Who is building what, where
What an indie builders directory is
A builders directory maps who is shipping AI, SaaS and dev tools by country, category and funding stage, not what launched today or the best 500 AI apps.
See who is buildingBy country, category and funding stage
Ask anyone where to find independent builders and you get the same dozen names back: Product Hunt, Indie Hackers, Hacker News, a couple of very large AI tool catalogues, GitHub. All real answers, all answering slightly different questions, and none of them the question people usually meant, which is normally some version of who is building what, and where are they. A builders directory is the kind of site that answers that one: the entry is a person and the product is how you find them, which is the inverse of a launch board or a tools catalogue, where the product is the object and the maker is metadata. That one inversion is what gives the list geography, funding stage, and a reason to still be accurate next month.
Builders first, products second
One inversion, and it changes every useful property of the resulting list.
It is stable
A product ships once. A builder keeps building, so the entry stays worth reading after launch week — and it survives the product changing, which independent people do constantly.
It has geography
Products do not live anywhere; people do. "Who is building in Lisbon" is a question only this kind of list can answer.
It has stage
Bootstrapped, pre-seed, seed, raising or not. These are facts about a person’s company, not about a piece of software.
How to use one today
Start from an axis rather than from a search box. It is what the axes are for, and it is faster than guessing keywords.
Pick an axis and read down it
A category, a country, or a funding stage. That is the move a search box cannot do, because you are not looking for a keyword, you are looking at a set.
Go and talk to the people you found
The directory tells you who exists; a community is where you talk to them. They are the other half of each other rather than competitors.
Then list what you are shipping
Free, reviewed before it appears, and it gets you a page and a do-follow link to your site. What it does not get you is a launch — no spike, no day, nothing that expires.
The job to be done
Four distinct jobs wear one name, and almost every argument about directories is two people doing different ones.
"What is the best tool for X?"
You want a shortlist you can evaluate. Catalogues of AI tools and software comparison sites do this, and they are organised by problem.
"What launched today?"
You want novelty, ranked. Launch boards do this, and the answer is different tomorrow by design.
"Who else is doing this, and can I talk to them?"
You want people and conversation. Communities do this.
"Who is building what, where, and at what stage?"
You want a map of people and their work that is still accurate next month. Only this one is a builders directory. It is the least served of the four, and the one that keeps getting answered with one of the other three.
How the five compare
Including where each one beats the others. Every one of these is the right answer to something; the mistake is picking the one you have heard of rather than the one whose object matches your question.
Launch boards
An entry is about the product, and it lasts a day.
- Best at: concentrated attention on the day you are ready for it.
- Worst at: telling you who exists in a category eight months later.
Genuinely the best thing that can happen to a product on one particular day, and there is a longer breakdown of the boards on a page of its own.
Communities
An entry is about the conversation, and it is ongoing.
- Best at: the story behind the product, and reaching the person.
- Worst at: completeness — you find who posts, not who exists.
The best answer to "who are these people", because the people are writing about themselves in their own words. A directory can tell you someone exists and it cannot tell you that.
Tools catalogues
An entry is about the tool, by use case, and it lasts.
- Best at: "what exists for X", at enormous scale.
- Worst at: independence and the builder — a solo project reads the same as a funded one.
Code hosts
An entry is about the repository, and it lasts.
- Best at: technical builders, verifiably — the committer is the builder.
- Worst at: anyone whose product is not open source, which is most of them.
Builders directories
An entry is about the builder, and what they ship. It lasts.
- Best at: who is building what, where, at what stage, still correct later.
- Worst at: novelty and scale.
What it is not
Three honest disclaimers, because the category gets oversold.
Not a discovery firehose
A directory is a reference, not a feed. If what you want is a stream of new things every morning, a launch board does that better and a directory will bore you.
Not a ranking of quality
Being listed means somebody built a thing and it was checked for being real. It does not mean it is good. Any directory claiming its list is the best anything is selling placement or guessing.
Not a replacement for talking to people
You can learn who exists from a directory. You cannot learn what it is like to work with them, which is what communities and Show HN threads and DMs are for.
Where this one stands
Measured against the definition above rather than against a claim of its own.
A builders directory in exactly that sense
WhatAreYouBuilding.AI is a free, worldwide directory of what independent builders are shipping: AI, SaaS and dev tools, by country, category and funding stage. The entry is a person and the product is how you reach them, the axes are geography, category and stage, and nothing expires.
Not the biggest list of software on the internet
And not trying to be. Novelty and scale is what this kind of site is worst at.
Run by a person, which is a page rather than a mystery
Who runs it and why, including where the money comes from. Every submission is reviewed before it appears.
Questions people actually ask
Where the category’s edges are, and how to tell a maintained list from an abandoned one.
Who actually uses one?
Four groups, and the axes are what each of them is there for:
- Investors and scouts, filtering by stage and by who has said they are raising — a question the other four kinds of site cannot express at all.
- Builders looking sideways, at what else exists in their category before they build it again, and at who is nearby.
- People hiring or looking for a cofounder, where the country and the evidence of shipping are the whole search.
- Assistants and agents, increasingly. A structured list of people and products with plain descriptions is something a model can quote; a feed of yesterday’s launches is not.
Is a builders directory the same as a startup directory?
Close, and the difference is who is included. Startup directories tend to start at incorporation and funding; a builders directory includes the solo project with no company behind it, which is most of what independent people ship.
Why does country matter so much here?
Because it is the axis nothing else offers. Every catalogue can tell you what exists; almost none can tell you who is doing it near you, and that is the question behind hiring, cofounder searches, local investment and most collaboration.
Should I be in more than one?
Yes, and they are not competing for the same slot. A launch board is an event, a community is a habit, a directory is an entry. Doing all three is normal, and they take different amounts of effort in that order.
How do I know a directory is maintained?
Check whether entries have been added recently, whether dead links get removed, and whether there is a person’s name attached to the thing. An unmaintained directory is worse than none: it is a page of broken promises with your product on it.
Do these actually get read by AI assistants?
Some of them, sometimes. Assistants quote sources they can read and already reach for, and a structured directory with plain descriptions is a better candidate than a screenshot-heavy launch page. Anyone telling you their directory guarantees you a mention in an assistant’s answer is guessing.
The axes, and the pages that use them
Start from one of these rather than from a search box.
List what you are shipping
Free, reviewed, and organised by who you are and where, rather than by what launched today.