Help Build The Open Guide to Startup Fundraising
Three weeks ago I published a comprehensive guide to a genome editing technology called CRISPR. The article was a test to determine whether people are interested in an aggregated, summarized content bank on a particular subject. I gained four key insights through the process, and have decided to commit myself to working on a new experiment with Josh Levy, who has thought about this even more than I have.
First, people are definitely interested in this kind of content. My post alone did 6.7k views, and a similar post on machine learning by a friend cleared 125k views. Even more comprehensive guides like this one on the command line by Josh Levy have cleared 400k, and these are big numbers when it comes to such technical or arcane topics.
Second, once these deep-dive guides are published, people want to make them better. Two writers I cited in my CRISPR post reached out to me directly to either correct mistakes I made or suggest improvements, and a significant number of individuals in the scientific community reached out as well.
Third, other people are creating “comprehensive guide” content like this all the time (see here, here, and here for a few). Sometimes these pieces are actually comprehensive, other times they’re kind of lazy. Sometimes they’re helpful, and sometimes they aren’t. This isn’t limited to tech. The second guide I linked to in this paragraph is a comprehensive guide to Copenhagen, where I’m sitting right now. I read that guide, and I still don’t know what I should go see today.
Fourth, as soon as these guides are created, they are out of date. Any new companies, restaurants, scientists, discoveries, you name it, they go unnoticed until the next comprehensive guide.
What Next
Reading the tea leaves on Twitter and Medium, a friend introduced me to Josh (mentioned above). He is leagues ahead of anyone else I’ve spoken to when it comes to thinking about the next wave of organizing knowledge with his Open Guides on GitHub (see: The Open Guide to Amazon Web Services and The Open Guide to Equity Compensation).
Each of Josh’s Open Guides are a collaboration between him and a community interested in organizing knowledge. They are stunningly comprehensive, well organized, accessible, and, most importantly, they are living documents that continue to get updated over time by the community.
The only problem is that there aren’t more of them.
Josh and I have been spending a lot of time together lately, and we’ve decided to collaborate on a guide to get a taste of working together. Instead of diving deeper on CRISPR, I decided to go with something I have a bit more experience with.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be working on The Open Guide to Startup Fundraising, a comprehensive resource kept up-to-date over time by a community.
That means I’m going to need your help.
If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, I’m sure you’ve thought about, researched tirelessly, and talked with dozens or hundreds of people to accumulate helpful knowledge about fundraising. Together, we can make that process so much easier for everyone. If you’re willing to contribute or review the guide as it takes shape, I would love your help and I’ll make sure you get credit for your contribution.
What’s in it for you? Helping thousands of people who are trying to start a business — which you stand to benefit from — and are spending time Googling and reading articles on Forbes instead of actually getting the help they need.
If you’re interested in helping out and/or being an expert, I’d love to speak with you. You can email me here or find me on Twitter. Additionally, if you think I’m missing a section for the guide, tell me!
Finally, sign up at the link below to be notified when the guide is live.
