on design and from what I can see the
interface is simple and usable.

One question...why would I use this over a shared google doc or a hackpad?

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jaredtking
I have actually never ran across hackpad, thank you for sharing that. As far
as using Idealist vs Google...I will never ever look at your data, analyze it,
or share it with advertisers, which is reason enough for me. I also believe
that I provide a better cross-platform experience than Google Docs. This is
hard to back up since I have the unpublished iOS app sitting on my desk.

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nayefc
What about Evernote?

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twanlass
Hey Jared,

Great work thus far. I'm curious, do you have any paying customers yet?

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jaredtking
Thank you! I do not have any paying customers outside of my circle of friends.
This is for 2 reasons: 1) I just finished building the billing system 2 weeks
ago 2) As mentioned, I have asked many potential customers what they would
like out of a collaboration tool and if they would pay for Idealist. The
response has been positive. I have not actually asked anyone to pay yet
because the product has some key functionality under construction and changes
frequently.

If it sounds like I spent most of my time focusing on product development
instead of customer acquisition, it's true. I am looking to spend more time
acquiring customers with a co-founder. The truth is that doing everything by
myself is too much (and I have weaknesses too).

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chookrl
That's a great way to build a company! good luck

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jaredtking
Thank you. :-)

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meerita
Hi Jared, dropped you an email.

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jaredtking
Thanks! I am writing a reply.

