Update on the House of Brothers: Founding a "loser fraternity"

[Svadhishthana]

@CainGettingLaid

I've been running my 6 bedroom rental as rent-by-the-room while living there part time for a couple years now, so a big part of its success is the relationships and community of the people who live there. Beyond ensuring the roof doesn't collapse and the toilets still flush, I see maintaining that community as the biggest and most important part of my business. I've applied a lot I learned from my dating life to this aspect of my business.

First of all, take ownership and show people what they are gonna get. A non-profit venture of equally shared responsibility is great.... if you already know everyone involved. But you don't - you are trying to sell other people on joining you. So you need to plunk down that deposit on the rental and commit to paying the rent on it even if all the rooms aren't filled. You need to pick the place so that it fits your goals and the goals of people who you want to join you. Are the rooms soundproofed? Where is it located relative to jobs, schools, nightlife, transit, etc? What is the monthly rent? Is there more emphasis on spacious bedrooms for solitude/remote work/a king sized bed, or is there more emphasis on common areas for house dinners/parties/randomly hanging out? Note that smaller bedrooms *encourage* social interaction, since residents will feel cramped hanging out in them all day. You need to find your ideal place, then move in and furnish it to suit your goals. How are you going to decorate? How will you arrange the furniture? Will the living room feature a liquor cabinet and high quality stereo, or common workspaces where people can comfortably hammer away on their laptops? Once you have all this put together, then take pics of it to show off that this is *good* and *real*.

Once you have that together, you can start pitching to people you don't know as well. Show them pics of the space, tell them about the location, tell them about what you and your friend are currently doing in the day to day.

One big lesson I learned is *not* to ask for a lot of commitment up front. You don't ask your tinder match to marry you before even meeting her for the first time - why would you ask someone to sign a 2 year lease before you've even met? Instead, offer as little commitment as possible. I now insist on giving all new tenants a 3 month lease when they first move in. If after a month and a half either of us is unhappy, we can simply choose not to renew - they have enough time to find a new place, and I have enough time to find a new tenant. While this might seem on the surface to be more work than demanding 1 year leases up front, in actuality it is far less work - primarily because dealing with someone who doesn't want to live there for an entire year is a gigantic pain in the dick, not least because forcing someone who doesn't want to live there to keep living there absolutely poisons the rest of the community. But also because you will attract cooler people who already have lots of options who like the fact that you are letting them keep their options open. It also displays confidence in your product - you aren't trapping people into a 2 year commitment because you don't need to. You know that if they just try your product, they will love it so much that they will stick around without coercion.

And finally, you need to maintain the community. There are a lot of day to day issues that crop up in a space shared among multiple people. The biggest ones are usually cleanliness and guests. Most people hate having a sink full of dirty dishes, even if they themselves added plates to the stack. And everyone gets annoyed when one roommate starts having their girlfriend living there rent free without even asking anyone. You need to strike a delicate balance here between setting a good example, making sure the problem gets solved, and not letting everyone become too dependent on you as the problem solver. As the leader, you should expect to simply do one or two dishes which have been left in the sink every day to ensure it stays empty, because that easy and simple act creates a culture and an expectation that dishes are not left in the sink. You should also point out this act of service to others - eventually, *everyone* realizes they are late for a meeting in the middle of breakfast and just *has to* leave their dirty dishes in the sink - so establish the idea in the culture that the act of doing a few dishes which aren't your own is an act of good will and service toward the community, and a form of penance for one's own imperfections. At the same time, if someone is persistently not cleaning up their messes or has their girlfriend move in, something needs to be done. What that something is, is having an open and honest discussion with that person about the problem. As the leader, I find it is best if you do one of two things. The first option is to set a hard rule which you tell to everyone before they move in - and then as soon as they break the rule, you bring the hammer down. The other option is to wait until someone else brings the problem up to you - or else to casually mention it with other roommates and ask them if they have a problem with it. Then when they express their unhappiness, task *them* with discussing the problem with the problematic roommate, possibly calling a house meeting to discuss the issue with everyone. In these situations, you need to present yourself as open-minded, caring for all parties, and being solution-focused. Your role is largely to be the mediator, allowing all parties to discuss how they feel, and prompting parties to come up with their own solutions for their problems. This fosters a culture of open dialogue, and encourages roommates to solve their own problems among themselves instead of relying on you as their daddy who they can complain to to solve their problems.

If this sounds like a lot of work and risk on your part - yes. Unless you are able to preemptively establish strong relationships with enough people you trust first, you'll be taking on a fair bit of risk and effort to make this happen and find people who are good fits. If you want to do this as a completely non-profit venture, that is very noble of you. But for this level of effort and risk, many would think you deserve to be paid... maybe try structuring the rent so that you and your friend don't pay rent or have discounted rent as long as all the rooms are filled. Not necessary, but maybe the additional incentive you need to make it happen.

@MakingAComeback

This forum suffers from the problem of many of the old-style forums it is based on. Experienced users find their helpful comments are buried under dumbass comments from people who don't know what they are talking about. And their more difficult and nuanced questions never get answered due to the deluge of newbie questions. This makes them feel underappreciated and bored, and so they leave. This was a problem on old IT and software question and answer forums a couple decades ago, too, which is what led to the founding of Stack Overflow / Stack Exchange. They realized that the most important thing in a goal-oriented forum was the engagement of experienced users who actually knew how to solve people's problems. They therefore implemented a point system where users received more points for providing answers that were *useful*, not just for posting a lot. And having these points wasn't just for show - more points granted the users more privileges, like the ability to edit other users posts or to restructure the site. I'm not saying this is an exact drop-in-place solution to the problem, but the general concept - privileging and rewarding the more high-value users - seems like a good starting point. One thought I had was that - once a ranking system was established - there could be sub forums created where only higher-ranked users could post, where they could do things like write how-to guides for newbies (where only other higher-ranked users would be able to comment on them), or ask questions that other intermediate or advanced guys would be able to respond to. This would also stimulate engagement from more advanced guys who want to filter out newbie questions, and talk about more advanced questions.

I remember reading a blog post a while ago about how Stack was "broken". It had become impossible to get lots of points anymore because power users would immediately lock questions as duplicates and point to previous answers given to the question. This deprived newer users of the ability to engage and answer questions. Hilariously, this highlighted the fact that the system was working as intended - the most high-level users had stayed engaged in the community, and users of all levels were consistently getting their questions answered. And this was achieved by ignoring the desire of mediocre users to have their egos fed.

[pancakemouse]

@MakingAComeback

This forum suffers from the problem of many of the old-style forums it is based on. Experienced users find their helpful comments are buried under dumbass comments from people who don't know what they are talking about. And their more difficult and nuanced questions never get answered due to the deluge of newbie questions. This makes them feel underappreciated and bored, and so they leave.

Where is this happening? This is very different from my experience using this forum. I definitely agree what you describe is a trend with communities in general but I have to say I've been constantly surprised at the quality of advice that is given here overall. Newbies mostly lurk and ask questions, experienced guys mainly comment and give good advice.

I haven't seen any difficult/nuanced questions that have gone unanswered, and haven't noticed experienced users leaving for this reason.

[MakingAComeback]

Thanks for the feedback I greatly appreciate it!

The takeaway for me, was giving more senior users some more responsibility, that is interesting. I do have ideas for that.

Regarding the problem of clueless newbies leading others astray - frankly, I have not seen this take place. I am confused by this statement. Mostly, what I see is guys who have been there, and done it, chiming in to help others along.

I hope this continues as a trend and I do agree that guys who are not a proven commodity can regretably spew a lot of nonsense. I see plenty I disagree with, and disagree with many dudes who're experienced and can create outcomes. But, when it's sincere and evidence based, I like having the various opinions.

When it's theory and conjecture, yeah, that can get to fuck.

-MAC DADDY