Sweden had talks. Nobody had a workshop.
Sweden’s most active community for AI builders, and the nonprofit association I founded to hold it: a Discord, hackathons, and a workshop that meets every Sunday in three cities. No application form, no ticket price, no gatekeeper.
- built with
- Discord
- GitHub org
- opensverige.se
- IRL, weekly
- nonprofit association
A Discord and a GitHub repo. Sundays, digital or in person.
Everyone else charged 15 000 kr.
whyclose
Lectures, courses, strategy packages, sponsored panels. A whole pipeline of people taking payment to stand between you and your own work.
Six people, one borrowed room.
firstSix of us showed up.
Somebody lent us the space. Twenty years in the drilling industry, consultants, developers a decade deep. Not a designer bubble.
sundaysThen we just kept meeting.
Every Sunday, digital or in person, plus hackathons. No agenda beyond building the thing the courses were charging for.
three citiesStockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö.
A park hang with a cart, laptops, beer and a taco bar. The rituals matter more than the room.
sinceStartups came out of it.
People met on a Sunday and went on to found companies together. Some small, some not. That is the synergy the 15 000 kr panels were selling.
without meGothenburg now meets without me.
A node I opened runs its own meetup and I have nothing to do with it. That is the whole point — what I start has to survive me letting go of it.
No ads. No budget.
I built alone until it stopped working.
whyclose
Solo you move fast and you drift. Nobody tells you the idea is thin, nobody catches the obvious thing you have stopped seeing. I opened the Discord because I wanted that room for myself. Five hundred people turned out to want the same one.
The whole thing, in five lines.
- the gapSweden had conferences, courses and strategy packages. Nobody had an open workshop for people who wanted to build.
- the startSix of us in a room somebody lent us. A Discord, a GitHub repo, no application form.
- the growth500+ on Discord, three cities, weekly sessions plus hackathons, no ad spend.
- the outcomeStartups have been founded by people who first met on a Sunday.
- the proofGothenburg meets without me. What I start has to survive me letting go of it.