I'm going back to the Uneed Residency in France!
This month I'm going to the Uneed Residency in Nantes, France. It's a week-long experience for founders where you get to live and work with other entrepreneurs, all under one roof. Oh and it's free! I expect it will be a bit like Freshers Week for founders without all the alcohol.
Uneed have sponsors, Postiz and Creem, which cover the accommodation and food costs. I just need to pay for my flight from Edinburgh. Basically the founder of Uneed, a Product Hunt alternative, went to a similar founder event in Vietnam in late 2025.
That event, the Hacker Residency, acted as a pioneer for Uneed and produced a new model for organising something like this - have companies sponsor it so attendees just need to get themselves to the event. This way, the founder does not pay as much and the sponsors support everyone and get publicity.
The Uneed Residency takes places in a French manor house in the city of Nantes, which is south west of Paris and historically part of Brittany. In terms of how I got selected, it's quite simple. Thomas, the organiser, put up an application form a few months ago and I applied. I think perhaps something that helped was I mainly make money from my ghostwriting for founders business as well as my High Signal newsletter. So I'm a little different.
Why I'm excited about going
I'm really excited for the week! Running a business solo like I do can be quite a lonely experience. I don't have a co-founder or team to bounce ideas off. Plus, meeting other founders always has a big pay-off.
Firstly, it's fun! Finally you are around people who get what you do for a living and have the same sort of goals as you do. I'm going to be meeting 10 other founders who are working on a range of startups, from directories and mobile apps to AI SaaS. And it's going to be face-to-face, not just talking online. You develop much stronger bonds with in-person events in general, in my opinion. And it's just more enjoyable.
Secondly, I'm sure it will be hugely educational. It's cool to see what other people are working on and get their advice. In the past I've learned a lot about SEO from Sabba Keynejad of Veed during a trip to Lisbon. I've had good feedback on landing pages during trips to London. And back when I was living in Bulgaria for a month, I got a lot of help with my website at the time from UX experts. Getting advice from others founders is always useful.
Also, I feel like I'm at the stage now where I can offer advice to people there as well who are earlier in their startup journey. I've been doing business for over 7 years now! I've seen some stuff, haha.
In May I briefly attended the event for the social part of the week which was open to non-residents but it will be great to go back for real this time! Also, I can return the hotel key I took home last time 😀