Startup Clubhouse:
An Online Startup Community
Startup Clubhouse is an online community for solo founders and small teams building early-stage businesses. Maybe you’ve used AI to build a prototype and you’re figuring out who would pay for it. Maybe you’re still shaping your first offer. We’re building the Online Clubhouse so you can talk through decisions like these with fellow founders, try something with real customers, and come back to people who remember what you’re working on.
A Place to Talk Through What You’re Building
Say you’re starting a service that helps local businesses handle customer inquiries. You’ve built a demo, and a business owner says it looks useful. You’re still wondering what they’d pay for and what a first project should include. That’s the kind of question you could bring to a founder roundtable in the Online Clubhouse.
We’re designing those conversations around small groups that meet regularly. You could bring a rough proposal one week, then come back after talking with the customer. The people around the table would already know how you got there, so you could spend your time figuring out what to do next.
Start With the Public Community
You can start getting to know Startup Clubhouse right here. Read our articles on early-stage entrepreneurship, or follow us on LinkedIn and tell us what you’re building. If there’s a question you keep coming back to as a founder, we’d like to hear it. Those questions can help shape what we write about and what we discuss when the Clubhouse opens.
We’re building the private Online Clubhouse for founders who want to continue those conversations in smaller groups. If that sounds like a place you’d like to be part of, sign up for Clubhouse Launch Updates and we’ll let you know when it opens.
A Pre-Accelerator for Founders Ready to Test an Idea
We’re planning a pre-accelerator inside the private Online Clubhouse for solo founders and small teams who want a structured way to test a business idea. You might come in with a prototype, a service you’d like to sell, or a problem you think is worth solving. The starting point is deciding what you need to learn from potential customers before you invest more time building.
A short working sprint might help you choose who to talk to, draft an offer, and take it to a few potential customers. You’d bring what you heard back to the group and use it to decide what to change or test next.
Built From South Florida Startup Meetups
Before I opened Caffeine Spaces in Boca Raton, I hosted more than 100 tech meetups through New Tech Community. At Caffeine Spaces, I noticed that some new members felt more comfortable talking with a mentor in a room set up like a living room. A sofa and a couple of armchairs made it easier to sit down and ask the question they came in with.
That’s the feeling I want to bring to the Online Clubhouse. I want founders to feel comfortable sharing an idea while it’s still rough and to see familiar faces when they come back to talk about how it went.
Mark Laymon, Founder and Community Catalyst