Mighty Networks https://www.mightynetworks.com/about started in 2017 as something similar to what you're describing. Now they've shifted to "powering brands and businesses that bring people together via online courses, paid memberships, events, content, and community–all under your brand, instantly available natively on every platform"
Might be relevant for you
Launch HN: Openland (YC W18) – Community platform with automation
31–40 of 41 posts
Re: Launch HN: Openland (YC W18) – Community platform with automation
#32A page comparing yourself to other similar apps (Slack, Discord) would be nice. The front page just gives me the impression that this is yet another fragmented chat app that people will be hesitant to download. Your "member guide" ( https://www.notion.so/Openland-Member-Guide-a249051153614aef... ) only contains bullet points and your "why another social network" ( https://www.notion.so/Why-The-World-Needs-a-New-Socia…
Openland advantages over Slack / Discord: - Member onboarding - Integrations (CRMs, Zoom, etc.) - Automated messaging - Hashtags for messages and profiles - Threaded comments (Discord don't have them) - Community analytics - Paid communities (one-time, subscription, donations) - More to come. We work directly with community organizers on new functionality they need the most. We'll be expanding our articles and guides…
Wait - are you claiming that integrations are an advantage Openland has over Slack? Care to elaborate on that?
Re: Launch HN: Openland (YC W18) – Community platform with automation
#33Hey Yury and Steve,
Is the landing page aimed at the person setting up a "forum", or the average person looking for a community to join or both?
I am not seeing anything there that makes it stand out enough from the plethora of platforms.
You say above "Today, building a great community is super hard. Getting people in one place, explaining and enforcing the rules, collecting member info, and interacting in a scalable personalized way takes a huge amount of time."
If the landing page could make me feel that and show me how you solve those problems, and why discord or slack won't, I'd be more convinced.
Would be good to know who it's for. Do I get my existing community and move it over to you because I'm fed up of Slack. I come with a laundry list of pains. I have the people I just want to have an easier job moderating?
Or for a newbie to building a community that has no members yet who wants to find their audience. My problem is how to I get people to find me, what do I set up to make it entertaining and keep them coming back, etc.
Re: Launch HN: Openland (YC W18) – Community platform with automation
#34Hey Yury and Steve, Is the landing page aimed at the person setting up a "forum", or the average person looking for a community to join or both? I am not seeing anything there that makes it stand out enough from the plethora of platforms. You say above "Today, building a great community is super hard. Getting people in one place, explaining and enforcing the rules, collecting member info, and interacting in a scalabl…
Yes, Openland is primarily built for organizers who have the audience but need better tools for onboarding, engagement, moderation, and monetization. Happy to email/chat/talk in more details on what we have. We know the pains of Slack well and have solved many of them. Feel free to reach out at yury@openland.com or https://openland.com/yury
The landing page is for community members. We'll add a separate landing page for organizers soon.
Re: Launch HN: Openland (YC W18) – Community platform with automation
#35Mighty Networks https://www.mightynetworks.com/about started in 2017 as something similar to what you're describing. Now they've shifted to "powering brands and businesses that bring people together via online courses, paid memberships, events, content, and community–all under your brand, instantly available natively on every platform" Might be relevant for you
Yes, we follow them closely. Key differences:
— Mighty's main focus is on top-down content, not messaging with organizers and among members.
— Mighty's communities are all separate, with individual accounts and sometimes even separate mobile apps. On Openland people have just one account and inbox for all their communities. Much simpler than Mighty, Slack, or Discord.
Re: Launch HN: Openland (YC W18) – Community platform with automation
#36A page comparing yourself to other similar apps (Slack, Discord) would be nice. The front page just gives me the impression that this is yet another fragmented chat app that people will be hesitant to download. Your "member guide" ( https://www.notion.so/Openland-Member-Guide-a249051153614aef... ) only contains bullet points and your "why another social network" ( https://www.notion.so/Why-The-World-Needs-a-New-Socia…
I very much second this. Have no idea why to use Openland when there are so many more alternatives with an optimized vision for their usage.
Openland vs Slack
Openland vs Discord
Openland vs Facebook Groups
etc.
The classic of course is hubspot -> https://www.hubspot.com/products/sales/salesforce-vs-hubspot
Re: Launch HN: Openland (YC W18) – Community platform with automation
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Openland advantages over Slack / Discord: - Member onboarding - Integrations (CRMs, Zoom, etc.) - Automated messaging - Hashtags for messages and profiles - Threaded comments (Discord don't have them) - Community analytics - Paid communities (one-time, subscription, donations) - More to come. We work directly with community organizers on new functionality they need the most. We'll be expanding our articles and guides…
Wait - are you claiming that integrations are an advantage Openland has over Slack? Care to elaborate on that?
Yeah... most of this is highly theoretical and hand-wavy. Needs a real marketing department to handle this narrative, not the CEO.
Re: Launch HN: Openland (YC W18) – Community platform with automation
#38Great platform with a diverse groups of startup founders, entrepreneurs and experienced CTO. I'm visiting it regularly and there is always something interesting to read.
From the technical side I like that I can use `markdown` inside messages. Web version is also smooth and fast even on mobile Safari.
The platform reminds me of Reddit and will be great to get weekly or bi-weekly digests pointing out to interesting discussions in different groups. Also, Reddit has lot of NSFW groups and NSFW posts. I wonder if OpenLand can be used for NSFW content or NSFW groups?
Re: Launch HN: Openland (YC W18) – Community platform with automation
#39According to ToS you might be required to provide your real name. They can delete your stuff or cancel your account at anytime without warning for any reason.
As for the landing page. It uses spans with javascript for links instead of normal a, thus stopping people from opening link in new tab (I'm not even mentioning accessibility or using it without javascript).
Re: Launch HN: Openland (YC W18) – Community platform with automation
#40If Openland is VC-funded, my first question is what is to stop Openland from eventually introducing ads, invasive practices regarding user data, etc, in order to maximize it's investor's return? In other words, why should we believe Openland is simply not the next Facebook, etc? That said I think the product looks cool and the ideal - as it is expressed - is admirable. But on a real-deal level unless you are a B-corp…
We think that sustainable people-first social networking will follow from the new business models. Openland's bet is on SaaS model for community organizers + revenue cut from member-funded communities. This business model has better incentive alignment between Openland platform, members, and organizers.
Interesting - thanks for your response.
If I'm understanding correctly, do you mean you hope for your primary customer base to be community organizers and member-based communities?