I'm building Future Proof, a community platform for scientists, enthusiasts, hobbyists and geeks to share cool projects, people and ideas in the fields of sci-fi and deep tech!

I've always felt that comic book geeks, DIY hackers and serious academics were overlapping domains, but there was never a platform for all these folks to fantasize and dream freely about tricorders and warp drives. I'm looking to build a Reddit/HN/IH style platform (as a start) to engage these communities together.

An ideal interaction would be:

A team of hobbyists get together to build something straight out of sci-fi (an ion thruster, for instance). They post their team and idea on this platform, and experts jump in to offer suggestions, funding, expertise, etc. Obviously community support is more than just experts and money, but you get the idea.

I have a newsletter going, with about 40 friends and colleagues. I'm beginning to bring in enthusiasts, engineers, academics, VCs, founders and other folks from my network so I can get some quality feedback. This, in a sense, is my pre-MVP. Latest email here: https://mailchi.mp/78dbc473dd84/sci-fi-hunt-twice-weekly-newsletter-122953

I'm currently scoping and designing Future Proof. I intend to build it within the month so I can get some fast validation. I have experience with Python, C++ and minimal with HTML/CSS/JS.

My options appear to be: 1. Phone a friend 2. Rails 2. Django 3. Non-code platform (Bubble, WP)

My question is: What would you do in my situation?

Thanks, and happy hacking folks!

P.S.: Would love to have you on my early newsletter subscribers! Sub here: http://eepurl.com/dBhfE5