In the Netherlands, there is a threshold, and you do not have to incorporate if you stay under that, and you'll still have to report it. But this obviously depends on the country you're in.
Paypal could be a good way to take money from people privately, and it's probably entirely legal, up to a certain point.
It goes to the Startup Foundation, an independent non-profit supporting founders building more successful startups, of which I am the Chairman.
#startup is our latest initiative, but we're working on a progress report tool (enabling founder to give peer feedback and to report to investors and coaches).
We also have a weekender format like Startup Weekend or Lean Startup Machine, which we have done 10 of to date and will roll out in 2015. Next to that we have an incubator in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and a big meetup group for that city.
Our goal is that all of our initiatives generate surplus revenue to be able to roll out new initiatives and improve existing ones.
But for #startup, it is also a great way to find out who is motivated to get in and contribute. Most of the contributions are actually from people who have heard about what it is like on the inside.
You see, we normally get tens of applications per day, and some people just want to get in ASAP. This way they can, without us having to screen everyone that wants to get in directly.
Now that we're on PH, HN, Reddit and Betalist, we've got hundreds of applications just today. And we will screen them all, so it might take a week to get in.
+ not every motivation is good enough to get in, cash tells us you are at least slightly dedicated.
We've heard this once before. And I totally get the concern. I'll make sure someone at Typeform hears about this, as they are on #startups. We'll embed stripe checkout on the homepage soon I guess. Thanks.
Great idea with #Startup, guys! An insecure HTTP address is a concern though, which gave me a bit of a pause --- the developer in me speaks here --- although it's great a TypeForm page is offered at the bottom of the "Apply" panel (except it's not easy to notice; maybe a bigger font or highlight color will do the trick)... I believe an HTTPS-hosted page will do wonders, guys! :)
I have a Typeform account so I'm going to have a look at how it works :-) Assuming it's all good, I'll be back, because the ultimate idea sounds very appealing.
Which made you go "errr..."? We try to get an idea of who a person is. Also, if they have founders in their network, or if they are just lazy and skip questions ;-)
All of the questions around "What can you bring to #startup?" or "What do you want from #startup" or "What #startup founder do you want to connect with" fell extremely flat with me - I abandoned the form.
I'm on the page because you posted it here, on HN, and I started the flow because the premise seemed interesting, and I have a startup. I don't have any goals, and frankly, the pitch made it sound like more value would be flowing from the community to me. I don't have goals I need met from #startup because I have no idea what it will be like.
Those questions made it seem like you guys are just in it for a PR grab or a pivot into an incubator, which I am absolutely not interested in at all.
We know it's a ton of questions, and not all of them are very important. But the goal here is to separate those who are truly motivated from those who will come in and just lurk, self promote or scout.
I'm sorry if you think we have some hidden agenda, which is certainly not the case as screening the applications is an extreme amount of work. The way the application is set up we will also have a lot less applications being submitted, which is a nice side effect as we already have hundreds waiting.
You don't have to become a member of our community, but I might be able to give you a couple of reasons why it is what it is today, if you can let me know which one we should put up on the page according to you?
- hosted/organised by an independent non-profit with the goal to help founders
- using slack, easy and unobtrusive cross platform system
- members are selected upon their motivation
Or because it already exists in a great form? There are multiple others, but we are open to anyone that can provide a motivation.
Paypal could be a good way to take money from people privately, and it's probably entirely legal, up to a certain point.