Where do all the founders hang out?

Great question! I have tried many places - X, Reddit, Discord, Slack. The best conversations happen in smaller WhatsApp communities where founders share real progress. Check out FOAIC (Founders of AI Community) - focused on founders building with AI, sharing growth tactics and supporting each other. Join here: https://forms.gle/3Jh2r8FZNHKjwWNP8

search for buildinpublic and indiehacker hashtags on twitter(x) . I have found most of the founders through this.

Microconf - sounds like a good place to start, I follow one of the co-founders on YouTube: Rob Walling, who makes great content about startups - so I'm sure even on his YouTube channel you'll find quite a few founders.

👋 I run an indie-pendent community over at http://indiependent.land/

Most founders I know hang out at a place called "their desk" :p

Plugging in Micro SaaS HQ that I am running.

It's tough because there is so much self promotion. I envy the folks who've found a good "mastermind" sort of group they can build trust with over time. Haven't found one for myself yet. Online, though, I've found PostStatus a good spot sometimes, but it's specifically WordPress oriented.

I'm in a few telegram groups, some private and I recently joined Ramen Club by Charlie Ward

I moved from Michigan to the Bay Area to be around more founders. This worked great. I go to events that seem like they'd attract good founders (there's lots of mediocre events). But for the most part, founders who are serious builders and building high-growth companies are mostly doing their own thing and busy building. The best way is to be around them in person.

See PG's article on cities and ambition here: http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html

There are a bunch of in-person communities in San Francisco. I am currently a part of one based out of Fort Mason. They're called Founders Inc, check out www.f.inc, they even have a virtual community too via their discord.

I've run https://ramenclub.so for the last 4 years. We are mostly an online community, but have a growing coworking presence IRL. Currently London, but soon abroad.

"The accountability, advice and deeper bonds I get from Ramen Club have been pivotal to me reaching $10k+ MRR for Tiiny Host." - Tiiny host Founder, Philip Baretto

I moved from Ireland to Chiang Mai to be around more founders.

The place I co-work has a lot of SAAS founders so it easy to brainstorm with them.

Online: I find Dan Martell's facebook group to be a good resource to connect with other founders.

Hi! Thank you for this post! It made me sign up and wanting to share my thoughts on this here on IH. :) I actually don’t have many people in my life who are (web) developers trying to build something new as a real commercial product. Since I started with my side hustle in January this year I am constantly looking for people who are in the same boat as me. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of communities like this one, or on Reddit, Discord, Twitter or even Facebook. But I look for someone with whom I can talk on a daily basis about progress, struggles and challenges etc. Someone who is a kind of “sparring partner” without technically being a business partner. I currently build everything on my own and this makes a little bit lonely. 😅 I don’t know if you get what I mean.

I think the answer is "it depends" - what is it exactly that you're looking for? What's your goal? The answer will change if it's "advertise my stuff" vs "make in-person friends" or "get inspiration from other founders" and so on.

In my experience, getting inspiration and learnings from others works well through multiple platforms like IndieHackers, Reddit, Substack... places where theres plenty to browse through and read. Keeping your scope a little wider works well for this since you will probably not find everything you want on one site.

If you're more motivated to make friends and connections it's different because your goal is different, and it also depends if you want to meet people IRL or remote. If you're looking for in-person stuff then meetup sites are good, but if you don't care about that, then you might want to look around for e.g. Discord communities.

You can even take that further and ask yourself if you're more interested in meeting founders in a specific niche, or what kind of people you want to connect with... e.g. If you have specific people in mind already, find them on Twitter or dig-out their email and send them a message. I could write a lot about this topic but I'll stop here!

I've met founders mostly in person myself, at rooftop bar events in cities and online over LinkedIn connections.

I'd say it really depends on your niche. I found my co-founder in a Facebook group, which seems to be pretty uncommon.

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Maybe this will help: https://www.growthmentor.com/blog/best-founder-communities/

I had put together this list 2-3 years back. It's been recently updated. I'm sure you'll find some gems there.

Cheers!

I'd go on reddit and message people who've made projects you're interested in. Everyone's favorite and most knowledgeable topic is themselves so if you were to be genuinely interested and relate to them you'd start kindling a connection

Of course, don't just try to get their SaaS secrets !

I'd look for local groups on places like Meetup, Facebook, Discord, Slack. Conferences or local entrepreneur groups, too. It's just so much easier to form a connection in-person.

I appreciate Reddit and other broad communities, but if your plan is to really get to know people I think in-person is best.

Are you looking for a place to have conversations about startups or a place where you can promote yours?

If you dare go near reddit then r/startups is an awesome community

It looks like a platform is needed for this. A discord maybe ?