During the past decade of working in startups, I've always struggled with the very first step... finding a great business idea.
The approaches that I've seen all feel too random. The idea tree is a solution I created for myself using concepts I learned studying Computer Science (traversing trees, Breadth-first search, depth-first search, etc...).
The concept is to make finding great business ideas more scientific. I've found the "idea tree" an incredibly useful framework.
That being said, it's still in its infancy stage. Anything that doesn't make sense? Is anything worth elaborating on?
I'd love to hear any feedback you all might have for me.
We're really building for bootcamps and online schools who need attendance data to know who's on track to finishing the program and who's at risk for falling.
it's also useful to communities who want to learn how to better engage members and which types of zoom events drive the most engagement
Managing virtual events for more than a few people is a pain. Either you paste emails from spreadsheets into Google calendar or you rely on internal mailing lists, which get out of date and make calendar invites hard. If you want to do events for subgroups, or send out reminders, or track attendance, it gets worse. We make it all easy, for both one-off and recurring events.
We initially built Virtually as an LMS (Learning Management System) for online bootcamps in YC's S20 batch. However, over the past year we learned that our users love us specifically for managing their events. So we split out our events manager into its own product.
We've got an API that can sync with any database, for example to keep track of rosters or roles, and a Zapier integration is coming. Also, the same technology can be used to send out announcements in a targeted way. This will be a prominent feature in an upcoming release.
Our customers include some top cohort-based programs like Building a Second Brain, Flockjay, and Ali Abdaal's PTYA. Building a Second Brain used us to manage 150 live sessions for 1500 students. Throughout their 5-week program, we facilitated 7900 session joins.
I would love to hear any feedback that the HN community might have for us!
What is the intent for showing how many people were late or no-shows? Is this app for internal meetings? That would explain the no-show / attendance thing.
Or is it for external events? In which case, what is the importance about late attendees. No-shows is to be expected, especially for free events (And even paid events have a substantial no-show rate).
I'm confused as to who the intended customer audience is meant to be.
I totally see your confusion. Our intended audience is online cohort-based programs.
Think online courses, bootcamps, or private commmunities.
Google calendar is great for 1-on-1 and small groups, but when you're managing hundreds of zoom events for a number of different subgroups within a larger community, it's a nightmare.
I used to do meetups for some hobbies before the pandemic. For me, managing no-shows is very important. Many events have an attendance limit, and everyone who flakes takes space from someone who intended on going.
I only started getting no-shows and late cancellations under control once I started kicking people out for doing more than X no-shows. Also, it really helps to take money for reserving a spot, contrary to your assertion.
For me, especially with pandemic restrictions, managing no-shows is a very important feature.
I run dozens of events a year. Online and even now in-person. I don't have any "space" issues with virtual events. Which platform that you're using has registered attendee limits (vs. actual live attendee limits) and how does a no-show at a virtual event take away space from someone who is going?
All the streaming / event platforms I use charge based on actual viewers and attendees or active users on the platform. If I had a limit of 100 live, I could literally have 1000 people registered with 900 no-shows and that wouldn't be any issue. The no-shows are not taking anything away from the shows.
The only reason to manage no-shows is to manage active engagement. And that's more of a community building thing than a platform thing.
Virtually, from what I can tell, is managing Zoom events, which are entirely online events, so live in-person attendee limits don't seem to be a factor here.
The issue is if you have a 100 live limit, what risk are you taking in the community by allowing 1000 to register? It’s not a problem when you get 900 no-shows. It’s a big problem when you get 800 no-shows and 100 did-shows who got rejected.
We have a servicing partner that helps with ISA's. When our user's request it, we help kickoff that process. Not sure if they support international ISA's but I'll certainly ask.
In the future, this will be a much more integrated process with our existing software/tools.
