It's a good idea. Why not ask startups to upload a startup.txt (as opposed to robots.txt) to their web root and collect from that? Pre-filled text forms can be downloaded. Also, as with CB, collect data on individuals through a similar opt-in. Enable users to ping your site when it's ready to collect.
You could have a "traction" stat and ask for a JS snippet be installed on homepages or a set of pages. Old school and unreliable. Registered users is also a good way to assess traction. Not sure how that information could be readily obtained.
In my previous comment I mentioned attaching a crypto address to domains - you could do that too. That'd be interesting. One feature you could add long-term is crowdfunding. Either for new features, code releases, media, documents - whatever.
Crowdfunding activity on startups and individuals would be a great way to measure traction.
Thanks, this is all really interesting feedback, I'm mostly free right now, so il definitely try to roll out these changes soon. probably will announce them on website blog.
Good on you. Also, checkout https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47778306 "Every CEO and CFO change at US public companies, live from SEC"
I think it's important to attach a bunch of people to any given startup (you've already done it.) Going forward, I'd expect more startups to behave like bands. Any 1 person can be attached to a number of bands, but eventually one of these bands will make it big and the members will get locked-in. Staff also bring users, credibility and hence traction early on.
"If you want something done, ask a busy person."
THIS IS A GREAT IDEA!
Umm, what about machine readable JSON in .well-known instead of yet another txt in root
That's a great idea. I also like the idea of having a changelog in there too, and key screenshots. Really, WP plugin pages have a great range of info as a guide: eg https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress/#developers https://tablepress.org/info/#changelog