Colchester's club for people building software productsColchester's club for product builders
Stop building your product alone
You can build software fast now. Doing the rest on your own is the hard part: finding customers, and keeping going when nobody's waiting for it. Colchester.Dev is a club for people working on their own software products. You meet in person, say where you've got to, and get help from people doing the same thing.
What you get as a member
None of this costs anything, and none of it obliges you to work on someone else's project.
A room that asks what you've done
At each meetup you say what you've done since last time and where you're stuck. Knowing you'll be asked is often enough to get it done.
Feedback from people who build software
Show your product to experienced developers and other builders. They'll tell you what they'd change.
Help when you ask for it
Ask in the room or on the forum. Someone has usually hit the same problem.
A workshop if you haven't started
If you have an idea and no code, I'll run a workshop with you to get a first version going.
Who the club is for
Pick the one closest to you.
What happens at a meetup
Each meetup is there to move your project on.
Everyone reports.
You say what you've done since last time and where you're stuck.
The room helps.
If someone can help with what's stuck, they say so.
New ideas get two minutes.
Anyone can pitch. If someone wants to help, they'll tell you.
You get to work.
You work on your own project for the rest of the session, with people around to ask.
New members are welcome at any meetup that has a space.
Between meetups, the forum
Open the forumThe meetup moves projects along in the room. The members' forum keeps them moving the rest of the time.
Your project has a home
One topic per project. Post what it is, who it's for, where it's at and what you need. Update it as you go.
Pitch before you build
Put an idea up and find out whether anyone would pay before you write any code. You might find someone who wants to build it with you.
Get unstuck
Ask for help with code, design, marketing, business or AI tools. See what others built with AI, what worked and what didn't.
Start on a path
Curated starting points for Development, Design, Marketing, Business and AI, added to by members.
Your invitation arrives when you join.
Members build with AI
Developers here direct coding agents such as Claude Code, which write most of the code. That's why one person can build a whole product now. If you've never used these tools, you'll learn them on your own project.
Why I started the club
I'm Marc Allington. I've spent my whole career building business software. I also build my own products, mostly on my own, and those are the ones that take longest to finish. My customers' projects always launch, and the difference is the people around them. I started Colchester.Dev so people building alone in Colchester have that too, me included.
Joining is free
Tell me your name, your email, what you're building and what you'd like help with.
Next meetup: at Colbea North