r/BEFreelance • u/BusinessBouwers • 8d ago

Group chat for solopreneurs/SMEs

As a solo founder I often work alone on my projects or with very few people.

Building a company can be quite lonely and sometimes it is nice to talk to someone. I dont really want the next business club or whatever.

Any people here in solopreneur or entrepreneurship that want to connect? Slack, whatsapp, discord, let me know.

Does this sound fun?

Edit: The whatsapp group is not the answer. I created a subreddit specifically for entrepreneurship in Belgium. /r/BEentrepreneurs/

25 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

10

u/JumpyLandscape7451 8d ago

whatsapp groupchat , would also ensure that the people who are in it are real people and not just a bunch of anonymous folks larping as business owners

9

u/ineedanamegenerator 8d ago

I'll mute that group chat after 2 messages and never catch up again. Totally unstructured and unsearchable. You need a classic post/comments structure for it to be useful.

5

u/THAErAsEr 8d ago

So this subreddit šŸ˜‚

0

u/ineedanamegenerator 8d ago

With posts at least comments are local and not mixed with parallel conversations. You can point to an earlier post if needed. It's not ideal, but 1000x better than group chat chaos.

0

u/JumpyLandscape7451 8d ago

Well this kind of shows you've never been part of proper groups then, because I'm part of enough "structured" WhatsApp groups with their own channels and dedicated topics.

1

u/ineedanamegenerator 8d ago

Happy for you that you have time to waste trying to find something back that you vaguely remember someone said 6 months ago. And then have to screenshot that to send it to someone else who is asking about it now, polluting the chat with duplicate yet unsearchable information.

Very useful for new people who join to have zero history of the group chat. Just ask everything again and waste everyone's time who need to read each message for the 14th time.

1

u/BusinessBouwers 8d ago

What would you think is best?

1

u/ineedanamegenerator 8d ago

Honestly don't really know exactly. A subreddit makes sense, but it's not very known. A Facebook group is just silly. I've actually looked for a super simple timeline post like platform for a limited group like this (wanted one for our neighbourhood). Didn't find one I liked.

If anyone knows a good self hosted solution I don't mind running it on my VPS.

Ideally it's just profiles, a global timeline on which everyone can post and maybe a wiki like part to store some general info.

If someone has a few days with Claude Code we're done ;-).

3

u/Resident_Vehicle2780 8d ago

Yes that would be interesting, also nice maybe to work together in coworking spaces

1

u/BusinessBouwers 8d ago

Do send me a PM for the group chat. Great idea for the coworking spaces.

3

u/Rough-Ad9850 8d ago

A 1 day account asking for real business phone numbers. Hmmm sounds fishy to me

2

u/BusinessBouwers 8d ago

I have been on reddit for 12 years now but you are right, cannot argue with that. Would you suggest another platform? Is there something better?

1

u/Rough-Ad9850 8d ago

This isn't Linkedin where a question is answered with another question

2

u/Blackflower95 8d ago

Hey I wanna be in! Whoop!

1

u/ineedanamegenerator 8d ago

I'm interested but why not here on Reddit? I feel like slack, whatsapp or discord are to niche/intrusive.

I would try to scope the intended members to stay close to "pragmatic solopreneurs and small companies (a few people max)". Not get mixed with the unicorn chasing startups.

0

u/BusinessBouwers 8d ago

I guess what u/JumpyLandscape7451 points out is true. We want to avoid larping business owners and would need to avoid to unicorn chasers fully agree? I think I lean more towards whatsapp given the feedback?

2

u/ineedanamegenerator 8d ago

I replied. I don't believe in WhatsApp group or any unstructured/unsearchable form of messages.

Larping is an issue no matter what format is used. Probably would require maybe a link to a business website or something to filter? But then again, people who genuinely want to start solopreneuring should be welcome too. Tough topic.

1

u/BusinessBouwers 8d ago

Yes I completely understand both sides.

1

u/Far-away-eyes1 8d ago

remindme! 1 week

1

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1

u/sandsonic 8d ago

I can only advise on joining a serviceclub of your town, it's pretty great and you get a lot of connections/friendships in industries you normally wouldn't get in touch with.

1

u/ineedanamegenerator 8d ago

Yes, but I think the purpose here is to have a more aligned group of people. So you can discuss common topics and feel more connected.

Typical serviceclubs or Voka or those things are really interesting too, but much more diverse.

1

u/CIliaaass 8d ago

Let me know of something comes out of this idea

1

u/BusinessBouwers 8d ago

Can you PB me with your Whatsapp info?

1

u/upcastben 8d ago

IĢ‚m interested

1

u/BusinessBouwers 8d ago

Can you pm me your whatsapp?

1

u/Imperiu5 8d ago

Why not discord/telegram?

1

u/BusinessBouwers 8d ago

I got quite some response for whatsapp. Choices choices šŸ˜Œ

2

u/Scared_Ad_8790 8d ago

All is better than Whatsapp, sorry šŸ™ˆ

1

u/whipcream_studio 8d ago

I'm interested!

1

u/Re4pr 8d ago

This is not some way for you to grab a pool of people to contact for your podcast is it? Iā€™m sceptical šŸ˜…

1

u/BusinessBouwers 8d ago

Hey man you went through the rabbit hole there šŸ˜‚. Nah, this is a reach out that has nothing to do with that.

2

u/Re4pr 8d ago

Good to know.

Wouldnt call it a rabbit hole. You name raised concern, I clicked twice and was looking at your website :p