Even while refusing to reveal what his start-up actually does, CEO Doug Ludlow managed to interest more than 17,000 individuals in his nascent company, Hipster, just by posting, “Want to be a Hipster? Early invitations available” on a tech site called Hacker News. Users get a unique ID that shows how early they were to sign up. A chance to win a numerical ranking that proves how early you were to discover a trend? The ability to loosely associate yourself with the term while still being able to disavow the label? No wonder they came out of extinction for this. Although being pushed to invite three friends and post a link on your Facebook and Twitter doesn’t sound very alt bro. And what if Hipster turns out to be the start-up equivalent of, like, still being into MGMT? [TechCrunch]
