{DF} Dev Founders
A community of 350+ technical founders building infra and AI
Together, we explore go-to-market and accelerate product-market fit.
Apply to be a member
Our Vision
Successful founders can look like anyone and come from anywhere
Many of the most successful companies today are built by first time founders that don’t have gold-plated credentials, but they all work hard and iterate quickly based on market feedback. We help each other and figure it out together.
While our products are different, our common challenges benefit from shared playbooks for success
Building a company is hard
For example, landing the first customers, debating whether to go self-serve or sell top down, recruiting in this competitive talent environment, and marketing to an audience that doesn’t like to be marketed to (yes, that’s your engineer self ;) ).
Learn
Understand the go-to-market tools that can unlock growth in open source, product-led growth, community and content-led acquisition
We share what works, from the strategic to the tactical. Learn in an interactive setting from founders and operators who have done it before in intimate, off-the-record, monthly virtual salons.
Recent salons
We share what works, from the strategic to the tactical. Learn in an interactive setting from founders and operators who have done it before in intimate, off-the-record, monthly virtual salons.
Devdatta Akhawe
Head of Security at Figma
"While the security and compliance of your product itself is important, what will get you hacked is what gets everyone else. That latest complicated side-channel exploit you read on HackerNews is unlikely to affect your startup."
Linkedin
Ry Sullivan
VP of Product at Carta
"A framework I like: by this date, we’ll have solved x. We won’t say how we’ll do x, but we’ll do x. This will challenge our team to figure out how to get x, even if it means brute forcing it, through which we still would have learned a lot."
Linkedin
Mada Seghete
Co-founder of Branch
“You have to pick an area that’s related to your brand and own it everywhere, eg content, events, and everyone will associate you with that word. We chose mobile growth.”
Linkedin
Darius Contractor
Chief Growth Officer at Otter.ai
“Have orthogonal paths to success, i.e., different ways of resonating with your users, as each one will capture a different segment of the user base.”
Linkedin
Meet
Trade war stories, celebrate successes, amplify product launches, or critique each other’s work
Connect in our Slack community or hang out IRL at dinners and meetups with other members.
Here’s a secret: since everyone is a technical founder, you can probably find potential customers or beta testers for your product in this group. Get your product included in the onboarding packet for new members. Give and get feedback. Pay it forward.
Here’s a secret: since everyone is a technical founder, you can probably find potential customers or beta testers for your product in this group. Get your product included in the onboarding packet for new members. Give and get feedback. Pay it forward.
Rutter
Founder
Open AI
VP Marketing
Figma
Senior Director of Product, AI
Rasa
Co-Founder
QA Wolf
Co-Founder
Pyroscope
Engineering Director
Pory
Co-Founder
Shipyard
Co-Founder
Microsoft
Principal Engineer
Livecycle
Co-Founder
Decodable
CEO
Grafbase
CEO
Render
Founder & CEO
Signoz
Co-Founder
Tigris Data
Co-Founder & CEO
Fiberplane
Founder & CEO
Multitudes
Founder & CEO
Automattic
Technical Quality Driver
Spice AI
Co-Founder & CEO
Vizcom
Co-Founder & CEO
Typesense
Co-Founder & CEO
OpenArt AI
Co-Founder
Apideck
Co-Founder & CEO
Airbyte
Director of Engineering
FAQ
Who is Dev Founders for?
Dev Founders is a community for founders building products for developers, data scientists, ML practitioners, and creators of all skill levels (everything from complex to no code).
Who runs Dev Founders?
Dev Founders is run by Chang Xu of Basis Set and Rez Khan (Co-founder of Pace, ex-MongoDB). We're a team of founders, builders, and technologists, and have leaders across our team and in our community that have launched and run some of the fastest growing companies in technology. Our goal is to bring people together and democratize access to expertise typically only available to a select group of people in silicon valley.
Although Dev Founders is funded by Basis Set, it only has a loose affiliation in that its goal is for founders to help each other and not for investment purposes. For example, we encourage founders to self-organize on topics or groups that are interesting to you, and we are happy to provide logistical support, if helpful, but do not have to participate.
Although Dev Founders is funded by Basis Set, it only has a loose affiliation in that its goal is for founders to help each other and not for investment purposes. For example, we encourage founders to self-organize on topics or groups that are interesting to you, and we are happy to provide logistical support, if helpful, but do not have to participate.
How do you join Dev Founders?
You can join Dev Founders either by applying or by being referred by a current member. Membership applications are reviewed by a group of volunteers to ensure that we continue to serve founders building in our target markets.
How do you join Dev Founders?
We have programming tailored to founders at different stages. Most members will join the Dev group and enjoy all the programming as well as community. If you’ve already raised Series A funding, we will induct you into the Prod group where you get exclusive access to events and channels to help you recruit and get customers.
How do you join Dev Founders?
As a member of Dev Founders, you are part of a close-knit community. Involvement in the community includes regular attendance at events and participation on Slack community. Co-create this community, suggest ideas for events and bring in awesome people as speakers. If another member has a question, share your experience on what worked or what didn't work for you. Our goal is to maintain an active, thriving group.
If you would like to deepen your involvement, raise your hand and we would love to involve you in the rotating committee of members that volunteer to run core areas of the community.
If you would like to deepen your involvement, raise your hand and we would love to involve you in the rotating committee of members that volunteer to run core areas of the community.
Where do I have to be based?
Anywhere. The community is default global. Though in the future we may have in-person meetups.
Is there a membership fee?
Nope!
Basis Set's Dev Founders community is incredible. The Slack group provides a common space for founders to learn from each other, and I've already made several meaningful connections there. The Salons are also by far the most useful resource for starting a company. My perspective has changed for the better after interacting with speakers who have hands-on experience building companies. Highly recommend!
- Laura Cressman, QA Wolf
This Salon was super interesting, and Darius definitely knows his stuff. His ideas about different modalities is very interesting, definitely something we can utilize for our onboarding experience.
- Asaf Cohen, Permit.io
Dev Founders is an opportunity to connect with a peer group that is uniquely able to relate to the challenges that naturally arise when you’re building something new that reimagines the status quo. The community is made up of a diverse group of founders with different backgrounds and interests. I’m constantly impressed by what everyone brings to the table and learn something useful every time we connect.
- Rick Lamers, Groq
Do you want to join a community of technical founders? Dev Founders welcomes you.
Apply to be a member