An experimental, month-long Hacker Residency in Da Nang, Vietnam

What?

• a mini residency targeting ambitious, AI-native hackers from around the world who want to take their startup game to the next level

• a dope villa in tropical hacker paradise where we live together for a month while going all-in on our businesses surrounded by world-class peers – who we can learn from and who will push us to do better

• take a lot of the hard-earned lessons HF0 learned over the years and apply them in a very different container – a container isolated from your normal life in a completely different country

• ⇒ a mini demo day at the end of the month with a short, 90 second pitch by each founder shared as an X thread that we push hard. marketing both the individual startups, founders, and above all, the lifestyle 😎

Who?

• Tony Dinh

• David Park

• Travis Fischer

• Minh-Phuc Tran

• Edmund Tian (video content + storytelling)

• plus the hackers we invite

When?

• November 1 – November 30th, 2025 💪

Key Questions

• who are we targeting?
• top hackers from around the world who want to take their startups to the next level
• this is intentionally un-opinionated and includes:
• startup founders, indie hackers, OSS developers, AI engineers, bootstrapped builders, etc
• constraint: you must be world-class and be building an AI-oriented software business
• focus on AI-native founders & products
• focus on highly technical developers vs non-technical hackers

• what would a lean MVP of this look like treated purely as an experiment?
• rent a ~10br villa for one month
• single-page website w/ vibes explaining the experiment + application form
• will do 10min video interviews w/ promising peeps
• 90 second HF0/YC-style pitch videos at the end of the month filmed by a pro videographer
• ⇒ X thread in the style of an Alex Reibman hackathon post

• business model?
• don’t worry about this for the MVP
• just front the money ourselves and look for some sponsorships to help cover the costs

• logistics / operations?
• hire 1 full-time house manager / coordinator
• hire an events company to handle:
• laundry
• cleaning
• food / catering

Inspiration

• WTF is a residency?

• Indie Hackers

• HF0 (Hacker Fellowship Zero)
• subtract all distractions from your life so you can focus exclusively on your product and customers
• any learning / programming would be optional except for a mandatory, private weekly demo to set the pace and push each other throughout the batch
• dope community & authentic, world-class devs first, $$ / revenue / metrics second

• Indie.vc

• Calm Fund

• Hacker Paradise

Finding Your Passion as a Developer

When was the last time you worked on a project where you truly believed in and cared about the problem you were trying to solve?

https://transitivebullsh.it/finding-your-passion-as-a-developer

Random ideas brainstorm

• include at least one local founder in the house and offer some events focused on meeting with the local dev community ⇒ want to make sure we’re respecting the local culture and align incentives with local gov + tech companies

• could def get some world-class devs / founders / investors to stop by & visit

• 1GB+ internet is a must

• food, laundry, cleaning all taken care of

• keep the branding open to more than just da nang; could experiment w/ different locations like koh phanang, bali, etc

• every founder is offered their own personal assistant while in da nang

Branding

• Hacker Residency Group

Location

Marisol Villa – The Most Exclusive Seaside Villa on Son Tra Peninsula

Indulge in Marisol Villa, Da Nang’s largest and most exclusive beachfront villa on Son Tra Peninsula. “Marisol” evokes sea and sun – a luxurious escape in Vietnam.

https://mvilla.vn/en/beachfront-villa