I was pretty involved in the PyTorch ecosystem in the early days around 2016 and Adam was nothing short of a genius and prolific developer whose contributions to the codebase and community were immense. I think he was like an undergrad in Poland at the time. My understanding is that his contributions came before the internship, but I don’t know.
My memory is that Souminth was really open to other people’s contributions and questions, no matter their credentials. He was a great leader who felt approachable to the open-source community.
I'm trying to incentivize people to build IRL communities instead of AI-related apps because the demand for human interaction FAR outweighs the supply. My platform (https://onthe.town), is basically Shopify for social experience clubs. Anyone can start a club and create events based around bringing random people together IRL based on shared interests. You get your own website and infra that handles signups, payments, and matching.
It's largely based on platform-izing the extremely popular Timeleft app that simply matches 6 random people for dinner. With onthe.town, anyone can create a Timeleft-like app around any concept they're interested in. Some clubs people have created include a golf club (get matched with 3 other people to play golf with), a vinyl record sharing club, a lunch club for biotech networking, and a club to meet other parents for dinner.
There was a startup in my region who got popular with the simple idea of having a website/service that manages simple events, like talks, presentations etc.
I think it started with mostly students using it because there used to be a lot of university-related events like these, and eventually they’ve become the standard platform for that, at least in the State. It was all pretty simple, it managed payment etc. and you’d get a QR code by email or in the app that could be scanned in the entrance.
Really appreciate the feedback. The idea right now is that you set up a club and attendees pay a small amount for each event, and then we take a small (~10%) fee for selecting the venues, doing the matching, and handling payments for you.
But I do love your idea and it's something I'm pursuing. We are matching people to meet at venues (restaurants, golf courses, etc) and it makes sense for venues to pay to be selected. That money would go to organizers and the events could be free. It's just a harder B2B problem to convince companies to sponsor communities.
Ultimately, clubs will have the flexibility to be run in multiple ways - from free, to business-sponsored or attendee-funded, to even onthetown-sponsored as you suggest.
A local hub to go get tools is the only way this works, in my opinion. Your current offering is obviously compelling from the renter’s perspective. I am renovating a cottage and would love to go pick up a chainsaw, brush cutter, etc for half the price of Home Depot (they have everything and great service).
But I just don’t see it from the tool owner’s perspective. My suburban aunt has two chainsaws sitting in the garage that she doesn’t use anymore. An extra $150 a month isn’t enough to deal with the hassle of coordinating meetings, dealing with damage, etc. And she definitely wouldn’t be giving a free tank of gas, PPE, etc like Home Depot does. She would gladly drop it off at a local spot, make passive income, maybe go grab it herself once a year when she needs it.
Ps - great website design. Looks beautiful on mobile and works really well. What are you using on the frontend?
Thanks for the feedbacks! The local hub model makes a lot of sense, making it easier for folks to contribute tools without the day-to-day management. Its true that this is not for everyones tho but some folks are happy to rent out tools and connect with neighbors, others would rather drop them off once and forget about it. We're exploring ways to support both but the local hub idea fits that really well.
The FE us using React and styled-components. We're not using components-library, pretty much everything is customized for our needs.
Thanks, I've fixed that now! I added the "other city" option as a way to let people express interest and if there is enough people + someone willing to show up then I'm happy to expand. Just want to focus on creating a good experience first.
Totally get your perspective and appreciate the thoughts. In full transparency, this idea comes directly from my experience joining a fraternity and making a group of ~10 lifelong friends that I still get together with a few times a year.
We have so little in common interest wise, but we bonded over just being in the same place repeatedly. I'm not in contact with anyone from my engineering program. That says a lot to me about shared interests as a (non-)driver of lasting friendships compared to shared EXPERIENCE, but I'm just one person.
Obviously "frat culture" has an extreme negative connotation, but I will just say that not every fraternity is full of gym bros... they exist for every type of guy and I truly think the socially awkward guys I know who joined fraternities made significantly more meaningful relationship than the cool, good-looking guys who didn't.
Thanks for this comment - I created the site quite quickly to gauge interest in this cause that's really important to me... the response has been overwhelming. I am adding some real pictures of myself and friends, along with more info about me both on the page and in the eventual instagram page.
Little about me just for kicks - I'm early 30s, married, recently moved to Boston with a great tech job and a really solid group of friends from college that I unfortunately don't live close to anymore. I've made some good friends since moving here but it has all been through someone taking a herculean level of initiative to plan things and invite people to stuff. I want to lower that friction to have consistent IRL interactions with interesting people - whoever those people might be for a given person.
I think the concept clearly resonates with people. There is an article every week NYT, etc about how like most men have at most one friend. It seems you think the execution is off, which I wouldn't disagree on.
Happy to hear what you have to say - email is in my bio - although I doubt we'd have a meaningful conversation if you write me off as trying to sell something instead of taking the more gracious interpretation that I want to help other guys build strong friendships (and build them for myself).
It isn't a question of grace, or of motivation. If you understood the problem you purport to seek to solve, you wouldn't need telling that a doomed attempt to recreate an unrecreateable social and personal milieu isn't going to do that, and it will probably fail pretty quickly absent an unsustainable burn rate, as people discover that what's bringing them apart - as their family and professional responsibilities multiply - is not a simple lack of incidental, interpersonal physical proximity. Depending on how much you spend giving people reasons to show up anyway that outcome may take more or less time to happen, but it will happen.
Don't get me wrong; I think you'll probably pivot to something more successful if you abandon the sunk cost soon enough. Just that I am extremely confident you will need to make that pivot. Of course you shouldn't take my word for it, though.
You're definitely on to something. Although early 30s doesn't seem so old, the intense nostalgia of college has definitely waned. I would say I'm more grappling with the reality that it really won't ever again feel like that. I know it's true from a time perspective... I'm married and have a full-time job. But I figured I couldn't let the dream die that easily :)
Do you really develop lasting friendships on the course or in rec league sports? I just haven't had that experience and the popularity of those activities is sky rocketing (see: running clubs) while the problem doesn't seem to be getting any better.
> Do you really develop lasting friendships on the course or in rec league sports? I just haven't had that experience and the popularity of those activities is sky rocketing (see: running clubs) while the problem doesn't seem to be getting any better.
When I did rec league sports most of the guys were there to meet women
That’s what I notice with a lot of meetups, etc. guys don’t even want to talk to other guys, they gotta talk to women only, personally I’ll talk to whoever
I think you can develop lasting friendships doing pretty much any group activity. But it can require a lot more effort (perhaps on your part) to get the ball rolling. Depending on the activity, you probably won't be having deep (or any) conversations while doing the activity, so you need to actively engage with people before or after the activity. That might be very small at first, but over many weeks or months might grow into grabbing a drink or meal after the activity, and being open to starting deeper conversations.
I'm terrible at this. I struggle to push myself to ask deeper questions of new friends, feeling like I'm being intrusive or prying, but I think it's necessary to do this in order to move forward. When we were in college, making friends was easy, because there was a shared experience right in front of us to talk about, and that could naturally lead to deeper conversations. As we get older, that isn't really there, and it takes active, deliberate effort to get there.
That is the exact long-term vision. Isn't that the absolute dream? Have to start a bit decentralized but I would love to eventually get a physical location to have that important third-space.
My memory is that Souminth was really open to other people’s contributions and questions, no matter their credentials. He was a great leader who felt approachable to the open-source community.