Introducing The Island

When I was younger, I used to play a game called Evil Genius. It was a strategy game where you built your Evil Genius lair, hired minions and had a place to hide all of your gold and looted treasures from around the world.

The idea of having a secret genius island and filling it with gold appealed to me – and still does.

Unfortunately, I’m not a super-villain. I’m just a writer. So a secret base filled with gold is out of my reach… for now.

I’ve decided to do the next best thing.

The Island

The Island is a private members forum hosted on this site. I envision it as a kind of mastermind group thing – except “mastermind” is a lame name for a bunch of people talking about their goals. The Island is going to be awesome.

I’ve written about entrepreneurship forums before, and not particularly positively. I think a big mistake is that they’re open, there’s no real sense of community and eventually in-fighting kills them all. Oh, and the endless people who seem to devote their life to arguing and being forum experts instead of doing stuff.

The Island… not like that. Numbers are going to be limited. Taking part will be essential (no lurkers – more on that soon) and I’m not doing this with any intention of it going public – no advertisers, no showing off for members of the public.

It’s a private club for readers of the blog, talking about the things that can’t be discussed on the blog.

I can’t say I’ve ever wanted to be a forum administrator for a living, so this is not going to be a full-time project.

So Why Build It At All?

I like the idea of forums in principle. The blog feels like a pulpit and ideas are meant to be challenged, discussed and built upon by groups of people.

Also, people send me great tips and information through this blog: I’ve learned a lot that I wouldn’t have otherwise, and I like to think I’ve helped other people as well.

Also, there’s a lot that people email me about because they don’t want to comment publicly and share the goods with everyone. I understand that.

Finally… tens of thousands of visitors come to this blog. I ask for comments, and there are crickets… very quiet ones. Some guys reach out with helpful stuff and comment and whatnot, and they’ll be invited. Others read quietly and run. This will reward the friends of the blog.

Let’s talk about the price of membership now, because it seems relevant.

The Price Of Getting In

The price of membership to the private club is currently a low, low price of $0.

Yep, it’s free.

However, let’s just take a stock of the tired metaphor I used right at the beginning of this article: You’ve got a secret island full of gold, secrets and treasure on a desert island. Who would you invite?

The answers will vary slightly, but I’m guessing:

Known entities
People you can trust
People who you think won’t steal your stuff
Guys and girls who’ll add value instead of taking it away
(Hot girls in bikinis)
People who’ll actually appreciate it

What this basically amounts to is that you can get into my private island for the low price of me knowing who you are. That means things like leaving comments, talking on Twitter, emails, giving me ideas for world domination and providing the hot girls in bikinis… (just kidding on that last one.)

It’s hard to be autistic in the description of requirements here. Ask yourself: Do I know who the hell you are and am I likely to want you on my secret island?

If that seems mean… sorry. But I’m doing this for everyone’s sake. I want an environment where people can discuss ideas freely. That means keeping it a secret club. You can’t have an open door to a secret club.

There aren’t really any exceptions or shortcuts here. If you want into the secret club without being a friend of the blog, the price is ten thousand pounds in solid gold coins or something. Maybe I’ll open it up in the future, but maybe I won’t. So it’s better to get in at the ground level now.

Seriously.

Introducing The Island