Show HN: I built a supportive community for early-stage founders from Europe
enter.network
enter.network
"Mastermind Member (€75/m)" "Weekly check-in to hold you accountable for your business goals"
For paid forums or paid Slack like this, I always wonder how it benefits more experienced entrepreneurs to join. The 100€ monthly fee kind of suggests that the value I receive from being in that community is going to be larger than the value I add by mentoring others and giving advice.
But in the past, my experience was more that I'd get pitched a lot by online marketer types and people offering services for startups. Plus these groups tend to attract "idea predators" who check out what works for the bigger companies and then try to launch their own clone.
For these reasons, I believe this kind of paid networking groups always end up being almost exclusively filled with amateur marketers.
Please explain to me why I'm wrong. I'd really love to find a good networking group after so many false starts...
It's true that it really depends on where you are as an entrepreneur. We currently have 2 such mastermind groups running with more experienced founders, and assuming you're on the same 'level', if you join one of these, you're definitely able to both give and receive plenty of value (in terms of advice, ideas, etc.)
With regards to amateur marketers and idea predators, I do not share that experience. Almost everyone in our community is already working on an idea or company, and while some do offer B2B services, they are not actively pitching those to others. Rather, they try to help each other by giving feedback and often simply help others for free.
I'm happy to talk to you about it some more if you're interested. And thanks for the feedback, those are clear pitfalls that I have to look out for when we grow this community further.
This is a community that actually started as a hobby back in 2018. I was working on a blockchain startup, and found it difficult to meet like-minded people. To solve this, I started hosting offline meetups for startup founders.
Since last year, we moved everything online and I’ve made it my goal to connect as many entrepreneurs as possible. The reason: I find that there’s so much value in accountability and sharing experiences. To this end, I’ve created a member database (WordPress + some custom development), memberships (through Stripe), and Slack community.
We currently provide a variety of tools/services such as mentors, startup deals, weekly Q&As with experts, feedback sessions, mastermind groups, and more. The community consists of about 45 people from the Netherlands, UK, Romania, Czech Republic, etc.
Let me know what you think - I appreciate any questions or feedback!
I have some questions:
- How do you form these small groups? like what is the ratio of first time founders vs seasonal founders?
- I haven't joined any paid membership group before so I would like to see more comments regarding the pricing. Is that in the low/med/high range?
- In your Mastermind Member features, you have "Weekly check-in to hold you accountable for your business goals" are these check-ins automated or there is someone actually doing it?
- Same membership, you have "New motivation, ideas, and growth" what does that mean?
- How do you form these small groups? like what is the ratio of first time founders vs seasonal founders? It depends on the group. We create groups with people who are more or less in the same stage of founding a business — that way, they're struggling with similar questions and can help each other well.
- I haven't joined any paid membership group before so I would like to see more comments regarding the pricing. Is that in the low/med/high range? I guess I would be a bit biased answering this, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Our non-mastermind membership is in the low range (€30/m) — other similar communities often ask a bit more. The mastermind model (€75/month) is low to mid-range. There are mastermind groups (especially in the US) that ask thousands of dollars per year. But also, there are smaller groups that ask anywhere between €50-€100 per month.
- In your Mastermind Member features, you have "Weekly check-in to hold you accountable for your business goals" are these check-ins automated or there is someone actually doing it? There is someone actually doing this, and sending you a message through our Slack server.
- Same membership, you have "New motivation, ideas, and growth" what does that mean? These 3 things were most often mentioned by members of our mastermind groups. Specifically, that means that: 1) You get motivated by fellow members to work 'on' your business instead of 'in'. 2) If you're a solo founder (or even if you have a co-founder) you're often stuck in a bit of tunnel vision. So by sharing your situation with fellow founders, you get new ideas to tackle these challenges that you would otherwise not get. 3) Due to each person holding each other accountable, and giving each other new ideas and feedback, you grow faster both in terms of your business/product and on a personal level.