I started a community of high school startup founders!
The startup ecosystem is a great place to be. Having a community of other builders and hustlers is a great thing to have and having others who get what you're doing is the greatest blessing ever given.
Startup founders are known to come from diverse backgrounds. I simultaneously know high school dropouts and PhDs running companies doing equally well.
Yet, for such a diverse community, sometimes it's very cut-throat. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the amazing people in the startup community, but sometimes, it's not the most accommodating to teenagers.
I've seen investors, advisors even clients back out of meetings last minute because they happened to stumble across our age mentioned on LinkedIn or in an interview we gave.
And it's not just me... For teenagers from all across the world, the startup community is a daunting place.
And so, I got on a mission to talk to other teenagers in the community - I spoke to quite a few founders under the age of 18 and I had one huge realisation.
We Felt Alone In This Journey!
As our basic philosophy, we wanted to prioritise quality over quantity. We've intentionally kept the community gaited so that we are prioritising potential members who're building products we can help give feedback on. While diversity is important, we want to make sure that the community is giving the right sort of feedback cause the wrong feedback can mess up a product really bad.
The other reason we're keeping the community gaited with a waitlist is that we want to encourage only serious people to apply. We do encourage first-time founders and founders with not much experience, we don't want the community to be a place where teenagers come to mess around.