Do you have "something to protect"? Some specific real-world goal that you really want to achieve, preferably with help of other people? If yes, you could try using the Control Market app for this purpose.
Making a web application is relatively easy, you don't need a Kickstarter funding, just a free weekend or two. Implement the critical parts first, don't worry about design and other unessential stuff. Then start using the application. This is how you get feedback.
If the application will help, you have helped the cause you care about and did an experiment with the application. And you also have your first reference.
(As an extreme case -- I am not sure if this is even possible -- could you use the application just for yourself, to help you decide about your personal goals?)
Or something like that1. As per this article on Control Markets I am looking to experiment with them. This requires an organization of some sort. This post is my first step to the creation of the organization.
My skills are in technology and not UI or people particularly. So I have mainly been doing what I know2, working around my day job.
So I decided it probably wasn't the best path, I was likely to get distracted and lose focus by myself. So other people would be useful.
There are three rough ways this can be attempted:
So what is possible with people from lesswrong? And which would people advise? Or is there a different way to attack this problem.
I've thought about kickstarter, but I don't think it is within the ToS. Also I would want a decent demo/visuals before trying this style of thing.
I suppose there is also.
1 I would want to use a kitty for a logo if we went with this name. This is probably why I shouldn't be allowed to make these sorts of decisions.
2 I've been noodling around with a django backend using tastypie to make a restful API, I was thinking about using AngularJS on the client (which I would need to learn). Still needs a lot of work. I also have a bad habit of wanting to make it highly available/scalable and other such things that aren't appropriate at this point.