There’s a new social media platform to connect entrepreneurial Haligonians, and it uses that most ubiquitous of all networking sites, Facebook.

St. Mary’s University student Mike Cyr created a group on Facebook called the Halifax Startup Community on Friday and as of Wednesday it already had 160 members. You can find it here. In true Facebook fashion, it is a place where members can post articles, videos and other content and have a discussion about what’s going on in entrepreneurship in Halifax.

On a local level, it resembles the Startup North group on Facebook. Founded by Halifax’s Jevon MacDonald and David Crow, one of the partners in the Atlantic region mentorship group TheNextPhase, Startup North is an online meeting place for Canadian startups, and the discussions among entrepreneurs from across the country take place in its Facebook group.

The Halifax Startup Community is already becoming an online chat room for the city’s entrepreneurial community.

“After the first day, we had just shy of 100 members join the group and engage with like-minded individuals,” said Cyr, who is entering fourth year of university with a major in marketing and entrepreneurship. “That number has continued to grow since.”

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Cyr wants the community to be a broad group so the membership is not restricted to the founders of tech startups. Anyone interested in entrepreneurship is welcome to join and participate in conversations. It could be people who have started businesses or those who are interested in working for or with a young venture.

On Tuesday, for example, Stephanie MacDonald, who owns Halifax Paper Hearts, posted to tell people about her note card business. She also told the community about an organization she co-founded, 100 Entrepreneurs: Planting Seed$, a micro-funding platform for youth ventures. Sixty-nine people saw the item.

An hour later, the Volta startup house posted a notice that it is hosting a pitching competition on Wednesday, June 22.

“I refer to it now as almost a matchmaker for professionals,” said Cyr. “We’ve seen some great connections take place and people aligning strategic hires for their startups.”

Cyr said there are a lot of people who are of the entrepreneurial mindset but don’t have their own business. The Halifax Startup Community is a place where they can join discussions, get to know what’s going on and get to know people with similar interests. By placing it in Facebook, he’s chosen a site with a high level of user acceptance — hence, the quick take-up of the group.

Cyr himself is entrepreneurial by nature. He runs Scotian Sails, which imports sails and sells them to Atlantic Canadian boat owners. And he previously was a member of a team of SMU students that developed an event discovery platform. He’s focusing now on graduating in 2017 and then possibly another venture. And he plans to use the Halifax Startup Community group on Facebook to help get it off the ground.

“This will be a great resource to meet different people and get involved with their groups,” said Cyr. “You’d be surprised how much you can actually present yourself to people through this group.”