Best Tech Communities in 2021

Online tech communities are a great place for founders to meet like-minded people, learn, and share what they're working on. Here are our favorites in 2021.

Over a year ago we published a list of our five favorite, most active tech communities. It's been a while, and things change, so we decided to give the list a refresh. We are big believers in online communities. They can be super helpful for knowledge sharing, and being a source of inspiration and feedback for founders. But, some are better than others. Here's our list of our top four in 2021, in no particular order.

Indie Hackers

Indie Hackers remains one of my favorite forums for founders and makers. In fact, I check it daily. The community members there are among the most helpful I've ever come across. There is a bit of self-promotion that happens there, but generally, it is done in a context where it's helpful for the reader and the community. Technical communities can get a reputation for sometimes being toxic. Indie Hackers is the antithesis of that. Spend time here if you are kicking off a side project, and want to follow along with other founders' journeys, and share some of your own learnings.

This Week in Startups Slack

Started as a forum for fans of This Week in Startups podcast, TWiST Slack has become a vibrant community in its own right. There are channels for everything from fundraising to sharing your small wins. Most community members are pretty helpful. Just avoid outright self-promotion there, unless you are in the Offers and Promotions channel.

Product Hunt Discussions

Another one of my daily stops is the Discussions page on Product Hunt. Most members here are makers, founders, and product nerds. It's a great place to get advice and see what other makers are working on. If you are thinking of launching on Product Hunt, it's also good to spend a bit of time here, and build a following and learn more about how the community works.

Check out our Checklist for Launching on Product Hunt

Pioneer

If you are a founder and haven't joined Pioneer, go do it immediately. Pioneer is a fully online accelerator that you play your way into by doing weekly updates, and get voted on by the community. It's a great way to get your startup in front of a bunch of other founders on a weekly basis, as well as have them give you detailed feedback and ideas about what you're working on. Taskable was selected as Pioneer winners last year, and it was one of the best things we did as a business. Pioneer also has a regular forum called Frontier where people regularly post resources and tech/startup news.

Watch us present to Stephanie Zhan of Sequoia during the Pioneer Demo Livestream