Patterns recur in architecture.

Patterns recur in software.

Patterns recur in literature.

Patterns recur in startups.

Patterns recur.

In response, experts record their observations and insights in the form of pattern languages.

In architecture, Christopher Alexander wrote A Pattern Language.

In software, the Gang of Four wrote Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software.

In literature, hundreds of patterns are recorded at tvtropes.

Write down a collection of patterns and publish them.

Pattern repositories are a powerful way for newbies to get up to speed by learning the jargon of the trade.

In the age of Web 2.0, you can publish them collaboratively, like Wikipedia and tvtropes. Open content is consistent with the values of open source, open standards, and Creative Commons.

Open repositories of patterns make sense because patterns are more like natural phenonema in science than like technologies in engineering. Phenomena cannot be patented, while technologies can. They also make sense for all the usual reasons associated with open content. See: Open Content Usually Beats Closed Content.

The community is responsible for maintaining the repository.

• Startup Patterns

Patterns recur in startups. But first-time founders are by definition new to startups, and new to those patterns.

Most founders learn their lessons either the hard way or through the benefit of mentorship, which is not cheap.

Founders frequently find themselves in a situation which is new to them personally but known to the community at large. Any sensible explorer would want to consult the shades of those who have gone before, for fear of reinventing a wheel, falling into a known trap, barking up the wrong tree, going down a dead end, etc.

The startup ecosystem contains a great deal of tacit knowledge in the heads of the people who work with startups. But it’s inefficient to transfer that knowledge face to face, one founder at a time.

A body of literature is beginning to emerge around innovation in general and Lean Startups in particular, but it is incomplete and scattered. It would be nice to have everything in one place, modulo XKCD927 of course.

The startup world gets its own patterns repository.

Mentors can use the startup patterns repository to make their lives easier: they can point founders to relevant patterns, like an FAQ.

Founders can read up and learn.

JFDI has assembled over 200 patterns that startup founders should know.

The initial 2013 draft of JFDI’s Startup Patterns will be published on the JFDI blog. That content will subsequently be repurposed for publication as a series of books and opened up for collaborative editing in Wiki fashion.

The index is at http://jfdi.asia/category/patterns/

• Dan Shipper, a Penn undergrad, got the idea to do Startup Design Patterns a couple years ago, but that didn’t go anywhere. He lacked domain expertise.
• Quora has become a treasure trove of wisdom, formatted as Q&A. A patterns repository represents much of the same wisdom, but using a different format.