
Starting Entrepreneurs Anonymous - blizkreeg
I envision this as a real-life community of founders and doers who are bootstrapping, juggling a full-time job while working on their product&#x2F;business on the side, or otherwise just lack resources.<p>My story:<p>For the past year, I&#x27;ve been bootstrapping my startup full-time. More recently, I&#x27;ve had to take up a full-time job again due to diminishing finances and work on my startup on the side.<p>I&#x27;ll admit, at times it gets really hard and the nature of problems is entirely different from funded startups. I&#x27;ve wished that there was a support group outside of family who I can reach out to and draw support&#x2F;motivation from. Honest dialogue is what I&#x27;d like to see in this community.<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blizkreeg.typeform.com&#x2F;to&#x2F;A79l8I
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Mz
At first glance, this existing site:
[https://startupsanonymous.com/](https://startupsanonymous.com/) looks
incredibly depressing.

Over the years, I have participated in various kinds of support groups for
various things. They are often incredibly depressing and are often drama fests
where it is difficult to really talk about solutions. Social pecking order and
"respecting" the pain of people who can't get their act together becomes far
more important than actually being useful to people who desire to move
forward. This means anyone with real answers is shouted down by the folks
saying it cannot be done.

So, I will suggest you put some thought into how you intend to keep the focus
on problem solving. It is all too easy for "support" groups to just become
places to vent and not places to get real solutions.

I am semi interested, but I am not going to give you my city and I am not sure
I am a good fit for your group. But I would be happy to exchange a few emails.
(And I have posted this HN discussion on my blog.)

Best.

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blizkreeg
That's a really good point, and honestly I'm not sure I know how to avoid
those problems. That being said, I'm open to discussing this with others. I
don't claim to know how to run a group like this.

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Mz
I will suggest you either consider renaming the project or take pains to
indicate that this is "Entrepreneurs Anonymous" in the sense of "We don't want
our current employer to know, so this is confidential" and NOT in the sense of
_Alcoholics Anonymous._

If it were me, I would frame it in a way that focuses on "People starting
small" or "seedling businesses" or "Biz Lite." I would frame it as being aimed
at people _choosing_ to start it on the side and actively looking to avoid VC
money. I would frame it as "for folks looking to bootstrap" rather than "for
overwhelmed people who desperately need a shoulder to cry on."

"Bootstrappers pooling their knowledge and experience to achieve success more
rapidly and with less pain."

You might also go over to metafilter and check out their FAQ and guidelines
for the AskMe section. There are a lot of things about Metafilter that I think
suck, but AskMe has developed some best practices for keeping the focus on
actually answering the question. It isn't perfect, but if you have no idea
what you are doing here, it is a model to work from.

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jf22
Its better to have a good mastermind group instead of a large community.
Masterminds allow you to really dig into your issues and get to know people on
a personal level. The moral support from your mastermind buddies is worth so
much more than what a forum or slack member could give you.

I used to be part of a couple of communities like this and while they are
amazing a mastermind is a thousand times better.

[http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/](http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/)

[https://www.foundercafe.com/](https://www.foundercafe.com/)

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sharemywin
I just wish I could use karma I've earned to ask questions and get answers.
surveys etc. I doubt there enough people in my city for an actual physical
group.

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anthony_franco
What type of questions or surveys are you looking to have answered?

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sharemywin
I have a lot of Ask HNs that go unanswered. Most are probably pretty dumb
ideas I guess. just wish I knew it was lack of interest or lack of exposure.

a lot are project/community ideas that I could never launch on own but could
possibly be done as a community.

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anthony_franco
Probably best to ask those in a forum setting. Such as here:
[http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/](http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/)

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blizkreeg
Link to Typeform for whoever is interested and relates to this:
[https://blizkreeg.typeform.com/to/A79l8I](https://blizkreeg.typeform.com/to/A79l8I)

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santa_boy
I respect your idea and understand where you are coming from. However, I think
being genuine and "non-anonymous" is very important for someone at this stage.
I can imagine the fear-factor while bootstrapping but on aggregate I feel
people are supportive to those who try and the honest dialogue is way more
practical with a real virtual person. Just my experience.

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supernormal
Thanks for starting this. It's a hard balance many of us are tackling, mostly
by ourselves. Looking forward to see what comes out of it.

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poirier
Best of luck.

Note: [https://startupsanonymous.com/](https://startupsanonymous.com/)

~~~
blizkreeg
Thanks. I've known of this. What I'd like to bring is the personal aspect to
it - knowing the people fighting the battles, a sense of real interaction and
talk.

