A new open source project is debuting today as a way to capture stories behind entrepreneurs’ startups in a central repository. FounderLY is giving startup founders a platform to share the stories behind their startups through short form interviews (15 minutes in length) conducted by fellow founders.
While many of the infamous stories of tech entrepreneurs (Bill Gates and Microsoft, Larry and Sergey and Googe, Steve Jobs and Apple) are documented in print forms, FounderLY’s co-creator Matthew Wise felt that there was a need for more candid video interviews from a variety of founders, and he felt the best way to do this was to have fellow entrepreneurs interview each other to capture the best stories.
Wise and his fellow co-founder Andy Saebjoernsen developed an open platform which allows anyone to submit a video of a founder to be posted on Founderly. FounderLY will then package it with an intro, bumper, and a closing, and publish it to their website. Neither Wise or his co-founder want to profit from FounderLY—the project is simply a way to capture and preserve these stories, says Wise.
Currently, FounderLY features videos from Vivek Wadhwa, Naval Ravikant, Michael Seibel, Rick Marini, and a number of other founders. We’ve embedded Wadwa’s videos below. FounderLy’s ambitions are noble but the challenge the platform will face is actually getting founders and entrepreneurs to take the time to interview each other.