SG Mastermind 1: Build from scratch or use existing software?

I think this is one of the better suggestions in the thread. Find some sort of free software, throw it on github, accept pull requests of good things, and those who are to be trusted give them access.

You are building a community and being as transparent as possible in this manner will win over a lot of people instantly.

I think that if you're building a start up community, your goal is to engage talent in computer science across the country/planet. I don't think there is a better way to do that then to start from the very beginning as having it that people build together. Zach has probably the best idea so far.

I think adding advertisements to help reduce the costs along with donations would also be a good start.

Existing (Open Source) tools at first for sure. Capture the audience, then extend and provide customized solutions / tools. I like zbruhnke idea as an initial project / mastermind group any one can join to get their feet wet if they dont already know a project or have one of their own they want to work on. But initially to get things started I think it would be best to use existing (open source) tools.

Once the choice of existing or new is made then the choice of technology / tools needs to be made. There are alot more existing solutions that meet the working spec needs in alot of differing technologies. So once the new/existing choice is made you really need to focus on tech (.Net, Python, Ruby, Java, etc) as this choice will help inform the number of potential contributers.

I see this working best kind of how Google did in the early days and how I hear facebook currently works. Developers post project pitches to try and gather other people (Devs, PMs Marketing, etc) to their idea, then working together to make it happen. All members of SG would be under a blanked NDA for pitch ideas and each project once started could have their own.

Don't start from scratch! That lesson is reiterated over and over.

Start as soon as possible with a minimum viable solution, get community growing, and the software solution will create itself based on real needs.

Overall: My vote goes to using pre-existing tools like Google Groups, HN Userbase to get started

If a component of the existing tools requires a paying element, perhaps a very low joining fee could be in order. Taking money always changes how people react of course.

e.g. USD$1 to join --> $400 kitty to spend on a paid-hosted plan

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If you need to build something out, consider:

http://pinaxproject.com/ A python and django OOtB framework

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or Tiki... which has an awful lot of features that don't require writing code:

http://info.tiki.org/Tiki+Wiki+CMS+Groupware

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They say:

    * Wikis (like Wikipedia)
    * Forums (like phpBB)
    * Blogs (like WordPress)
    * Articles (like Yahoo News)
    * Image Gallery (like Flickr)
    * Map Server (like Google Maps)
    * Link Directory (like DMOZ)
    * Multilingual (like Babel Fish)
    * Bug Tracker (like Bugzilla)
    * RSS Feeds (like Digg)
    * Free Open Source software (LGPL) 

And much more...

    * all integrated (like no one else)