"Legendary" indie hacking community Hackagu goes global

One of the most influential indie hacking communities in the world just launched a blueprint for anyone who wants to set up a new international chapter.

The Bali-based group, which Cso Horvath launched in 2019, is called Hackagu.

Since its inception, numerous superstar indie hackers haved passed through its doors, like Danny Postma and Jon Yongfook. After a visit earlier this year, Tony Dinh described Hackagu as “legendary.”

The community follows a simple formula:

1. Members meet every Thursday at a co-working space to hack together and get feedback on their projects.

2. Each session starts with introductions, and ends with demonstrations of what attendees have built that day — a step designed to keep them accountable.

The New Blueprint

To assist people interested in opening a new chapter, the group published a blueprint as part of a git repo, alongside a chapter directory and several new Telegram groups.

With so many digital nomads passing through Bali, existing Hackagu members had already set up informal meetings in other locations.

“Over the years, a bunch of us have moved on to Europe or other spots in South East Asia,” Hackagu admin James Potter (founder of Rephonic, Reletter) told me. “A lot of us really missed the weekly ritual so there have been a few attempts to recreate it in some form wherever we are.”

Hackumvit, a Hackagu group based in Bangkok’s Sukhumvit district, has been meeting on and off since 2022. Temporary groups like Hackso in Bansko, which ran for a single ski season, have also popped up as members have moved around. 

James set up another branch in London this summer with fellow indie hacker Tobias Whetton (Supernotes). The idea appealed to Tobias because he was tired of attending founder meetings “gatekept behind funding rounds” or “populated with people trying to sell themselves.”

The nascent group saw attendee Chidi Williams accepted into Y Combinator’s Fall 2024 batch this week for his fintech product Rulebase. Other members have launched or are launching on the App Store. Tobias said. “I’m so proud of how far we’ve come in just four months.”

James wants to make it easier for more people to find or start their own Hackagu chapters.

“People have asked for a list of locations and we never really had anything to point them to,’ he said. “A couple of weeks ago I started thinking about what to call it and came up with the suitably nerdy Hacka* (i.e. the wildcard character). I registered the domain hacka.network to host a simple directory of all the various chapters.”

The new site brings these informal groups together and provides a blueprint written by Erwin Lengkeek (Tailscan) for setting up new chapters, called “nodes.” Erwin had this to say:

“We've realized that a couple of key points make Hackagu what it is today. Over time, they’ve become the community’s backbone and the reason it has thrived for so long without any company or single person owning it.”

“We'd like to help other people set up similar groups of startup founders and indie hackers. These guidelines (read: not rules) will help them hit the ground running.”

“The idea is that each chapter does its own thing and there's almost no central organizing involved,” James added. “It's basically an idea with a loose event format and a naming scheme.”

Since its launch last week, the hacka.network chapter listing has already grown.

“Tim Wong is organizing Hackapura in Singapore. Neco and Osman created Hackatalya (Antalya) over in Turkey,” James said. “My friend Chris Dengso is trying to start Hackahagen (Copenhagen).”

Attendees can access local Telegram groups, a shipping chat, and a global Hacka* chat. But the configuration of the groups may shift as the community expands. 

Original founder Cso told me he started the first group to try to bring people together. He wanted to encourage indie hackers to talk and collaborate in real life in a friendly, non-transactional setting.

He’s excited for the group’s future and wants to visit all the new locations in time.

“I’m a huge fan of remix culture. I always try to encourage everyone with any ideas for Hackagu to pick them up and run with them," he said. “We’ve talked about similar ideas for years now. It’s amazing to see the guys going for it. The network is definitely the group’s proudest creation yet.”