FoundersOnly

How this place started (and why it is called what it is called)

#1

Somebody asks this about once a month, so here is the long version.

In 2023 I shut down Parcelo. Two and a half years, one co-founder, eleven paying customers at the end. What I remember most about the last six months is not the money. It is that I had nobody to ask. My friends had jobs. The founders I knew online were all, publicly, doing great.

In February 2024 I messaged thirteen people I half knew and asked if they wanted to get on a call every Tuesday and say true things about their companies. Tom was one of them. He had sold Pingwell two years before and was, in his words, "bored and slightly rich, mostly bored".

The Tuesday call lasted five weeks before we had too many people for a call. Tom put a forum on a server over a weekend. That is this, more or less.

The rule from the first call is still the only rule that matters: say the real number. Not the launch-tweet number. If it is zero, say zero. Nobody here is impressed by anything except honesty and shipping.

Welcome. Introduce yourself, then go and answer somebody else's question before you post your own. It works better that way round.

#2

for the record i put it on a server over a weekend and then spent the following four weekends fixing it

also the name was ilinca's. my suggestion was "tuesday" and i still think it was better

#3

I was the first person to sign up who neither of you knew. Found it through a link in somebody's newsletter footer. I expected it to be dead in a month.

Glad to be wrong.

#5

Tuesday call original here. Can confirm the calls were chaos. Stefan once presented his whole revenue chart while on mute.

#7

Reading this as the brand new 100th member. Apparently I get a mug. Hello everyone, I sell Notion templates and I have a lot of plants.

#12

Reading this in my first week. The "say the real number" rule is why I joined. My real number is zero. Glad to be here.

Your perspective belongs here.

Register to reply