This is an admin post, please feel free to ignore if you might not be interested.
We started venturewoods two years back, and largely on an organic basis, it has acquired traction in the community. There are a few thousand members who read venturewoods, few hundred who comment, and more than 50 who write on venturewoods. Personally, it has been a great platform for me to learn and share with the broader community, and maintain the mental connect that could have been lost so easily as I moved from an entrepreneurial role to a venture investor role.
Multiple people have spoken to me in the past to extend venturewoods beyond just blogs. Suggestions vary towards becoming an entrepreneur-network, to offline events, and so on. Some such suggestions had given rise to venturejobs and venturetalent sections, which I believe have enabled a few people to find each other. This is a call for action – I would like the following to help us take the next step, and am looking for volunteers to help us achieve this:
– Suggestions on what direction you would like venturewoods to take
– Specific site functionality that you would like to add or organize better
– Product+Project manager who can take ownership to get this done
– Technical folks who can help us implement this on a suitable content management system (dont worry, whatever we do, we will not make this a white elephant :))
I hope this thread generates as much participation as some of the previous ones have – it will shape what this service looks like a few months from now!
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Hi!
I’m happy to volunteer with the implementation of the new features. You may contact me through email.
Alok,
How about a community at http://www.ning.com? To add whatever flavour we need, the community can add widgets using their api and enhance the site.
All suggestions above are interesting. What I hear is “make this a hub for startups and launches”
My concern is not so much the software or it management, but the contribution of content. I see from the list of contributors that we have nearly 60, but most don’t even contribute once a month.
We need more contribution in:
– product launches
– jobs
– analysis/commentary of venture activity
– related news
– interviews
– thoughts
etc
I really like the posts Sanjay and Jaspreet have been making, regularly updating the progress of their ventures, giving this community a behind the scenes look at starting up; and at the same time building brand. A win-win. We need more of this.
VentureWoods also needs a group of core contributors who can come forward and commit to atleast a post every 2 weeks. This a rich community with entrepreneurs, VCs, gurus, journalists, valley crowd, fresh graduates, techies, etc. If you can contribute a little every now and then of your perspective…
I am happy to volunteer with the software and it’s management. My team has some experience with CMS’ as Flora2000 is building its own community at http://www.gosmelltheflowers.com.
Vikas – Thanks for the note. I wish to clarify that venturewoods has no linkage to the band of angels, or any other angel/VC group. It was conceived as a platform where different constituents of the venture ecosystem can come together and share ideas, and that is the theme that we’d like to take forward. There is obviously space for many other networks that enable this, and I am sure we need more. I sure dont think that I have the ability to “let” or “not let” entrepreneurs contribute and engage where they want to – venturewoods is a very tiny piece in the overall ecosystem that exists, and that needs to exist in India.
All – Great suggestions – do we have a volunteer who can get this done. I think we would stick with some open source CMS so there shouldnt be any ground up tech development effort.
Dear Angels of India,
You are asking for new shape of venturewoods.But an entrepreneur may not like a ready platform of resources.Let entrepreneurial journey of entrepreneurs a bit mystic one (Alchemist-you never know).We learn when we walk through this journey.
We some entrepreneurs are developing a concept of entrepreneurs network,which coincendantally matches your line of thought.
If a VC like you handles a entrepreneur network ,the theme might get lost.
What we are developing may not be the next big thing,but it would be the ‘the best thing’ for entrepreneurs in today’s time (in terms of resources sharing).
Let entrepreneurs contribute and find the gap themselves and make the network structure the way they would like.
Let venturesprings blossom, which would allow the Johari window of some VC’s to open (to enable them to find right people ,right investment ideas,right investment size)
My suggestion to venture woods is to grow organically and allow more qualified entrepreneurs as contributors.
Whether angels in india champion the cause of entrepreneurship through venturewoods or IAN or NEN or TIE what entrepreneurs want is a small advice,small respect,and small funding (even 5-10 lakh).Indian valley parents are different from silicon valley parents.Indians by and large still are unaware of this VC money.(who can give free money-they think)
Contribute to seedfund ,without which there may not be enough opportunities for VC funding.