Digital noticeboards for Community Groups
So, about 1.5 years ago, I started a little project - https://noticeboards.info - to help out the parents of the Renfrewshire Schools Pipe Band, myself included, as one of those parents.
The concept was simple - a digital version of the village noticeboard. The goal: take the important bits out of the noisy WhatsApp group and put them somewhere they're instantly easy to find, without the endless scrolling and searching.
The parents of Renfrewshire Schools Pipe Band have used it this season to keep up to date with competition events, minutes from committee meetings, and fundraising announcements from their recent ceilidh - and it's been really well received.
But the concept applies far beyond school pipe bands. Youth football clubs. Running clubs. Village halls. Parent and toddler groups. The local pub, listing what's on for sports and live music - and the very bands playing there, listing their own gig schedule. Even something as informal as a standing board game night between friends, so everyone knows whose house and what you're playing.
So I've opened it up for general registration - anyone can create their own noticeboard for their own community group.
If that sounds useful for a group you're part of, I'd love you to give it a try - https://noticeboards.info
A sample from a demo noticeboard can be viewed below.
I like that the product started from a problem you experienced yourself instead of trying to replace every community communication tool.
I'll be interested to see which types of groups adopt it most naturally. That often reveals where the product creates the clearest value rather than where it could theoretically be used.
Thanks. There's a youth football club potentially looking to use it, but that's via a friend, so it's somewhat biased. It'll be more interesting once I start getting cold signups, since the product will have had to do all the talking to earn them.
I've done the dev thing and built the product; now I need to push out of my comfort zone and try to market it
Appreciate the honesty.
The shift from building the product to discovering the right adoption path is usually where the interesting decisions happen.
Would be good to understand more about what you're seeing as you start testing different groups.
What's the best email to reach you on?
The origin is the strongest thing you have, and you're already drifting from it. One real pipe band, a full season of actual use (competition events, committee minutes, ceilidh fundraising), well received. That's validation most founders never get. Then the post immediately widens to football clubs, running clubs, village halls, pubs, gig schedules, board game nights. That list is the danger, not the opportunity.
The trap: "digital noticeboard for any community group" competes with WhatsApp, Facebook Groups, and Google Sites, and wins against none because it's generic. "The tool that pulls the important stuff out of a chaotic WhatsApp group for [one specific group type]" is sharp and winnable. You've proven it for pipe bands. Generalizing before nailing one vertical turns a working thing into a fuzzy thing nobody chooses.
The move: pick the ONE niche closest to what you've proven and own it before widening. Pipe bands lead naturally to youth music/sports clubs, groups with committees, events, fundraising, parents drowning in WhatsApp. Go get 10 more of those before you touch pubs and game nights. Depth in one vertical builds the case studies and word-of-mouth that generic-for-everyone never will.
The WhatsApp framing is your real wedge, by the way. "The signal rescued from the noise of your group chat" is a pain everyone in these groups feels viscerally. Lead with that, not "digital noticeboard," which sounds like infrastructure nobody asked for.
Which group type feels the WhatsApp-chaos pain most acutely? That's your second vertical, not all of them at once.