Where ambitious founders build enduring companies.
A home for technologists and founders who care deeply about what they’re building.
Companies We’ve Backed on
Their Journey Forward
Everything founders need to build, early on
Be part of a real community
A space to ask honest questions, share unfinished ideas, and learn alongside people who are building seriously — without noise or performative advice.
Alex,

How do I keep my team motivated when we’re still figuring things out?
Himanshu

How do I keep my team motivated when we’re still figuring things out?
A better way to fundraise.
Turn every visit into a conversation, and every conversation into an opportunity. Capture leads, share products, and guide people to what matters most.
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2
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Discovery
Engagement
Conversion
Retention
Click
A better way to fundraise.
Turn every visit into a conversation, and every conversation into an opportunity. Capture leads, share products, and guide people to what matters most.
1
2
3
4
Discovery
Engagement
Conversion
Retention
Click
Find your c0-Founders
Meet collaborators and early teammates who want to build from day one — people aligned with your values, your vision, and the long road ahead.

Next week Targets
Find your c0-Founders
Meet collaborators and early teammates who want to build from day one — people aligned with your values, your vision, and the long road ahead.
Insight
Increased interest around your relationship advice, especially communication and boundaries
Potential collaborators
Founders who commit early build faster together.



Access your first real customers
Engage with real users inside the community to test assumptions, refine your product, and build what people actually want.
Access your first real customers
Engage with real users inside the community to test assumptions, refine your product, and build what people actually want.
Learn from people who’ve been there
Get perspective from founders and operators who understand the realities of building — the trade-offs, the doubts, and the decisions that matter early.
Learn from people who’ve been there
Get perspective from founders and operators who understand the realities of building — the trade-offs, the doubts, and the decisions that matter early.
Members stories from the Community
James Anderson
Michael Carter
Robert Mitchell
David Thompson
William Harris
John Walker

They bootstrapped an MVP in ~3 months:
Co-founder/CEO, Volter
a fast, keyboard-driven app for high-perf dev teams, prioritizing craft, simplicity, and taste over feature bloat. Validated via intuition + direct customer talks (OpenAI, Vercel early users), skipping traditional PM processes. Raised $52M but stayed profitable, small team-focused (no hypergrowth). Hit $1.25B valuation by focusing on quality word-of-mouth.

They bootstrapped an MVP in ~3 months:
Co-founder/CEO, Volter
a fast, keyboard-driven app for high-perf dev teams, prioritizing craft, simplicity, and taste over feature bloat. Validated via intuition + direct customer talks (OpenAI, Vercel early users), skipping traditional PM processes. Raised $52M but stayed profitable, small team-focused (no hypergrowth). Hit $1.25B valuation by focusing on quality.

From Facebook Prototypes to $2B AI Website Empire
Co-founder/CEO, Nexora
Michael Carter and Koen Bok met at Sofa, their Dutch design studio acquired by Facebook in 2011. Frustrated by design-to-code handoffs, they left in 2013 to build Framer—a Mac app for interactive prototypes that shipped in 2014. Designers loved it, but engineers hated exporting code.

Chat Bubble Born in Bug Tracker Turns into AI Customer
Co-founder/CEO, Vortex
Dublin agency Contrast built Exceptional—a bug tracker acquired by Rackspace in 2011. A tiny chat widget they added for dev-customer talks exploded in demand, so Eoghan reunited with Des Traynor, Ciaran Lee, David Barrett to launch Intercom: real-time messaging .

From Near-Death Dropouts to $4B "Everything App" Empire
Co-founder/CEO, PixelForge
After three near-death experiences—including a home invasion—Zeb Evans dropped out of Frustrated by fragmented tools (Asana, Trello, Slack), he teamed with IBM engineer Alex Yurkowski to bootstrap ClickUp in a San Diego house (2017)—an internal tool blending.

Browser IDE to AI App Factory: $40M ARR in 5 Months
Co-founder/CEO, CloudNova
Eric Simons bootstrapped Thinkster (coding tutorials, acquisition 2019), then piobrowser Node.js IDE used by 10M devs. Facing stagnation in 2024, his 12-person team built bolt.new in 90 days: prompt → full-stack app (React/Vue + backend) running/deploying instantly in browser. No installs, no GitHub, pure AI magic.

Hacking LiveRamp's Data Nightmare Into Open-Source Unicorn
Co-founder/CEO, Quantum
Michel Tricotricot s1,0006 years at LiveRamp scaling 1,000+ data connectors, moving TBs daily—but saw every company reinventing the same painful ELT wheel. In 2019, post-LiveRamp IPO, he teamed with serial founder Jean Lafleur (COO) after realizing proprietary tools like Fivetran were too rigid/expensive.

They bootstrapped an MVP in ~3 months:
Co-founder/CEO, Volter
a fast, keyboard-driven app for high-perf dev teams, prioritizing craft, simplicity, and taste over feature bloat. Validated via intuition + direct customer talks (OpenAI, Vercel early users), skipping traditional PM processes. Raised $52M but stayed profitable, small team-focused (no hypergrowth). Hit $1.25B valuation by focusing on quality.

From Facebook Prototypes to $2B AI Website Empire
Co-founder/CEO, Nexora
Michael Carter and Koen Bok met at Sofa, their Dutch design studio acquired by Facebook in 2011. Frustrated by design-to-code handoffs, they left in 2013 to build Framer—a Mac app for interactive prototypes that shipped in 2014. Designers loved it, but engineers hated exporting code.

Chat Bubble Born in Bug Tracker Turns into AI Customer
Co-founder/CEO, Vortex
Dublin agency Contrast built Exceptional—a bug tracker acquired by Rackspace in 2011. A tiny chat widget they added for dev-customer talks exploded in demand, so Eoghan reunited with Des Traynor, Ciaran Lee, David Barrett to launch Intercom: real-time messaging .

From Near-Death Dropouts to $4B "Everything App" Empire
Co-founder/CEO, PixelForge
After three near-death experiences—including a home invasion—Zeb Evans dropped out of Frustrated by fragmented tools (Asana, Trello, Slack), he teamed with IBM engineer Alex Yurkowski to bootstrap ClickUp in a San Diego house (2017)—an internal tool blending.

Browser IDE to AI App Factory: $40M ARR in 5 Months
Co-founder/CEO, CloudNova
Eric Simons bootstrapped Thinkster (coding tutorials, acquisition 2019), then piobrowser Node.js IDE used by 10M devs. Facing stagnation in 2024, his 12-person team built bolt.new in 90 days: prompt → full-stack app (React/Vue + backend) running/deploying instantly in browser. No installs, no GitHub, pure AI magic.

Hacking LiveRamp's Data Nightmare Into Open-Source Unicorn
Co-founder/CEO, Quantum
Michel Tricotricot s1,0006 years at LiveRamp scaling 1,000+ data connectors, moving TBs daily—but saw every company reinventing the same painful ELT wheel. In 2019, post-LiveRamp IPO, he teamed with serial founder Jean Lafleur (COO) after realizing proprietary tools like Fivetran were too rigid/expensive.

They bootstrapped an MVP in ~3 months:
Co-founder/CEO, Volter
a fast, keyboard-driven app for high-perf dev teams, prioritizing craft, simplicity, and taste over feature bloat. Validated via intuition + direct customer talks (OpenAI, Vercel early users), skipping traditional PM processes. Raised $52M but stayed profitable, small team-focused (no hypergrowth). Hit $1.25B valuation by focusing on quality.

From Facebook Prototypes to $2B AI Website Empire
Co-founder/CEO, Nexora
Michael Carter and Koen Bok met at Sofa, their Dutch design studio acquired by Facebook in 2011. Frustrated by design-to-code handoffs, they left in 2013 to build Framer—a Mac app for interactive prototypes that shipped in 2014. Designers loved it, but engineers hated exporting code.

Chat Bubble Born in Bug Tracker Turns into AI Customer
Co-founder/CEO, Vortex
Dublin agency Contrast built Exceptional—a bug tracker acquired by Rackspace in 2011. A tiny chat widget they added for dev-customer talks exploded in demand, so Eoghan reunited with Des Traynor, Ciaran Lee, David Barrett to launch Intercom: real-time messaging .

From Near-Death Dropouts to $4B "Everything App" Empire
Co-founder/CEO, PixelForge
After three near-death experiences—including a home invasion—Zeb Evans dropped out of Frustrated by fragmented tools (Asana, Trello, Slack), he teamed with IBM engineer Alex Yurkowski to bootstrap ClickUp in a San Diego house (2017)—an internal tool blending.

Browser IDE to AI App Factory: $40M ARR in 5 Months
Co-founder/CEO, CloudNova
Eric Simons bootstrapped Thinkster (coding tutorials, acquisition 2019), then piobrowser Node.js IDE used by 10M devs. Facing stagnation in 2024, his 12-person team built bolt.new in 90 days: prompt → full-stack app (React/Vue + backend) running/deploying instantly in browser. No installs, no GitHub, pure AI magic.

Hacking LiveRamp's Data Nightmare Into Open-Source Unicorn
Co-founder/CEO, Quantum
Michel Tricotricot s1,0006 years at LiveRamp scaling 1,000+ data connectors, moving TBs daily—but saw every company reinventing the same painful ELT wheel. In 2019, post-LiveRamp IPO, he teamed with serial founder Jean Lafleur (COO) after realizing proprietary tools like Fivetran were too rigid/expensive.









