Question and Answer sites have grown in popularity over the past few years. Yahoo Answers was one of the first major movers in the Q&A arena, with Answers.com, WikiAswers, and JustAnswers following soon after. As the Q&A space became more crowded webmaster opportunists did what they do best and built niche specialized Q&A websites. What does that mean for the entrepreneur?  It means that the entrepreneur can find answers to their questions more simply, without having to sift through all of the rubbish and “off topic” questions contained on all of the other Q&A sites.

Dharmesh Shah, founder of HubSpot, runs a blog at OnStartups.com.  Dharmesh pioneered the startup/online entrepreneur question and answer space and leveraging his expertise, as well as that of a few of his friends and colleagues.  Answers.OnStartups.com has evolved into a vibrant community for both the inquisitive and the knowledgeable.  While the community membership can probably answer almost any query, it is fairly clear that the general expertise of the community is within the online/software/tech entrepreneurship realm.

Not long after the question and answer feature was released on OnStartups, Startups.com was released in the form of a Startup Q&A website.  Startups.com is run by the same people who publish KillerStartups.com, a website with daily features of new online services, apps, companies, and businesses.  Startups.com has gained some early traction within the niche, and has been able to really build off of the already developed KillerStartups community.  At this point, they have a bit of a ways to go before they really start to rival the expertise of the OnStartups community, but this does not at all diminish the quality of the members or answers on Startups.com.  As the Startups.com community continues to develop and gain a wider audience by strategic promotion and use of social platforms, Startups.com could become a major force in the startup Q&A niche.

A number of other resources are available to inquisitive entrepreneurs beyond the scope of just Q&A websites.  Readers of TheStartupist are encouraged to submit questions and inquiries to TheStartupist team via our contact form.  Entrepreneurs can also take advantage of websites and forums like BizMore and YoungEntrepreneur.com.

Where do you go to get your startup questions answered?