ndLondon

Jislan Gayat moved to London four years before starting ndLondon, drawn by the city's reputation as a center for tech entrepreneurship and startup activity. After a year in the city, he realized he wanted to grow his network and meet like-minded people building online businesses. However, existing meetups didn't fit his needs. Tech entrepreneur meetups attracted people who had already raised tens of millions in funding—way beyond his stage as a software engineer working on side projects. Developer meetups attracted engineers but people without entrepreneurial ambitions. The gap was clear, but the solution wasn't obvious until he had spent two years following Indie Hackers, reading Cortland's interviews, and participating in the forum community. "I felt, yeah, but that's the community that's the most similar to me. So why not simply meet those people?"

In February 2018, Jislan posted on the Indie Hackers forum with a simple question: "Is there any Indie Hackers in London, people working on projects that would like to meet?" About five to ten people replied. He coordinated through Telegram to find a time that worked for everyone, and the first meetup happened with just a small group. It was informal—people stood up and shared what they were working on, their struggles, and identified who they could help each other with. The energy from that small gathering was enough to keep him motivated to organize the next one.

Early on, Jislan experimented with different formats. The standup format worked well when numbers were small (10-15 people), but as the group grew, he shifted to speaker-driven formats featuring community members sharing actionable skills—Ari Dry on marketing, Louis on sales, Johnny from TicketTaylor on bootstrapping. This resonated because people wanted concrete takeaways, not just inspiration.

The workshop format proved especially powerful. Jislan organized a full Saturday event with 80 people showing up at 8 AM to ideate, build roadmaps, and give each other feedback. The fact that people were willing to dedicate a Saturday morning revealed deep demand for this in-person connection. To pull it off, he didn't try to do everything alone—he collaborated with Stripe (who provided their London office), Ann Laar (who helped organize), and other community members. This willingness to ask for help and share the load made the event special in ways a solo organizer couldn't achieve.

Jislan also learned from advice given by Dimitri, who ran a major tech meetup (H&N London). Dimitri warned him: once you hit 100 people, growth at all costs can dilute the value. Logistics become heavy, and you risk attracting people who aren't really aligned with Indie Hackers values. Jislan took this to heart, keeping the focus tight on bootstrappers and indie makers rather than chasing size. He noted that even when ndLondon was just 10 people, the value was immense—real connections, real collaboration, real energy.

ndLondon now regularly draws 80-100 people to quarterly events and has become one of the largest meetups in the Indie Hackers global program. The program itself has exploded: from Jislan's unofficial February 2018 forum post, Cortland (Indie Hackers' founder) was inspired to formalize a meetup program. When he opened applications to become official meetup founders, 200 people applied. Today there are roughly 60 official meetups happening monthly around the world—in San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver, Bali, Paris, Barcelona, and beyond.

Jislan continues to run ndLondon as a side project alongside his full-time job. He's experimented with sponsorship (Postmark and Email Octopus have helped cover food and logistics) but has resisted charging attendees, wanting to preserve the community feel. The real win for him is the network he's built and the impact he witnesses—like the attendee who went home after hearing Pete talk about launching a landing page, did it himself, and made 10 sales. Or Johnny, an attendee who met his co-founder (known as "short email") at the meetup, stayed in touch via Slack, and is now building progressionapp.com together.

The main challenge Jislan identifies is bridging the gap between the four hours of offline meetup energy and the long stretches in between. The Slack community helps, but he dreams of deeper integration with Indie Hackers itself—a way for attendees to find each other before the event, stay connected after, and keep building together. Despite the work involved, Jislan remains motivated by the energy in the room and the knowledge that a few hours of organizing is multiplied by the impact across all attendees pursuing their dreams.