
I’m starting a Single Founder mastermind group - Tawheed
http://www.tawheedkader.com/2010/03/single-founder-mastermind-group/
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javery
A couple other founders and I do something we call the "Bootstrappers Scrum".
It's every week on Monday and we cover what we are working on, what we have
gotten done, and then talk about any tough decisions or ask for advice. We
have been doing it almost a year now and it has worked out great, I would
highly recommend it to other people getting started who need more feedback and
motivation.

I think the key to making something like this work is to limit the size of the
group. It's five of us right now and that is about perfect, we tried adding
another and the calls started getting too long and it didn't feel right. (he
quit anyway)

It also helps if you know each other in some capacity, talking about your
business in an honest way and sharing information requires a good amount of
trust. We all knew each other before starting the call.

The other thing that helped was to create an IRC room for chatting and asking
ad-hoc questions (although it tends to just be five friends hanging out some
days too, which is cool too)

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christonog
Sounds like a great idea, do you all meet in person or just set up a group
video conference? I like the possibility of doing this locally, ideally to
meet up face to face.

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javery
We just do Skype, meeting up face to face would be great but I chose people I
knew over location (we are currently spread across Michigan, Ohio, and North
Carolina).

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mbreese
My initial comment was, "Oh, like the Brain Trust on Scrubs"
(<http://scrubs.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_Trust>). Then I noticed that was actually
the name of his startup.

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winter_blue
"I haven’t diagnosed why"

There's nothing to diagnose; for many people it's best to be a single founder.

PG's strong emphasis on having more than one founder has made may people
insecure of founding a startup all on their own. I think this belief of PG was
influenced by his experience with Viaweb and the great symbiotic relationship
he had with RTM.

But what's good for one person, is not necessarily good for others. Many
people are the most productive when they work by themselves and when they are
in full control of what they are doing.

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krmmalik
I've been doing something since October that was initially just two of us, but
is now three.

The criteria for joining was the person had to be of sound character, open-
minded and ambitious. They dont necessarily have to be part of a start-up.

I initially did something on Skype, but i didnt feel it worked as well as it
could have, so moved it offline.

We meet once a week, and we congratulate each other on our achievements on the
week, then we 'reflect' on our challengers from the previous week, and then we
discuss our challenges for the next week. the whole thing lasts about 3 or 4
hours.

I took some inspiration from another mastermind group i attended online last
january, and then built upon it further in the way that i felt it worked for
me.

I'm really glad i took the step. Initially it was really hard to come up with
a working structure, but the guy that joined the group was me was very
flexible and open-minded, so got the thing refined in just a few weeks, and
now i feel it works great. Has really helped me think differently about
things, and learn more than i could have done on my own, and with assurity i
can say, its had the same result for the other 2 guys now.

We just felt it works much better face to face. We've all been very dedicated
to it, and we dont just discuss professional achievements and challenges , but
personal ones too (within reason).

Just thought i'd share (not bragging ;-) )

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anigbrowl
Best of luck, although I can't help a smile at the irony of creating a group
for loners.

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imp
It sounds like a good idea, but with that name I just couldn't help but think
of this: <http://scrubs.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_Trust>

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amichail
I believe that single founders need a commercial-use only "open source"
software license:

[http://www.google.com/buzz/amichail/XyY72JZhjYJ/Open-
source-...](http://www.google.com/buzz/amichail/XyY72JZhjYJ/Open-source-
licenses-requiring-minimum-price-Do)

~~~
lsc
so you are okay with some other guy taking your software for free, packaging
it up, and selling it to someone else, but not okay with the same other guy
taking your software for free, packaging it up, and giving it away?

I guess there might be a small advantage to it on server software... "you can
use my software to run your webapp, but you must charge more than I do for
customers to use your webapp." - still, makes it a lot less likely that I'm
going to use your software (and any time you step away from the established
licenses you incur lawyer costs you don't if you use the standard licenses.)

~~~
amichail
This sort of license would make more sense with libraries than with complete
apps that people can just package up and sell.

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kmano8
I was expecting this to be a group to play mastermind with other like-minded
single founders. Oh shucks.

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nopassrecover
Ha I've been developing this same idea on the side - good to see someone else
has it covered already.

~~~
Tawheed
Might as well join up

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danskil
After mastermind you should have added "Bwahahahahaha" (maniacal mastermind
laughter)

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apower
This sounds great. Where is it located?

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evanrmurphy
Which city is this happening in?

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Tawheed
It doesn't have to be local per-se. I've gotten 50 responses so far, so I'm
trying to figure out how to go about assembling this in a sensible way.

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anonjon
I have a Da Vinci action figure: <http://www.shakespearesden.com/11520.html>

I'm not saying he's better than Charlie, but I find it easier
anthropomorphizing a (brilliant!) action figure. (Not only is he great at
debugging code, he's also pretty darn creative).

~~~
gcheong
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging>

