Mission Accomplished
In late 2024, after nearly five years of supporting developers, we made the difficult but meaningful decision to dissolve Canton Coders.
We realized we had achieved what we set out to do.
Our Legacy
Our Community
Into New Jobs
& Support
The Complete Story
🎯 The Original Mission
Canton Coders was born in January 2020 from a simple but powerful idea: support the individual developer, not their employers. We started as a small meetup in Canton, Michigan, bringing together developers who wanted to learn, grow, and help each other succeed—regardless of where they worked.
Unlike corporate-sponsored tech groups, we focused entirely on what would benefit individual developers in their careers. We shared knowledge freely, mentored each other, and built a community where everyone felt valued for their skills and potential, not their job title.
🌍 The Pivot That Changed Everything
On March 14, 2020, we made a difficult decision. We had 67 RSVPs for our March 18th in-person meetup, but COVID-19 was spreading rapidly. We canceled the in-person event and, almost on a whim, decided to try streaming online instead.
Four days later, on March 18th, 51 people joined our first live stream. What started as a temporary solution to a global pandemic became our new identity. We discovered that going virtual allowed us to reach developers far beyond Canton, Michigan. Our community exploded.
📈 Explosive Growth & Real Impact
Over the next four years, Canton Coders grew beyond our wildest expectations:
- 1,000+ members on Slack, creating a vibrant daily community
- Hundreds more on Discord, with active voice channels and study groups
- 348+ YouTube subscribers who watched our content regularly
- 70+ recorded presentations covering everything from JavaScript frameworks to career advice
- 85+ people helped into new jobs through mentoring, resume reviews, interview prep, and networking
- Countless hours of one-on-one mentoring, pair programming sessions, and career guidance
We watched developers transform their careers. Bootcamp graduates landed their first roles. Mid-level developers became seniors. Career changers found their footing in tech. Every success story reminded us why we started.
💭 The Realization
But as 2024 progressed, we began to notice something that troubled us. While our online community thrived, we worried we might be doing our members a disservice.
We had made networking too easy. Members could get career advice, technical help, and professional connections without ever leaving their homes. But the tech industry doesn’t work that way. Conferences, local meetups, office interactions, and face-to-face networking are still crucial for long-term career success.
We realized that by providing an endless online support system, we might inadvertently be preventing our members from developing the in-person communication, relationship-building, and professional presence skills that are essential in the workplace and at industry events.
The best thing we could do for our community was to stop making it so comfortable to network online, and instead encourage them to build real-world connections that would serve their careers for decades to come.
✅ Mission Complete
After deep reflection and discussion among our organizers, we came to a profound conclusion: we had accomplished what we set out to do.
We had supported over 1,000 developers. We had helped 85+ people find new opportunities. We had created 70+ hours of educational content that would live on YouTube forever. We had built a community that proved developers thrive when they support each other instead of competing.
Rather than let Canton Coders slowly fade into irrelevance, or worse, become a crutch that prevented growth, we made the conscious decision to dissolve while celebrating everything we had built together.
Our Journey Timeline
Born from a humble meetup in Canton, Michigan, a few developers came together with a simple mission: support the individual developer, not their employers. We believed that when developers help each other grow, everyone benefits.
COVID-19 forced us online. We canceled our in-person meetup with 67 RSVPs and nervously tried streaming instead. On March 18th, 51 people joined our first online session. That pivot transformed us from a local Canton meetup into a global community.
Four years of incredible growth. We built communities on Slack (1,000+ members) and Discord, created 70+ recorded presentations on YouTube, and most importantly, helped 85+ people land new jobs. Every week brought new success stories, new friendships, and new learning opportunities.
As our online community thrived, we began to worry. Were we making it too easy to network virtually? Were we inadvertently preventing our members from developing crucial in-person networking skills? After months of reflection, we realized the answer was yes.
We made the difficult but meaningful decision to dissolve Canton Coders. We had achieved our goal of supporting individual developers. Now it was time to encourage our community to take what they learned and build real-world, in-person connections that would serve their careers for life.
Thank You
To everyone who participated, presented, mentored, learned, grew, and thrived with Canton Coders over the past five years:
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
You made this community special. You proved that when developers support each other—focusing on individuals, not employers—amazing things happen. You created friendships, landed dream jobs, learned new skills, and helped others do the same.
This is not an ending. This is a graduation.
Explore Our Legacy
While Canton Coders has dissolved, the knowledge we created lives on. All 70+ presentations remain on YouTube, free forever. Explore them, learn from them, and be inspired to build strong in-person connections in your own community.