The Board

A startup directory run as a pay-to-rank leaderboard of brands. Every spot is a brand: a logo, a line and a link, ranked by what it has paid and nothing else. There is no vote, no algorithm and no editor deciding who deserves to be seen. Every listing is a paid placement, and the page says so.

Position is decided by money. To sit above a brand you pay more than it has paid, and an amount, once paid, never goes down. The top spot costs more every time it changes hands, and that price only rises until somebody wins the season.

A listing starts at $1. Rank 01 costs at least $1 more than whoever holds it. You are shown the exact amount before you confirm and that is the amount taken: no subscription, no stored balance, nothing that bills you again later.

Hold the throne for 30 days in a row and the season is yours. The standings freeze into the hall of seasons for good, every amount resets to zero, and the board starts again with every brand still on it. A season page cannot be taken from you; the throne can.

Yes. There are 14 kinds of sabotage, and anyone can buy one against any listing. They change how a listing looks and how well its link works, never what it paid and never its real rank. Every one wears off on its own, so waiting costs nothing, and you can clear it early or buy protection ahead of time. Nobody is ever told who attacked whom.

Anyone can put money behind a brand they want to see higher. Backing is public: every backer is named on the listing. The money goes into that listing's war chest and comes off the price the next time the listing pays to move up, protect itself or clear damage.

Every listing shows its impressions and clicks, and both counters are public. The traffic figure on the page is not ours: Fathom counts page views and outbound clicks and publishes them on a dashboard anyone can open, and revenue is verified through the payment processor's public profile.

Yes, and no. A listing is a receipt and you have to be able to come back to it, so buying signs you in first: we mail you a link and clicking it is the whole of it. Every payment on The Board is final, and the terms say so. Editing your listing is free, so a typo is never a reason to pay twice.