A private membership for under-followed founders on X

Stop building
alone on X.

Founder Circles matches you with 8–12 verified founders building in your space. You get a private room, real relationships, and people who genuinely want to see what you're making.

$13.99/year for the first 100 members $99 · Every member verified by hand

Indie hackers worldwide

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Most of them build alone

The member promise

You will stop building alone.

You become part of a carefully matched group of founders who know you, understand your product, and want to see you succeed.

Applications

Everyone who wants in

Verified
by a human

Your circle

Matched on niche, stage and timezone

How it works

Matched by a human. Not by an algorithm.

Six steps from applying to having a circle that actually knows what you're building.

01

Apply

Free. No card.

02

Verified

A human checks you are real.

03

Pay

Only once you are accepted.

04

Placed

Into a circle that fits.

01

Apply — free

Tell us your X handle, your niche, what you are building, who it is for, your language and timezone. No card, no charge.

02

We verify you by hand

A real person checks that you are you and that your product is real. Only once you are accepted do we ask you to pay.

03

You get matched into a circle

Eight to twelve founders building in your space, at roughly your stage. Small enough that everyone actually knows everyone.

04

You show up in the room

Introduce yourself, share what you are building, post launches, ask for opinions, drop links to the X posts that matter to you.

05

People back what they believe in

Members open your links on X and get behind the work they actually rate. Real support from people who understand what you are building.

06

The circle grows with you

Every few months we introduce new compatible members while keeping the relationships you have already built intact.

Inside a circle

This is the room

A slow board, not a noisy chat. Nothing you post gets buried, and nothing pings you at midnight.

shipped.so/circle
Your circle

Dev tools · EU

Post
MC
MayaLaunch2h

Postbeam v2 is live. Rewrote the pricing page around one plan instead of three — conversion doubled in a week.

JD

Jonas The one-plan move is right. What made you cut the middle tier?

JD
JonasNeed help5h

Stuck on dev onboarding — people sign up, generate one API key, then vanish. Anyone solved this activation gap?

AK

Amara Ship a working curl in the welcome email. Docs are a wall when you have momentum.

MC

Maya Same pattern for us. Time-to-first-call was the only metric that moved retention.

Members · 9 of 12

MC

Maya Chen

@mayac

JD

Jonas Dahl

@jonasd

AK

Amara Kone

@amarak

RS

Rui Santos

@ruis

+5 more

House rules

  • · Show up. Lurking is fine, ghosting is not.
  • · Help when you genuinely can.
  • · Never drop a link and disappear.

Five kinds of post, so the room stays useful

Intro

Who you are, what you build

Building

What you shipped this week

Launch

Something is live

X post

Share a link

Need help

Ask for a hand

8 to 12 people who get it

Small enough that everyone knows your name and your product. Quiet enough that nothing you post gets buried. This is where the actual relationships happen.

  • Introduce yourself properly, once
  • Share what you are building this week
  • Paste links to the X posts that matter
  • Announce launches to people who care
  • Ask for opinions when you are stuck
  • Get help from founders who have been there

Then it moves to X. Members open the links you share and get behind the work they rate — because they know you and know what you are building.

House rules

Culture, not mechanics. Break these and you lose your seat.

  • 1Show up consistently
  • 2Get to know your circle
  • 3Help when you genuinely can
  • 4Never drop a link and disappear
  • 5Never use generic or AI-generated replies
  • 6Never demand reciprocal engagement
  • 7Support work because it is relevant, not for points

What a circle actually gets you

Feedback from people who have shipped it before. Introductions to the customers you are trying to reach. An audience that grows because founders genuinely rate what you are making — never because anyone owed you a like.

Feedback worth having

Post the pricing page, the onboarding flow, the half-finished idea. You get answers from founders who shipped the same thing last quarter — not "looks great!" from strangers.

Your first real customers

The people building next to you already talk to the people you are trying to reach. One warm intro from inside a circle does more than a month of cold outreach.

An audience that compounds

When your launch lands, 8–12 founders who actually understand it are there to say so. Nothing is owed, nothing is traded — which is exactly why it carries.

A reason to keep going

A weekly rhythm and a room that notices when you go quiet. Most indie products die of silence long before they die of competition.

None of it is transactional — no quotas, no follow-for-follow, nothing to trade. That is a deliberate line, and it is the same one X's authenticity policy draws.

What your membership includes

Everything, for one annual fee

Your matched circle

8–12 verified founders in your space, hand-matched and re-mixed every few months.

A private room

Intros, build updates, launches and honest questions. No feed, no algorithm, no strangers.

The post board

Share the X posts that matter to you. Members decide for themselves what to do with them.

Your Shipped page

shipped.so/@you — every product you have built, with pitch, stack and revenue. Public and free to share.

Weekly digest

One email a week with what your circle shipped, launched and needs help with. Nothing else.

Real moderation

Manual verification, reporting, and removal of people who take without ever giving.

A circle opens at 8

Not before. Half-empty rooms are why every other community dies.

Caps at 12
9
10
11
12
Filled seats open the room · dashed seats are still being matched
Your profile, upgraded

Membership shows where it counts

Your public Shipped page carries a circle member badge. It signals you were verified by a human and vouched for by a room of founders — without ever revealing which circle you are in, or who else is in it.

MC
Maya ChenCircle member

shipped.so/mayac

3

Products

'23

Building since

Dev tools

Circle

The earlier you join, the less it costs

Annual only — it keeps out the people who were never going to show up. The first 200 seats are discounted off the $99 price, in two stages, and whichever you get in at is the rate you keep for as long as you stay.

Launch offer · first 100 seats
$99$13.99/ year

Save 86% — and it stays that price for as long as you stay

Seats 1–100you are here$13.99/yr
Seats 101–200$49/yr
After that$99/yr
  • Your matched circle of 8–12 founders
  • Private room + post board
  • Manual verification and moderation
  • Weekly circle digest
  • Your public Shipped page
  • New compatible members every few months
Apply for a circle

If we can't place you in a circle that fits, you get your money back.

Fair questions

No. There are no points, no follow-for-follow and nothing to trade. What you pay for is matching, a private room and moderation — the people, not the numbers.

Access to a carefully matched, manually verified network of founders in your space, a private room to work in, and the moderation that keeps it worth being in.

$99 is the real price. The first 100 members pay $13.99 and the next 100 pay $49, because early members are joining something that is still proving itself and taking that risk should cost less. Whichever rate you join at is the rate you keep for as long as you stay — it does not jump to $99 on renewal.

The price moves to $49/year for the next 100 seats, then to the standard $99. Nothing about the membership changes — same matching, same room, same moderation. Only the price does.

No. You just tell us your handle so your circle can find you. We do not use the X API, we never post on your behalf, we never read your DMs and we never automate anything on your account.

A circle only opens once at least eight verified members have joined, and members who consistently never show up are removed. If a circle stops working for you, tell us and we will move you.

Under-followed solo founders, indie hackers and small teams who are genuinely building something. If you have a real product and a small audience, you are exactly who this is for.

If we cannot place you in a circle that fits, you get your money back.

Not ready to apply yet?

Every week we feature a founder or indie hacker worth knowing about — what they built, how they got their first users, and what they'd do differently.

  • A featured founder or indie hacker, weekly
  • New features as they ship
  • A heads-up when circles open in your niche

Unsubscribe in one click. We never sell or share your email.

Find your circle

Eight to twelve founders who know your name, understand your product, and are genuinely glad when you win. That's the whole thing.

Apply for a circle

$13.99/year for the first 100 members, then $49, then $99