obsess. First Artifact is a private club for proven, high-agency builders and founders. Obsession beats talent; the proof is the artifact.
Obsession beats talent every time
and the proof is the artifact.
Most rooms reward talk. First Artifact is for builders who move from uncertainty to a shipped thing.
Bring the work, the question you cannot drop, and find peers who compound both.
Who we’re for
- Builders and founders: who ship, not people who talk about shipping.
- High-agency people: who just keep going. No permission, no roadmap, no waiting.
- People who’ve already built something good: proven, not aspiring.
- People who live in the space: and actually care where it’s heading. Doesn’t have to be AI.
The test: is this the thing you think about all the time?
The bar
- High to get in, and it stays high: no loose filter, no “close enough.”
- Built, not interesting: you get in by having built, not by being interesting in a room.
- No weak yeses: one weak yes lowers the ceiling for everyone.
- Scarcity earns the room: a hard filter keeps the room worth being in.
What it feels like
- Agency: you own what you’re doing.
- Progress: you can see yourself moving.
- Optimal challenge: hard enough to matter, not so hard you stall.
- Feedback: you find out fast whether it worked.
Get those right and nobody needs to be told to show up.
What we do
- Put the obsessed in the same room: and get out of the way.
- Run events that build momentum: hacker houses, hackathons, buildathons.
- Stay genuinely different: if it already exists, we’re not building it.
That’s the whole thing.
The standard
What we look for
Membership is earned through evidence of building, not interest, aspiration, credentials, or talk.
High agency
You notice what needs doing and move it. Nobody manufactures momentum for you.
Obsession
Why you build: the personal story that keeps you returning to the same problem.
Traction
Something real is already moving: a shipped product, users, revenue, or public weight.
Meet the team
Aryan Iyappan
Currently building lamina.dev
Building and shipping software since 13. Turned down a standing Pinterest offer at 17 to go all in on a startup. Built marketplaces and led OSS communities before.
Yash Kulkarni
Currently building PurpleRain
18-year-old technical founder, cybersecurity engineer, and student entrepreneur. Founder of PurpleRain and Codorra, focused on cybersecurity, infrastructure, and automation. Self-taught programmer who learned by breaking, rebuilding, and shipping.
Advaith Vaithianathan
Currently building Hydra Fund
16-year-old builder working across AI and capital. General partner of Hydra Fund, an AI-native fund. Background in full-stack and deterministic LLM systems, with NASA citizen-science work and research engineering on the FLARE+ CubeSat mission.
Intended formats
Make progress feel like play
Formats we intend to host. They are not past events, and no dates have been announced yet.
Hacker houses
Live together long enough to turn loose ambition into concentrated work.
Hackathons
Short, sharp constraints with a working artifact at the other end.
Buildathons
Longer runs for products that need more than a weekend and less than a committee.
Member gatherings
Meet the people behind the work, exchange context, and leave with the next move.
The working model
Fun is approximately agency multiplied by progress, multiplied by optimal challenge, multiplied by feedback.
Participation should feel worthwhile, not like another recurring obligation. The formats above are shaped around that.
Straight answers
What you need to know
What is First Artifact?
First Artifact is a private club for proven, high-agency builders and founders. The premise is that obsession beats talent, and the proof is the artifact: the shipped thing that makes the claim real. Most rooms reward talk; this one is for people who move from uncertainty to a working product, then keep compounding with peers who care about the same hard problems. It is a membership community, not a funding accelerator, and it is not affiliated with Founders, Inc. Artifact or any similarly named program.
Who gets in?
Membership is earned through evidence of building, not interest, aspiration, credentials, or talk alone. We look for high agency (you move work without waiting to be managed), obsession (a personal reason you return to the same problem), and traction (something real already moving: a shipped product, users, revenue, or public weight). The bar is high on the way in and stays high. One weak yes lowers the ceiling for everyone, so scarcity is part of what keeps the room worth being in.
What formats does the club run?
The intended formats are hacker houses, hackathons, buildathons, and member gatherings: structures meant to turn loose ambition into concentrated work and make progress feel like play. They are shaped so participation feels worthwhile rather than like another recurring obligation. These formats are not past events yet; no public dates have been announced. Until then, the on-ramps are applying with shipped work or joining the Discord to meet the room while you keep building.
Your move
Already shipping? Apply with the work, or join the Discord and meet the room.