A Full Circle Moment
Building a business that gives you time and location freedom can be surprisingly lonely.
When we started our first online business, we barely knew anyone who had built a legitimate SaaS, ecommerce, services, or media business on the internet. No offices. No alarm clocks. No limits on where we could live or what we could build next.
So we went looking for others like us…
What Is Dynamite Circle?
Dynamite Circle is a private, global community of vetted, location-independent founders building bootstrapped businesses in SaaS, ecommerce, services, and media.
Every day we connect founders who own and control their businesses, live and work from anywhere in the world, are willing to share openly, help others and learn from peers, and care about building sustainable, long-term businesses.
Entrepreneurship is exciting. It’s also hard, nuanced, and often isolating. Dynamite Circle exists to make it less lonely, and far more effective.
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From the beginning, our priority has been finding people who match the culture and vibe of the community. Every founder who wants to join Dynamite Circle has to apply and demonstrate that they’re the right fit. This keeps the caliber of membership high and ensures the best connections and conversations when we get together online and in-person.
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Every Dynamite Circle member (or DCer) values the freedom and flexibility that the internet has given us - building global teams, traveling while keeping the business running, and having the option to live anywhere in the world.
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What connected us in the beginning was our desire to get to know other founders like us, help where we could, and enjoy each other’s company. After all, very few people want to nerd out for hours about the intricacies of internet businesses, but this is a place where you can do that every day.
How Dynamite Circle Works
What started as a handful of virtual conversations has grown into a global founder network that connects every day, online and in person.
Today over 1,400 founders engage through:
A mobile app to stay connected on the go
In-person meetups in 230+ cities across every continent (yes, including Antarctica!)
Themed chat groups, private forum threads, and virtual calls for deep dives into specific business challenges
Community-driven masterminds focused on real problem-solving, accountability, and execution
Adventures and interest-based events that help members bond beyond work
Annual conferences in Mexico and Bangkok, designed to maximize meaningful connections and shared learning
The Values That Bind Us
The same values that shaped our earliest meetups still define Dynamite Circle today:
Location flexibility
Time freedom
Asset ownership
Sharing over selling
Practitioning over preaching
Choosing our own path over status games
Making friends instead of contacts
Cooperation over competition
Strong interests outside of business
Getting into the nitty-gritty of bootstrapping
Being very NOT NORMAL
How It All Started
Hey! We’re Dan Andrews and Ian Schoen, founders of Dynamite Circle.
Once upon a time, we had “real” jobs and commutes. They were fine, but we knew we wanted more.
In our spare time, we experimented: building services, software, ecommerce sites, and media businesses. Anything that might let us own our time, travel freely, and build something we controlled.
After plenty of false starts, it worked. Revenue grew. We bought plane tickets. We were actually doing business on our own terms (and eventually exited our first business in 2015.)
With that freedom, we tried to meet other founders doing the same thing. When we couldn’t find the right rooms, we created them. Mid-week, in foreign countries, and online.
Those conversations in the early 2010s became the foundation of Dynamite Circle. More than a decade later, that same spirit lives on in thousands of conversations happening every day across the community.
