Entrepreneur Oasis
Patrick,
Given the fact that there has been a hell of a lot of talk about entrepreneurship on here lately, but no easy site to go to that focuses solely on entrepreneurship, I was wondering whether it would be a good idea to have a WSO for entrepreneurs.
The current platform works well, but I think you will get a much larger audience / revenue if you focus on catering to entrepreneurs or if we have a sub forum on it at the very least.
Peace
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It would be really easy for patrick to do. He already has the platform / network. It would be like what he did for JD oasis. I really think there is huge demand for it.
Entrepreneur Oasis seems really broad. Every industry is different and would require different advice. Plus companies at different stages from conception through growth through maturity also face different challenges. Its a good idea for entrepreneurs to network, but a healthcare start up and a tech start up face completely problems and require different advice. WSO has a specific industry focus and great content from users with similar professions and backgrounds.
Perhaps Silicon Valley Oasis could work. This could focus on VC and tech start ups. Narrowing the scope of a new site from entrepreneur focus to a specific industry (in this case Silicon Valley type start up) might make it more successful.
I feel like the notion of it being 'really easy to do' just is not the case based on the volume of work Patrick has had to put into JDOasis to get it up and going.
Mixergy seems to be pretty good for that kind of stuff. In fact, I read a pretty good interview of Patrick on it. Not sure if it has a forum though.
I agree with LIBOR. You can make a TechOasis (or something of the sort) and have subsections (like we do here for PE, IB, CO, AM, etc.): social networking, e-commerce, software, storage, etc.
Assuming Patrick is too busy, anyone want to actually try and cooperatively launch one?
Not a 'forum' per say, but www.Quora.com is a great site for entrepreneurship topics. It's actually a great site for just about any topic. I've seen CEOs and founders of major name companies directly answer questions on there. Really great resource in my opinion.
cartman, I would be up for something like that, no technical background though.
I'm down, PM me
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cool, let's wait a day or two to see if anyone else is interested, then i'll either send out a group pm (is that possible?) or create a group
sound good?
Don't go against the family on this. Check with Patrick to see if he can help or how to partner with him on this. Or (remember goodfellas) to atleast give him his tribute for cross-promotional material on the two sites (i.e there is a bunch of threads on here about the topic already).
I'm DEFINITELY interested, but no IT knowledge. On the business/finance/accounting side it could be a fun pet project.
Interested
Am I tripping or did WSO have a forum before for Entrepreneurs?
that's what i thought too... but i can't find it. either way most conversation about entrepreneurship seems to be in 'other careers' which is rather inadequate for this purpose
I think Patrick got rid of it to make it the WSO Success stories forum. He figured The Other Road covered Entrepreneurs anyway
interested setting up something
I just think that there are so many entrepreneurs and so much to discuss that it could easily justify a site in and of itself. It is a huge gap waiting to be filled. Mixergy is more like M&I, I still have not found a discussion forum similar to WSO for entrepreneurs. Personally, I think that a small sub section or whatever does not do it justice. Patrick could own that space because he has a proven platform and his core base (business guys) are far more likely to post / introduce their friends to a site for entrepreneurs than law. there is more overlap I think and it is one of Patrick's core competencies. Personally, I think it would draw more traffic than JD oasis.
You can break entrepreneurship into many sub sections for forums like Emerging markets (africa, SA, Asia) EU and US markets, tech entrepreneurs, industry, restaurants, faliure, success stories, lesson learned etc. But it is Patrick's call to make.
Just my 2 cents.
Don't get me wrong, its an interesting idea, I just don't think it would work with such a broad focus. Look at all the things mentioned above, they are all completely different. At least on WSO S&T is similar (to some extent, in that they are both areas of finance, both at the same banks, etc) to IBD. A restaurant entrepreneur faces a totally different competitive environment than a tech entrepreneur etc. Finding enough high quality contributors who would be willing to sift through irrelevant threads or meet people that might (at least in theory) not be able to offer quality advice (since they really don't know about other industries). WSO works because it covers a very niche industry. As I mentioned above, if you broke it into smaller niche communities the idea would work well.
There's a site called young entrepreneurs. They have a forum, but I feel like the quality of the content could be MUCH better. Mixergy is definitely better, but then again no forum.
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Whatever it is that gets set up, the key component is getting the right guys to become regulars on the board. People will come regardless of shitty interface if the content is good.
I think Mixergy and what Patrick would create would work well together, but not necessarily officially. Just like M&I and WSO. Both are great, and I use both, but I want to be able to talk to like minded people and express my thoughts, I can't do that on Mixergy, Patrick would own that space if he just copied the WSO format and changed it to Entrepreneurs. Separate site, same basics.
He could team up with Mixergy to make guides (How to fill in taxes, dealing with corruption in emerging markets, dealing with cash flows, taking on debt, blah blah blah) and have all the sub forums I mentioned earlier. It would be a home run - especially if he magically linked it so that you can post there with your WSO account.
I think techcrunch.com may already own this market...not as social as WSO, but certainly has all of the breaking VC/Tech news.
Two additional things.
1.) PartnerUp is another site dedicated to idea discussion and finding partners.
2.) A major issue with these sorts of forums is people's (mostly) irrational belief that someone will steal their idea(s) if they share them for purposes of feedback. This comes up on Quora all the time and honestly hinders a lot of discussion. An idea is worth next to nothing without proper execution, but it's hard for people to see this for what it is.
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Entrepreneurship is way too broad of a topic to create a forum for. You would have people who own restaurants and people who own vending machine companies posting on the same site. I don't think that you would be able to do it without creating about 100 different sections, which seems like too much of a pain in the ass for the ad rev you could bring in.
MD Oasis first
As far as categories go, why not split them up based on business activity instead of business type.
Example of what I mean: Getting Started Financing Marketing Legal Employees Admin Success Stories Help! and ect.
Even though small businesses can be vastly different, the concepts of running a successful one are pretty similar. You need forum topics on cheap marketing techniques, how to deal with a troublesome employee, how to negotiate: the basics. People will go elsewhere for most of their technical help (kinda like WSO). Try to establish a Mentor / newbie community vibe.
hey guys, just stumbled upon this thread so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts.
I like the idea on an Entrepreneur Oasis, however, as some users pointed out it is far from a slam dunk. Besides there being countless entrepreneur blogs, you also have the mixergys, techcrunches, etc if you were to focus on tech...if not, you have Inc.com and a few others.
This is not to say that it wouldn't work, just that I have put my focus on jdOasis.com at least for the foreseeable future. Even though we have a template / platform on WSO, replicating it and promoting it is still not an easy task.
I also agree with the statements that "entrepreneur Oasis" may be a bit broad...and if you were going to try and tackle that the real challenge would be organization, How do you break down the forums? By function / by industry?
anyways, just some thoughts...
oh, and yes, we did move the Entrepreneurial threads into The Other Road forum...which I think is fairly accurate since joining a start-up is pretty close to the opposite extreme of following the traditional finance career path.
Just FYI guys, there are entrepreneur forums out there, but the best ones are all paid membership sites and aren't available to non-members for viewing.
can you name a few?
Which ones?
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