Building community used to be a Web3 thing. Crypto projects lived by their Discord. Token holders became evangelists, most of the times the community was the product, almost as much as the technology itself.
In 2026 AI companies are borrowing the same playbook and taking it offline. The trend I'm watching most closely right now is in-person events as a growth channel. Not conferences. Not sponsored booths. Genuine community gatherings built around the product.
Today, I read a TechCrunch article about what investors are no longer looking for in SaaS, or rather, what to avoid if you don't want to lose their interest.
The red flags were:
Too easy to replicate light AI wrappers, generic horizontal tools, basic CRM clones, generic productivity or project management tools.
No real depth products where differentiation is mostly UI and automation, anything without proprietary data, surface-level analytics.
Becoming obsolete workflow automation tools that coordinate human work (agents are taking over), integrations as a moat (MCP is making connectors a commodity), and "workflow stickiness" products trying to keep humans inside their software.
Last week I attended Tech Week for the first time in my city and had a great time!
I was surprised by how much value came from conversations that weren't planned. It feels that in a world accelerated and misconstrued by technology, the best way to establish trust is often to meet face-to-face.
For those who regularly attend Tech Weeks, startup events, or hackathons:
Hey Product Hunt! We're in October, it's Hacktoberfest, a month-long celebration of open-source projects, their maintainers, and the entire community of contributors. There are many ways to contribute: code, design, document, share, sponsor... Let's celebrate this month by supporting open-source products!
Formbricks launched on October 31st
Wasp Full-Stack Auth launched on October 27th
Emitbase launched on October 25th
Nuxt UI launched on October 21st
Novu launched on October 19th
TileDesk Design Studio launched on October 19th
Appwrite Cloud Beta launched on October 17th
Komiser launched on October 17th
Pulumi ESC launched on October 17th
Taipy Cloud launched on October 16th
Cal.ai launched on October 15th
Distillery launched on October 13th
OpenSauced launched on October 11th
Swagger Editor launched on October 11th
ZenStack launched on October 10th
Payload 2.0 launched on October 9th
Ddosify launched on October 5th
Evidence 2.0 launched on October 4th
n8n LangChain integration launched on October 4th
Lenra launched on October 2nd
Best Hacktoberfest Projects 2023 launched on October 1st
Gitpod Browser Extension launched on October 1st
Who's launching an open-source product this month? Any projects that I missed? Drop a link to your product launch in the comments, and I'll add it to the list. Enjoy your launch!
1 I've run into the same problem over and over again. When an item wears out, I can't buy the exact same one anymore. It's been discontinued. Or it has been changed while keeping only the same name.
I ve been exploring MCP, an open standard from @Anthropic that aims to simplify AI integrations.
In theory, this should make it easier to connect AI with databases, task managers, or even development tools. But I m curious to know how well it actually works in practice.
