"Community Platforms: Can They Secure Funding in Today's Market?"

[perplexedathiest]

Hi everyone,

How likely do you think it is for community platforms to receive investment at this time, as compared to generative AI startups (e.g., "API call to chatgpt")?

I recently had a discussion with YC founders and they expressed that it's highly unlikely for a community platform to receive funding due to the strong competition from established platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit..

 

[psalm9one]

@perplexedathiest People are still using FB?? While all these exists, stuff keep coming up …… Signal, WhatsApp, Discord, Snapchat, TikTok, now Mastodon, BlueSky … all of them are used… so it is hard to say …

 

[perplexedathiest]

@psalm9one You're right...

In my case i am building a stock market community platform and based on the reaction of other YC founders it is highly unlikely that i will get an interview. So i was just wondering if community platforms in general are oversatured or not.

You can find it here

 

[programofficial]

@perplexedathiest Only with substantial traction. It’s a case where it’s all market rather than technical risk so it’s up to you to release an mvp quick and get real traction.

 

[psalm9one]

@perplexedathiest I like the idea. Keep talking to users may bring valuable features. What did you use to build the website?

 

[perplexedathiest]

@psalm9one frontend is based on sveltekit.

backend is based on python

 

[truthislight]

@psalm9one Very good point. I got my MBA and was taught it's like a Winner Take All market. However, to your point, that doesn't seem to be the case at all. There is also Clubhouse.

 

[psalm9one]

@truthislight Clubhouse just let go people. But it is there…

 

[truthislight]

@psalm9one Do you mean it's not doing well and losing popularity? I didn't realize that. If that's the case, that is good to know and I would be curious what the reasoning is.

 

[ejohnson]

@truthislight It was a feature for other products, not a product in itself, and it didn't necessarily create its own creator class, it just piggy backed off the Twitter graph (ie the type of creator who is successful on Twitter is not necessarily the same as IG or TikTok... but Clubhouse was mostly just successful Twitter creators). Plus real time shit is incredibly hard to pull off (Twitch being the real only success story there) as it's hard to have consistently great content all the time... Which Clubhouse almost never did.

 

[truthislight]

@ejohnson True. All good points.

I personally opened an account with Clubhouse but haven't yet used it. I thought I was more of an isolated case as I didn't fully understand how it worked and didn't find it as interesting (though that could be because I didn't understand it well), but now it seems that is not the case.

 

[psalm9one]

@truthislight It was popular during pandemic but does not look like anymore. Just Google it or ChatGPT it

 

[truthislight]

@psalm9one I will definitely check that out

 

[ejohnson]

@psalm9one They're around 1.9b DAUs, so yes haha. I'm pretty sure it's basically the internet to a lot of not the US (western Europe might also be excluded from this). Seems like IG is around 1.4b DAUs. Can't find DAUs for WhatsApp but it seems to be over 2b MAUs.

 

[psalm9one]

@ejohnson Haha not sure why would they change name with 1.9 b DAU ….

 

[ejohnson]

@psalm9one Not sure. I guess Zuck just wanted to show commitment to the Metaverse concept, plus probably Facebook’s brand isn’t as good as it could be right now.

 

[lakusha]

@perplexedathiest My uneducated opinion is that if you built something people wanted to use then you would be fine. Funding would be tough without traction though even if you check the other boxes.

As a counterpoint, BeReal was founded in 2020

 

[adilene]

@perplexedathiest It’s very saturated market, with clearly defined market leaders. Tough competition here means spend 3x more than they do on marketing and sales activities.