For a long time it was just the most side projectee it could possibly be.

My goal month to month was let me just do one thing to make this group a little bit better.

And it was pretty much that for a year. So over a year we added a Facebook group.

Then we added a Slack because not everybody liked Facebook.

Little changes like that. We made a landing page, a website, so that people could like find us.

About a year in, I think there was a moment where we dropped to like zero engagement for a bit.

About eight months ago, we'd already hit around maybe like 500 people in the Slack about eight months ago.

So now we're 3,000.

My name is Anthony Gastrio and I'm the founder and host of Indie Worldwide.

This is Code Story, the podcast bringing you interviews with tech visionaries who share in the critical moments of what it takes to change in industry and build and lead a team that has your back.

I'm your host, Noah Labhart,

and today how Anthony Castoran created an online community

for indie builders to stay connected.

All this and more on Coat Story.

Anthony Castrio has been a freelance engineer and digital nomad for three and a half years.

He's currently living in Mexico City, but is originally from

upstate New York, up around the Adirondike Mountains area. He describes where he grew up to be

very similar to the Shire from the Lord of the Rings. His hobbies include reading, tennis, and

languages. He's currently learning Spanish, giving his location, but also has dabbled in Japanese and French.

As a freelance dev, he mostly is a full-stack web developer.

He's been aggressively part-time, or quarter-time, as he puts it, as a freelancer.

He considers it the bootstrapper's seed round.

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