FAQ
Who are we looking for?
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance we’re looking for you. 😊
We're looking to invite 10 ambitious, AI-native developers / founders who're serious about taking their startup game to the next level.
While we will be staying in a luxurious tropical villa and there will be plenty of time to do touristy stuff (Da Nang is absolutely beautiful), what we're really looking for is like-minded devs who're excited to lock in and BUILD alongside us.
If you’re a world-class developer who’s building cool stuff with AI in public, love traveling, have a good heart and good vibes, and are serious about building your own business (either bootstrapped or venture-scale), we’d love to hear from you.
How much does it cost?
Since we're doing this as an experiment, our first batch will be FREE (unless your company is venture backed).
You just have to pay for your flights.
We’re covering all the costs for the villa, catering, laundry, a professional videographer, and even your very own personal assistant for the month.
If your company is venture backed, we’ll ask for a small fee to help cover our costs. If you haven’t taken any outside funding for your current company, the program will be 100% free.
Are we taking any equity or rev share?
No. We're not taking any equity or rev share since we're looking at this first residency as a proof of concept, but we'll consider how to make this more sustainable for future batches if it goes well.
Are you accepting sponsors?
Yes. We are looking for a few select sponsors to help cover the costs, so please DM me or David if you align w/ our vibes and are interested in getting massive marketing exposure to our audience of devs.
Do I get my own room?
Yes! Everyone we invite will get their own private room + bathroom.
We’re all adults here, and getting great sleep is a key part of being productive.
If I can’t come for the full month, can I still participate?
Short answer: maybe.
Longer answer: we’re really looking for 10 committed devs who will be able to share the full container experience with us for the entire month of November, 2025.
We will consider a few select offers if you’re an exceptional technical founder who absolutely loves what we’re doing and are only able to join us for part of the time (e.g., a week or a few days).
If you can’t commit to the full month but are really interested in participating, please still apply and we’ll consider inviting you to join for part of the time. Just know that we have limited bedrooms in the main villa, but there are plenty of amazing hotels and airbnbs nearby. If invited, you’ll be welcome to join us in co-working from the villa as well as any of our shared group activities while in town.
Why are we doing this?
This is an experiment heavily inspired by HF0 in SF.
We have 3 goals for this experiment:
- Shine a spotlight on the indie hacker lifestyle (led by Tony Dinh and Minh-Phuc Tran) 🔥
- Build a new type of international dev community focused on more ambitious digital nomads (led by David Park and Travis Fischer)
- Make friends, vibe, and learn from each other! 🤙
What do I need to know about visiting Da Nang, Vietnam?
Most countries require a visa to visit Vietnam, which is pretty easy to do online here. You can just do a normal tourist visa; no need to do anything special.
Here’s my personal Google Map of starred places for Vietnam. We’ll also be sending out some additional info on logistics later on.
Where is the residency located?
We'll be staying at this gorgeous villa on the Son Tra Peninsula, about 15 minutes from downtown Da Nang, Vietnam.
If you've never been to Da Nang before, it's super accessible, right on the beach, really cheap, and is legitimately one of the best cities for digital nomads in the world.
When is it?
The residency kicks off November 1st, and we’ll be staying at the villa until November 30th, 2025.
If you’re invited to join us, it’s up to you to book your own travel arrangements. Feel free to get in before November 1st or leave after November 30th; just know that we’ll only be providing lodging for you during the month of November.
What’s on the itinerary?
Most of the time will be unstructured and the expectation is that we’ll all be heads down building.
One of my takeaways from HF0 is that a great residency subtracts distractions from your life instead of adding to them, so instead of having a bunch of generic learning content, we’d rather focus on building, and if there are specific topics you’d like to learn about (like X/twitter tactics, fundraising, AI coding workflows, etc), we’ll put together a cheat-sheet presentation for it on-the-fly.
All meals, laundry, and cleaning will be taken care of by our staff, so you can stay focused on building your business (though you’re more than welcome to explore the amazing local culinary scene as well 😉).
The only mandatory events will be weekly demos to push the pace, and at the end of the month, instead of a normal investor demo day, we’ll be doing a mini demo day focused on creating short YC-style pitch videos for each founder. We also have an amazing professional videographer who’ll be on hand to help. 💪
We’ll be meeting with each founder individually to provide personalized mentorship and networking. If you’re planning on building a venture-scale startup, for instance, we can help you with fundraising prep and intros. If you’re struggling to get attention for your product, we can help you with GTM / marketing / customer intros. etc.
Lastly, this is our first time hosting something like this, and we definitely view it as an experiment – so if there’s something you’d like to do or see, just let us know.