It’s Time To Build A Community Site. Who Wants To Help Me Lead And Build It?

Posted on Feb 25, 2010 - 2:36 PM PST

I’m getting a lot of requests for a Mixergy community. I created the site, but I can’t build it out and lead it on my own. Want to help?

Why we need our own community

Imagine that you heard yesterday’s interview with Simon Sinek and it convinced you to find your “why,” but you have a few questions about how to do that. Who do you ask?

Or what if you noticed that Aaron Wall is coming to Mixergy to teach SEO and you have some questions for him. Who do you send them to?

Right now, most viewers send them to me. But I’m letting you down, because as Mixergy grows I can’t answer all the questions fast enough.

We need a community where we can help each other. A place where asking, “How do I find my why?” won’t get you a “huh?!” One where you can ask questions of the accomplished people who I interview on Mixergy AND of all the bright people who are students of those interviews.

Details

I decided to use Q&A platform, Stack Exchange, after a long and helpful conversation with Mixergy fan “AndrewSG” of StyleGuidance.com. He even picked a name for the site, FoundersMix.com, which I bought last week.

There already are some great entrepreneurial question and answer sites out there. There’s no point in reproducing them, and I’m not suggesting we do it. The goal is to give you a place to ask and answer questions related to Mixergy interviews and to help each other out, and to make it easier for you to get help from the guests on Mixergy.

How you can help

I came up with a list of a few areas where you could help. If there’s something else we’ll need, tell me.

Moderate the discussion – Does anyone here have experience moderating a Stack Exchange site? Want to do that for this site? (If you don’t have time to moderate, maybe you can tell us what it takes to do it right.)

Help design it – Did you see the ugly logo I created for FoundersMix.com? Want to offer up a replacement logo?

Help develop it – There are a few things I think we should add to the site, like “tweet this” buttons. I don’t know how to do that. If you do, I’d love your help.

Help integrate the community into Mixergy.com – I’m not looking for intrusive integration. I just want to make it easy for viewers of any interview 1] to ask questions relating to that interview (I think a simple text input box + submit button are enough for that) and 2] read the questions others have (a basic rss might do the job).

Sponsor it – This will be a completely free, ad-supported site. I have no clue how the ads will perform, so I won’t set the price. Email me and you could pretty much pay what you want.

Suggest interviews about community – I’d like to do a series of interviews about online community-building so we could all learn how to build them properly. If you know someone who’d make a good interview, email me about them.

Kamel Lahmadi

You have my support Andrew
as soo as i put online my new website, i can even dedicate a category to mixery and send you more traffic ( i have 70 000 UV and 400 000 pages viewed per month just with my blog www.styleandthecity.com )
Andrew Warner

Thanks.

And thanks for your input on FoundersMix. Been noticing you there too.
Hasan

Re: Sponsor It
When I click eMail Me, it goes to question form for FoundersMix, seems weird.

We would be interested in sponsoring the community site. our company is Webvanta, a better way to create and manage websites. Please ping me at hasan@webvanta.com so we can set it up. thanks.
patcito

Hi, I'm a dev of http://shapado.com, if you need help to start a site, contact us at contact at ricodigo.com. It's very easy to start your own site with your own domain and ads. Just click on the big button that says "create a site" :)
simpliTEE

Andrew

I am a long time follower of Mixergy... but not generally a contributor for various reasons, so take my comments for what you will.

If you are just creating a community to "take some of the load off your shoulders" because you don't have time to answer all the questions that come in... that's one thing, but if you are creating a community to add value then I believe you need to be very strategic about doing so. I would imagine that you get some great questions and comments, but you also probably get some lame ones. Therefore, if your community is a free-for-all it's just going to get filled with mediocrity, which is not what I want to experience as a part of your "community". I stepped in to look around and that's the feel I have... NOISE. NOT VALUE.

In your recent interview with Howard Lindzon he said "a community has rules... when you have no rules the lowest common denominator takes over". I have also learned from several other interviews that there is a market out there for companies that will weed through the junk and provide the end user will a solid experience. I believe you should follow these two take-aways and implement some hurdles/boundaries to entry to make sure your community is built with value... not noise and junk.

I LOVE what you are doing and have learned immensely from it. My days are not such that I would be able to jump in and be an active part of whatever community arises. However, my view may be tainted because most of the "entrepreneurial" communities I have come across have been filled with junk and I never felt compelled to jump in on the convo.

</end> my two cents
Dave Trindall

Andrew, this is a brilliant idea!

I had a hunt around for automated URL shortening services to make that Tweet button. See http://foundersmix.com/questions/702/automated-... for an interim solution.

It gives me an idea for a potential service: Does anyone know of a service that is ABSOLUTELY free, with unlimited / unauthenticated shortening automation? If they're already out there then there's no point re-inventing the wheel.

Cheers,
Dave
Tung

Hi Andrew,
I'm keen to help - what else would you need assistance in? have you already got a facebook presence? I have a background ing front-end dev and design/retouching/photography - so any of those areas

Cheers, Tung
abdu2010

If you are planning to go with a Q&A approach, there are free alternatives to StackExchange.

Try osqa.net, shapado.com & qhub.com
Jason Cronkhite

Andrew,

You might consider installing BuddyPress since you're already on WordPress and Kaltura could be baked in when the community is ready for video. Here are some links:

http://buddypress.org/
http://corp.kaltura.com/

This could be done in a matter of hours just to be up and functional.

Jason
Narek

Andrew,

I agree with Sam Howly and the rest, a normal forum would work great for your idea, Andrew.

I can help contribute some time per week to help you with light development on your website. I'm on twitter @narekk
bedtimeceo

I'd love to lend a hand with issues for parent-owned startups. There are a lot of people out there who want to know how to grow a business around the demands of family.
Andrew Warner

Thanks.

Could you ask a few questions on the site about entrepreneurship & family? I want to encourage more conversations about that.

I've been trying to bring up those questions in my interviews, but I'm newly married so I'm not sure I'm doing a good enough job there.
chris

An example of a community I follow:

http://groups.google.com/group/lean-startup-circle

(FoundersMix should have a section where people can post and discuss sources like this.
Also this is a good example of a community. Not sure where StackExchange would be better).
payment

Lustig, das leben findet nicht im Internet statt . Ich würde gerne mein Geld auf meinem Konto und meine Bilder auch...
Andrew Warner

I chose a Q&A format because it seems to encourage conversations to be more useful.

For example, you could ask these questions and have the rest of us help you out:

- What are some good communities for entrepreneurs?
- Where can learn more about lean startups techniques that I can use in my business?
Pat Cheung

Matej, getsponge looks really awesome. Great UI design from my superficial look at it. Someone said this is a WordPress plugin? Is that true?
Andrew Warner

Not sure. I have a call scheduled with the founder.
Pat Cheung

sorry for the offtopic, but would love to learn more about it myself. a QA community sounds great for mixergy.
James | Employee Scheduling

Hey Andrew,
I am a moderator at Startups.com and would love to help you out with your new stack section. Anyways, I will probably also send you a message in case this comment gets muddled in with the others
Ruby Miller

Hi sir, the Simon Sinek interview was great! I've found my why and will be working on that. I can help with moderating the discussions, though I'm not familiar with Stack Exchange, but will do my best.
Andrew Warner

Thanks. I'll email you about this.
DanBlank

Andrew: very cool! I would love to help. Not sure how I fit into the roles outlined above though, so I will just start getting active in the site and see if I think of a way I can lend a hand. If something pops into your head, let me know - you can checkout my blog (DanBlank.com) to get a sense of my passion & focus.
Thanks!
-Dan
Andrew Warner

Thanks bud! And thanks for the help with the Mixergy Facebook page!
Matej

I may be little off topic but I just want to say that http://getsponge.com/ platform looks awesome, and it's also great from SEO perspective. Neil Patel uses it.

I think it will be harder to build community with the Q&A site. There will be a lot of users who just look for their Q answered and real discussions about certain topics ( from interviews for example ) could be a problem. Even the biggest sites on this platform mostly don't have more than 10 posts peer topic.

Great domain, I wouldn't use it for just Q&A community site.
Andrew Warner

Good point. I don't know the answer to that yet. Thanks for bringing it up early in the process.
Simone

I just see a intro page.
Matej

It's not public yet. Here's a Q&A site running on Sponge http://answers.quicksprout.com/
Daniel Licht

Andrew I loved your interview with Simon Sinek I always knew my Why but coming up with it specifically and writing it down has really inspired me and will help me inspire my staff. I love how your following your why and I think this is a great direction for mixergy to move in.

Now with this new site people can develop ads for specific topics and industries e.g. SEO and online marketing and what not instead of just deciding to market to your entire community. These ads will be more helpful, relevant and clicked.

I also think their should be a clips section where people can add their favorite clips on a specific topic. E.g. social marketing or developing your tribe. I know you have many interviews on similar topics (I know because I've watched them) but maybe now if we need a refresher and don't want to have to go looking through every interview for one specific tip we forgot we can just look through best of clips and learn from that.

Also if their are queries for specific types of interviews/questions that you are asked for and you don't know who to get on the topic the community can suggest someone or even one of your followers will step up to the plate. You can even develop polls for who should I interview next on this topic and give the viewers the ability to vote and choose. - Doritos sales went up by 22% when they said to their customers you develop our next product and promotion, get votes and the winner will be our superbowl ad.

If anyone likes my ideas tell me. I'm not a developer so I can't help make them but I am an idea man and I always enjoy a good brainstorm to develop new and creative ideas that add value.
Andrew Warner

These are great ideas. Some of them I've thought about already, but you've added depth to them. Like getting questions for upcoming interview guests. Others, hadn't occurred to me yet.
Erhan Karadeniz

Hi Andrew,

I can help you with your design and development, if your are interested you can get in touch with me, I'll be happy to provide you some examples of my previous work as my agency site is currently down. (rebranding) www.forvae.org
Andrew Warner

Thanks. I'll email you.
mikemiketm09

Hey, I'd love to help in the design area.
elramirez

Count me in Andrew! I'm interested in being a moderator and be active part in this community with previous experience in open source communities.
kulpreet singh

I would be happy to help with moderation and development.

My humble suggestions
Andrew, why the decision for a new domain? For search engine ranking, keeping the Q&A on Mixergy.com would have been more advantageous. Something like founders.mixergy.com or answers.mixergy.com?

Also I would've thought a bbPress forum or BuddyPress extension to Mixergy would be better than Stack Exchange. Stack Exchange is starting to be in fashion in the startup community but it's not the best tool for discussions and sharing information.

Also most importantly the "registered members" on Mixergy.com shouldn't have to re-register or re-login on the other site. The member databases should be connected. (This would be easier if both were on the same domain).
Ade Lack

How flexible is bbPress and BuddyPress for adding custom features like the badges on Stack Exchange? I very recently started looking into both for a current project but really want the game mechanics included from day 1? Guess I need to hook up with a dev with experience with both.
kulpreet singh

Good question. I'd advise you to check out BuddyPress.org and post this question in the forums there.
Andrew Warner

Shoot, I meant to include the answers to both of those in my post.

I went with a different domain because of something that Stephen of
WonderHowTo said in his interview. He told me that the Mixergy message
wasn't clear enough. I didn't want to muddle it up by piling more on
it. I figured the new domain would have a clear message.

As for bbPress, it was my first choice. I've been following it for a
long time and eager to use it. But it doesn't seem to encourage
engagement. I've yet to be on an active bbPress community.

Sent from my mobile

El Feb 26, 2010, a las 12:51 AM, "Disqus" <
> escribió:
kulpreet singh

Thanks for your reply Andrew. I've been looking at Expression Engine and I'm thinking that using WordPressMU, BuddyPress or ExpressionEngine for different sections on one site makes more sense. Obviously, now that this is already off the ground you may not want to turn back, but if you want to build this into a community site it would be good to have 1) good SEO, 2) good integration of user registration/logins, 3) good flow within different sections of the same site, 4) good integration of the site with social media, 5) the ability to do all of this with the implementation of your premium membership features.
egranville

Very much agree.

In this phase, I would still turn around. It shouldn't be a separate site because it might hurt the identity of Mixergy. Mixergy already has a community and it's us! All these people who come over here to watch, lean and comment. The QA section should be so designed, lead and managed that it actually strengthens the Mixergy identity. Any other reason is not worth the time/effort and dissipates from the strength of the current community. I would go as far as to mederate the topics and posts based on the Mixergy identity and quality of answers.

I visited the "other community" and it felt, like someone else also said, like noise, not value. Currently I'd rather to stay over here. :)

I do feel the risk for a confusing identity though. When I come to Mixergy, I do so because I want to learn from the ones who made it and offered to look back and answer our questions. On Foundersmix everyone will give their advise, so the general idea might be that's it's worth less.

I believe there's more worth in a community behind a login, where users can present themselves and meet future partners. I think that would also strengthen the identity of a site that carries the tagline "where ambitious upstarts mix"
Andy Dang

Andrew, I'll design and send you a logo. It can eventually become the final logo, or spark other logo ideas. I am glad you're building the community page.
AK

Andy,

I was wondering if I could connect with you for a certain "logo" project?
Fellow "Mixer" here....Kindly email me when ever you get a chance, "amresh_77 at yahoo dot com"

AK
Andy Dang

Hey AK, I sent you an email.
elramirez

Count me in Andrew! I'm interested in being a moderator and be active part in this community with previous experience in open source communities.

Thanks for the opportunity.

-lenny
Andrew Warner

You might already be the site's most prolific user. Thanks. I'll email you.
ChrisDrit

What a great idea!

I'd like to offer my help moderating it, I've never moderated a Stack Exchange site, but I have helped moderate some well known forums in the past...
Andrew Warner

Thanks Chris. I'll email you.
Sam Howley

FoundersMix is a great domain (is FounderMix singular also going to be used ?).

StackOverflow and the StackExchange technology is great but I don't think it's right for this purpose.

The StackOverflow technology is geared towards questions with a correct answer and not discussion.

The issues to do with growing a business are more vague and less well suited to a straight question and answer paradigm.

For example, when someone posts a question in a StackExchange site it's expected they will eventually mark one repsonse as the correct or best answer. How would that work when someone post s a general questions and gets lots of great replies.

Also StackExchange technology is designed to keep people highly on-topic. Then discussing entrepreneurship people getting of topic and moving from talking about one type of advertising to another is not a problem.

As uncool as it is, I would have thought a straight discussion board/forum would be best for discussing Mixergy interviews. I mean it's about building a community who discuss and help each other, not building a set of Questions and Asnwers.

My two cents.
Techboy

Agreed, the Stack Exchange format is for true Q&A where questions can have a single definitive answer.

Trying to use it as a discussion forum (prompted by questions) shows that the author does not understand this - which give him bad publicity (with those who know how the Stack Exchange sites are supposed to be used).

I think he should cease it and move to a moderated forum format (possibly IPB - http://www.invisionpower.com/products/board/) where he will probably do quite well.
Andrew Warner

Your point about Q&A sites being more appropriate for questions that have a clear answer is dead on. It's a drawback to this kind of platform.
Melvin Ram

+1 for normal forum

With that said, I'm willing to try out StackExchange and see how it flows.
Justin C

Another +1 for a normal forum.

Another problem with doing a stackexchange style is that it's hard to differentiate from http://answers.onstartups.com/
Andrew Warner

I do need to redesign this basic layout. You're right.
Giang Biscan

+1 for a normal forum (also have to admit that I'm not familiar with Stack)

Andrew, I think you don't need to define the community very tightly as it will form its own identity. That's the nature of a community.
Simone

I would of preferred a normal forum too. Maybe I just need to get used the stack layout.
Simone

Hey Andrew, I would love to help out in anyway I can, as you know I love this site.

Umm, so what could I help with? Design, opinionated opinions ;)
Andrew Warner

Okay. I'll take your opinion. I'll have a first draft up soon. I'd love your input.
Jeff

andrew

i am writing because i dont agree with your approach to charge for archive interviews

i think by charging for archive interviews, you are going to encourage people to download and distribute the new interviews via third party websites to avoid paying in the future

i understand the need to make money but dont believe subscription is the best approach

i think your existing ads and sponsorship is a smarter idea and can be further expanded and integrated throughout the interview

i know from my own experience i like how you talk about your sponsors and demonstrate how these products can be used, this could definitely be expanded.

you may also consider integrating a job/classified board for upstarts

just some ideas
Melvin Ram

Doesn't seem like this is the right post to discuss that topic. Maybe this post might be better suited for that disucssion: http://mixergy.com/feedback-on-charging/
NIL808

I'm also unhappy with the pay-to-view interviews. I don't mind watching the ads you place in the interview, but paying isn't an option. Remember, many of us are bootstrappers. Also, I hope you'll always do these ads the way you do them now. If you ever get the idea to use a pre-recorded commercial, we'll tune out. Your present ads are reminiscent of old-time radio and I like it.

You should also add a connection area where your viewers can connect and possibly collaborate on their projects.

Oh yeah, I prefer the traditional forum.
saadshamim

ANDREW! I want to Moderate the discussions :)

But I don't think a stack exchange is the best choice to have an in depth discussion and build community, unless your trying to build a quick short question answer site.
Andrew Warner

Thanks Saad. I admire the way you guided my questions on Mixergy in the past. I'll email you.
David Spinks

Great idea! I'm pumped to join the community site. I think it will really help what you're trying to do here.

I wouldn't consider myself an expert but I'd be glad to provide some input on community building. There are definitely a few people I can recommend though. I'll email them over to you.
Andrew Warner

Thanks.
nathanlatka1

Hey guys interested in logo design... do you just want to submit a few designs? We could get this thing rocking and rolling with the intellects that are currently here! Thoughts?
Andrew Warner

I emailed you details. Thanks!
Ade Lack

As an interview about online community building and business you must get Ed Dale of ThirtyDayChallenge.com on here. This guy has built an awesome community that is not just huge but insanely passionate. Great background history too, failed publishing venture, sold his portfolio of websites for many millions and now teaching others, all whilst building a community and producing fantastic video content for his paid membership sites!

Kinda sounds like where your story is heading right now.

Ed is superb I really think you could get the best out of him and we could all learn from his experience. God, this is starting to sound like a sales pitch so leave it at that for now.
Andrew Warner

Hard for me to see his community on his site, but I'll check it out.
Ash

Andrew, it is a good idea to have a Q&A site.. Since you website is based on wordpress. i think you would have an easy time integrating http://getsponge.com/ http://answers.quicksprout.com/ , it is still in beta, so you will have to ask Neil Patel
Andrew Warner

I got an email from the founder of Sponge. I'll talk to him about it. It really is a beautiful, well-thought out platform.
Saad Malik

Andrew,

I'd love to help.
I can help with moderating as well as some design work. I don't have experience with Stack Exhange, but I am a fast learner, so I will be able to pick it up fairly quick.
Ryan Wiseman

Hey Andrew,

great call on using Stack Exchange.. I have been looking at the product for a while (great SEO and a community advantages. If you haven't seen it check out http://www.stackexchangesites.com/ which list the many implementations of SE. I have been particularly interested SE as it seems like a great platform to build a podcast around. The Q and A serves to provide a great stream of content for a regular program. For example ... new/interesting/active posts of the week as an audio recap podcast. Once the content (Qand A's) increase you could also start to develop shows around a particular theme (SEO, viral marketing, sales). The latter, themed shows could also be the foundation of premium content. That's my two cents... would be interested in exploring such an option down the road ... producing/participating in a FoundersMix cast.
Andrew Warner

Great idea. Yes. I'll start pulling questions from there for future interviews.
mkuklis

I'm happy to help with development too. I can do "tweet this" button and more. LMK what you need.
Andrew Warner

Thanks. What can I do to help you do that?

To start, I think we need something the size of a favicon under each question that lets people share via:
email, Twitter and Facebook
mixergyNOTES.com

We could post our notes here also.
Andrew Warner

You mean post the notes about my interviews on this site? I think they'd be more appropriate for your site and for other blogs.

Email me if this new premium membership gets in the way of your work. I respect what you're doing and want to do everything I can to help out.
Rob Garcia

I could offer up a few designs for your logo...
AK

Rob,

I was wondering if I could connect with you for a certain "logo" project?
Fellow "Mixer" here....Kindly email me when ever you get a chance, "amresh_77 at yahoo dot com"

AK
Chad DePue

We (RubyRescue) setup http://expatqa.com, a StackExchange site, because, well, we're all expatriates. We're experimenting with a lot of things right now. First, we're seeding questions for cities.... We came up with 200-250 questions that are interesting to every city with expats, and we're going to put all of them in up-front. Second, we're doing a competition for who can answer the most of those questions in each city. Third, we're doing small Facebook advertising *with questions we need answered* as a way of getting people into the site, and we have a FB fan page.

All of these things are time consuming so we hired it out to our office manager to manage. It takes her a few hours a day. As we are in Argentina it's much cheaper to hire her to manage it than do it ourselves.

Lastly we're doing some linkbuilding from places with authority in these foreign communities. We use our own tool for that - http://seoaholic.com.

We would probably be interested in volunteering some of our time on all these tasks, since we're already familiar with the process and we're really enjoying the experimentation with the StackExchange platform.
Andrew Warner

Thanks Chad! I love the way your site looks.

I'm going to use it as a model when I talk to designers.

This is what I had in mind:
http://mixergy.com/wp-content/uploads/Expat-Que...
Harry Gold

Hey Andrew,

Good idea. I can make a very small contribution of my time and give you one hour a week free of charge. I can provide workflow diagrams ala visio for UX, ideas, graphics, lite css work, tweets and viral marketing, etc. An hour is not a lot of time but It's all yours if you need it, along with any work I give you is owned by you or Mixergy community.

_Harry
Andrew Warner

Thanks Harry. I have a small question that you might be able to help with. I'll email you.
theschnaz

Hey Andrew,

I can help with moderation and development. Let me know the next steps and I'd be happy to lend a hand!

Greg
Andrew Warner

Thanks. Do you know how to add a big input box to the top of the site so people could ask their questions?

Like this:
http://mixergy.com/wp-content/uploads/Expat-Que...

http://styleguidance.com has a similar one on top, but it's smallter.

I could give you access to a test account if you want to play around with it and see what you can do.
nathanlatka1

Andrew,

I would like to help with this. Specifically, the branding and imaging, along with the site development- the two companies I own and help run specialize in each of these areas. I guess this comment stream will serve as a discussion place to continue to develop and formulate a team? I don't mind posting my email, feel free to contact me personally @ nathan@nathanlatka.com .

Thanks and keep up the great work!
Andrew Warner

Thanks. I'll email you.