1. Our philosophy on openness

The Guild is a community. Communities work when people can find each other, learn about each other, and connect. That requires some degree of visibility — and we think that’s a good thing, not a problem to be minimized.

Here’s how we think about it:

• Your presence on the platform — your profile, your archetype, your business context — is designed to be seen by other members. That’s how you get value from the community.
• Your venture profiles are designed to be shared. With other members, with potential collaborators, with the broader ecosystem. We’ve built features specifically to make that easy.
• What you share in open community spaces is visible to all members. What you share in peer groups or private roundtables is visible only to those participants, and can be controlled with our sharing settings.
• We will never sell your data to third parties, period. But we actively encourage you to connect your Guild presence to other platforms in the founder ecosystem — and we’ll give you clear, opt-in controls to do that.

The short version: we protect your data from exploitation. We don’t protect you from visibility. Visibility is the point.

2. What we collect

What you give us directly

When you create an account and build your profile, you give us:

• Your name, email address, and login credentials
• Your venture profile — what you’re building, what you’re looking for, what you have to offer
• Your professional background — your experience, skills, industries, and other relevant information
• Content you post, contribute, or share in community spaces, classes, roundtables, or peer groups
• Payment information when you purchase a class or paid membership tier (processed securely by our payment provider — we don’t store card numbers)
• Any communications you send us directly

What we collect automatically

When you use the platform, we collect some information about how you use it:

• Log data: pages visited, features used, time spent, clicks
• Device and browser information
• IP address and general location (city/region level — we don’t track your precise location)
• Cookies and similar tracking technologies that help the platform work and help us understand how it’s being used

We use this to improve the platform, understand what’s working, and personalize your experience. We don’t use it to build a surveillance profile of you or sell behavioral data to advertisers.

What we don’t collect

We don’t collect sensitive categories of personal data — things like health information, financial account details, government ID numbers, or anything in that territory. If you choose to share something like that in a community post or peer group conversation, that’s your choice, but we’re not asking for it and we’re not storing it in a structured way.

3. How we use what we collect

Straightforwardly: we use your information to run the Guild and make it better.

• To operate the platform — authentication, billing, support, class access
• To connect you with other members whose profiles and interests are relevant to yours
• To surface content, classes, and roundtable topics that are relevant to your situation
• To communicate with you about your membership, upcoming events, new content, and things we think you’ll find useful (you can control this in your notification settings)
• To understand how the platform is being used and improve it
• To enforce our Terms of Service and community guidelines

We don’t use your data to serve you third-party advertising. The Guild doesn’t run ads. We don’t share behavioral data with ad networks. What you do on this platform stays on this platform, except as described in the sharing section below.

4. What we share — and what we don’t

We do not sell your data. Ever. To anyone. That’s not a business we’re in.

What’s visible to other Guild members

Your member profile is visible to other Guild members by default. This includes:

• Your name, photo (if you’ve added one), and founder information
• Your venture profiles — what you’re building, its stage, its industry, what you’re looking for
• Your activity in open community spaces — posts, comments, contributions, class and roundtable participation

This visibility is intentional. It’s how other members find you, how collaborators discover you, and how the community works. You can adjust what’s visible in your privacy settings, but we want to be honest: the Guild works better when members are findable.

What’s visible only to specific participants

Some spaces on the platform are more private by design:

• Support group conversations are visible only to the members of that group
• Direct messages are visible only to the people in the conversation

We treat these spaces with extra care. We won’t surface this content to other members or use it for purposes beyond operating those specific features.

Sharing with the broader ecosystem — opt-in only

One of the things we want to make easy is connecting your Guild presence to the broader founder ecosystem — other platforms, communities, tools, and networks that serve founders like you.

We will never do this without your explicit permission. If there’s an opportunity to share your profile or venture information with a third-party platform or partner, we’ll present it to you as a clear opt-in choice — what’s being shared, with whom, and why. You choose. We don’t assume.

We actively encourage you to make these connections. A well-linked presence in the founder ecosystem opens doors. But that’s your call, not ours.

Service providers

We work with a small number of third-party services to operate the platform — things like payment processing, email delivery, hosting, and analytics. These providers access your data only to perform services for us, under contracts that prohibit them from using it for their own purposes. We choose providers carefully and we don’t give them more access than they need.

Legal requirements

We may disclose information if required by law, court order, or valid legal process. We’ll notify you if we receive such a request, unless we’re legally prohibited from doing so. We don’t volunteer information to law enforcement beyond what’s required.

5. Your member profile and venture profile

These deserve their own section because they’re central to what the Guild is.

• Your presence is your profile in the community. It tells other members who you are, what you’re building, and what kind of connections you’re looking for. It’s designed to be seen.
• Your venture profiles are your company’s presence in the Guild ecosystem. They’re designed to be shared — with members, with collaborators, and (with your permission) with the broader founder ecosystem. Think of it as a living, founder-to-founder introduction: what you’re building, why, what stage you’re at, and what would be useful to you right now.

You can update, edit, or remove your profiles at any time. If you close your account, both are removed from the platform. We'll archive them offline ion case you change your mind or decide to come back, but we'll pemanently delete them if you specifcally tell us to do so.

6. Cookies

We use cookies — small files stored on your device — to keep you logged in, remember your preferences, and understand how the platform is being used.

We use:

• Essential cookies that make the platform work (login, session management). You can’t opt out of these and still use the platform.
• Analytics cookies that help us understand usage patterns and improve the platform. You can opt out of these in your browser settings or via the cookie preferences in your account.

We don’t use advertising cookies. We don’t allow third-party ad networks to place cookies on our platform.

7. Data retention

We keep your data for as long as your account is active and for a reasonable period after, in case you want to return or in case there are outstanding matters to resolve.

If you close your account, we delete your personal data within 90 days, with a few narrow exceptions: we may retain records of financial transactions for legal and accounting purposes, and we may retain information necessary to enforce our terms or respond to legal claims.

Community contributions — posts, comments, things you’ve written in open spaces — may persist in anonymized or aggregate form after your account is closed. We won’t keep them associated with your name or identity.

8. Security

We take reasonable and appropriate measures to protect your information — encryption in transit and at rest, access controls, regular security reviews. We work with reputable infrastructure providers who take security seriously.

That said, no system is perfectly secure. We’ll be honest with you: if there’s ever a breach that affects your data, we’ll tell you promptly, tell you what happened, and tell you what we’re doing about it. We won’t hide it.

You can help too: use a strong, unique password for your Guild account. Don’t share your login credentials. Let us know if you notice anything suspicious.

9. Your rights and controls

You have meaningful control over your information:

• Access: You can see everything we have on you by going to your account settings or contacting us.
• Correction: If something is wrong, you can fix it yourself or ask us to.
• Deletion: You can delete your account and your data at any time. We’ll process it within 90 days.
• Portability: If you want a copy of your data, ask us. We’ll give you something useful, not a cryptic data dump.
• Opt-out: You can opt out of non-essential communications in your notification settings. You can opt out of analytics cookies in your browser or account settings. You can opt out of any third-party data sharing at any time.

If you’re in the EU or UK, you have additional rights under GDPR. If you’re in California, you have additional rights under CCPA. We honor all of them. Contact us at hello@thefoundersguild.org and we’ll respond within 30 days.

10. Children’s privacy

The Guild is for adults building businesses. We don’t knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If we discover we’ve done so inadvertently, we’ll delete it promptly.

11. Changes to this policy

We’ll update this policy as the Guild grows and as the law requires. When we make meaningful changes, we’ll notify you by email before they take effect. The current version will always be at https://thefoundersguild.org/privacy, with the date of last update at the top.

If the changes are significant — particularly anything that affects how we share your data — we’ll ask for your explicit acknowledgment before they apply to you.

12. How to reach us

Questions, concerns, requests, or feedback about this policy:

Email: hello@thefoundersguild.org

We respond to privacy-related requests within 5 business days and complete them within 30.

If you feel we haven’t addressed your concern adequately, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. We’d prefer you contact us first and give us a chance to make it right — but that right exists and we won’t discourage you from using it.