@bentossell Great questions. I completely agree. We want all Ideas to be public. Then the people who leverage the community will benefit the most (just look at Product Hunt). Unfortunately, most people are really hesitant to share their ideas. It’s a big part of the reason they never start their business in the first place. It’s like a 2 step process. First we get them comfortable sharing their idea within a trusted circle. Eventually they may see the benefit of the broader community and open it up. It’s the choice they ultimately get to make. We don’t think we can help every Ideator with every issue they face. That is where the community is so important. We are currently helping some of the ideators through more traditional consulting. This way, we can understand the common challenges they face and help automate the steps to overcome them so others can benefit down the road. I started my career as an Entrepreneur and didn’t really know it. I simply started a business out of college and was off to the races. I sold that and logged a few years at Salesforce. Then the idea for Ideator was brought to me and I couldn’t resist the urge to build it. I see the first part of my career as the perfect persona for our product. The rest of the Ideator team brings with them decades of experience in business in various industries, roles, and locations. When we don’t have the expertise to help an ideator, we bring in the help from one of the advisors in the community. That’s the whole premise. We’re democratizing the process of launching a business by introducing everyone to the tools and resources they need. We have worked with many of the lawyers, designers, etc. that we recommend. That’s hugely important to us. If we haven’t worked with them before, we tend to seek out someone who has to get a referral. Ideators can further vet professionals that might want access to their idea. Then if they decide to proceed the Ideator sends the invite - that triggers an automatically generated NDA for the interested party. Ideator is free. We will monazite though various channels when the community is big enough.

I like these things, reminds me a bit of http://home.elevatr.com/, but indeed as @bentossell suggest I think the biggest advance could be to have it public by default. This way you're accountable for the stuff which you put in there, and with the peer pressure which comes along with it, makes it better to actually continue the needed steps. Keep on the good work though!

@cpsmith04 so I think it would be beneficial to invest it trying to show people how opening up their ideas in the first place can be beneficial... agreed that some people wont but ultimately I think that its probably detrimental in the long run, so if they are not paying for services but using your time - maybe you should consider a stricter process.. On that note, how are you going to divide up your time between each team that joins? If 100 teams joined from Product Hunt today, how would you deal with that? Are there profile links to the Ideator team so people can check them out? Otherwise it is just going off recommendations of others - which unfortunately doesn't always work out! If Ideator is free then who pays for the lawyers/desingers/etc hourly costs?

@jcvangent @bentossell Thanks Hans. I love this feedback. Honestly this is the first request I've heard to keep it totally open (we have had lot's of requests for private communities though). I would love to hear others thoughts. Setting to public by default is a bold move but it makes complete sense. Accountability really helps when building the community. And there will always be details that are not public.

@bentossell We are not personally helping every person who joins the platform. Although right now, to build a solid foundation for our community, we are helping as many as we can. And users are getting value from the platform today without help from us. Our next step is to provide ideators with tools (specific goals and tasks) to solve a litany of early business challenges. If 100 hunters take us up on our offer, build out a complete idea, and assign a specific goal for us, we will help them. We will take our best crack a providing a really good set of tasks to complete that goal. This process helps create the content we need to build our tools needed to help all our users. Users can access profiles for the Ideator team and all the other users on the platform. If people on the platform connect and do business, they can work out the payment details separately. Right now, we don't want to broker that transaction.

@violetanedkova Who made your explainer video? Really nice!

@yozapli @violetanedkova Thanks Benyamin! We're pretty proud of our promo video too. Head on over to: http://videosparks.net/ideator-3! They're great to work with, super fun & talented team.

@violetanedkova Thanks again for hunting us! Were you able to find glasshole kitty hiding on our landing page?

Thanks @workstationw If you ever want to explain what exactly would help you move your next side project forward, I'm all ears.

@mistone Hasan glad to hear! And we are too, it's going to be a super fun virtual event!

@spencerbratman completely agree. This is on our roadmap for 2016 and I couldn't be more excited, seriously.

@danielkempe Right now, the most common request is we have is guidance on funding. From what we have seen, a lot of people think their next step is funding. In reality, they are far from being able to walk into a meeting, bank, or agreement with a friend and say "Please give me some money!" We find ourselves helping people get there. Mostly with a better understanding of how to put together and present your plan. With realistic financials and forecasts.

@thejeffstandard Jeff good question - we do have ideas of various stages in the community already. Those which are already off the ground and got there without our help, but came into Ideator anyway, they do so for a number of reasons, namely: 1) to get more visibility 2) to find more advisors 3) additional teammates 4) and find new strategies to implement. The last one is my favorite; for ex) I've been added to many startups in our community and gotten up to speed on what they've accomplished and what they need to get done next, or problems they're facing (let's be real, companies of all sizes are always faced with new hurdles). After asking some diagnostic questions we can brainstorm new ways for them to overcome challenges and take their startup to the next step. If they want more hands-on advisory services, we invite them to apply to the Ideator Advisory Board which can supplement their current advisory board. And of course, if they want to open the hurdle up to the community to crowdsource some new innovative strategies, they can make that portion of their profile public-facing to the community.

@dev_nsc_tt Devon that's a good question. I guess my answer would be - depends on if you'll take my response into consideration in deciding whether or not to enter the challenge! ;) All kidding aside, we would love to. If this is a successful virtual event, we will host others in 2016, most definitely.

@jcswizle Thanks Jane! Much appreciated :)

@praveenintwitta thanks Praveen. The team at http://videosparks.net/ideator-3 created it and we love it! They're awesome buddies of ours, too.

@faisal_hassanx thanks. I know some people may hold back on asking the hard questions but I think it's important

@bentossell @faisal_hassanx Absolutely. And it's really interesting to note the types of questions here vs. those we get when people log into Ideator for the first time. Keep 'em coming!