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How to make friends as an introvert, without draining your social battery. ⚡🪫

If walking into a room full of strangers feels like work, most advice about making friends was never written for you. It was written for people who get energy from a crowd. You get yours from one good conversation.

So here's the gentler way in:

Pick a place where the activity does the talking, so you don't have to.

Ask one good question and really listen. You're already good at this.

Suggest the one-on-one, in your own timing.

Rest first, and leave when you're done. That's allowed.

Save this for your first week somewhere new.

You don't have to be the loudest person in the room to be remembered. You just have to be the one who listens.

Send it to the friend who goes quiet in big groups, and tell them they're doing fine.

Follow @debbybuilds for more ways to find your people, on your own terms.

#communitybuilding #introvert #adultfriendships #digitalnomads #makingfriends

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Week 3 of building a pop-up city in Da Nang, Vietnam. It looked like a party... A gala, a girls' dinner that ended in a pool, a birthday. If you only saw the photos you'd think nobody was doing any work. 😄

Same week: six people got up on stage at Da Nang's startup festival and pitched their businesses. And someone in the community ran a 48 hour startup challenge.

👉🏼 Save this bit. It's how you run one with your mates, in any city:
- Points for every task. Highest score after 48 hours wins.
- Buy something cheap, a hair clip, and sell it to a friend for more.
- Ask a stranger for something for free.
- Start with one small item and keep trading it up. You score the retail price of whatever you end up on.
- Get a stranger to transfer you ten dollars. Harder than it sounds.

Teams, not solo. Nobody walks up to a stranger alone.
It sounds like a game. It's a sales course in disguise. Don't tell them. 🤫

That last rule is the lesson of the whole week. The long version is at the end of the reel.

(A pop-up city, if you're new here: a temporary community. Everyone moves to the same place for a set stretch of time to live, work and build together, then it ends.)

Follow @debbybuilds for week 4. It's the last one week. 🥹

#popupcity #danang #digitalnomad #communitybuilding #communityevents

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We showed up in Da Nang as strangers. A month later we left as a city. 🌏

Hackathons, hikes, beach days, long dinners, and a lot of people who now feel like home.

Next stop: Chiang Mai, 1 to 30 November 2026.

Join the WhatsApp group, link in bio.

Follow @xenoriacity for more updates.

#XenoriaCity #popupcity #chiangmai #digitalnomad #networkstate

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the guide to adult friendships, how to make them and how to keep them 🪑

Making friends seemed easier at school because you saw the same people every single day without even trying. Then you grow up, move around, get busy, and suddenly it's like.. wait, how do I actually do this now?

Try go to the same thing every week. Be the one who texts first. Keep catch ups small. And when life gets chaotic, a quick voice note or I'm thinking of you' meme still counts.

If you've ever thought "why is this harder than it used to be", you're not alone. That's just adult life. You just have to build it on purpose now.

Follow @debbybuilds for more ways to find your people, wherever you are.

#makingfriendsasanadult #adultfriendships #howtomakefriends #communitybuilding #digitalnomad

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how to build a community of friends from scratch, even if you know nobody 🪑

I’ve moved to so many cities where I knew no one. Like.. zero people. And the thing I keep learning is you don’t really find your people, you kind of build them.

It starts with the little things. Being a regular somewhere. Asking someone what they’re working on and actually remembering. Being the one who sends the invite. And just showing up, week after week.

It works anywhere. Whether you just landed or you’ve lived there for years and still feel a bit on the outside.

Follow @debbybuilds for more ways to find your people, wherever you are.

#makingfriendsasanadult #howtomakefriends #communitybuilding #digitalnomad #nomads

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how to reduce burnout with one trick ⛽

three trips happened that week without me. all community run. and I learnt the most valuable lesson.

and it works for a community. it works for a business.

also, if you're ever in da nang, save this. all three were community picked:
👉 ba na hills
👉 hai van pass bike loop
👉 lady buddha

send this to the friend who says "it's faster if i just do it."

how the calendar was set up, and what to copy next time, is on my substack. link in bio.

ran a pop-up city in da nang, vietnam. 70 of us, one city, one month.

follow @debbybuilds for week two. i took my own advice. sort of...

#communitybuilding #popupcity #founderlife #digitalnomad #reels

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how to make friends abroad when you work remotely 🌏

it takes about 50 hours to make a friend. most digital nomads leave after a week. ✈️

the maths, from a University of Kansas study: 🧮
50 hours = casual friend
90 = real friend
200+ = close friend
working side by side in co-working barely counts. it's the hanging out. 👭🧑‍🤝‍🧑

so if nomad life feels lonely, count how many hours you gave the last city.

these are some of the people I had dinner with at my month-long pop-up city in Da Nang, Vietnam. 🍜 stay longer, pick fewer people, eat with the same ones.

Follow for more nomad tips ❤️ @debbybuilds

study: Jeffrey Hall, University of Kansas, 2018

#digitalnomad #remotework #danang #popupcity #makefriendsabroad

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How I built a pop-up city in Da Nang in one week. 🫪

What I learnt:
👉🏼 Find the communal area first, not the rooms. It's where people end up without planning to. I took over a whole hotel on night one because it had a café downstairs. Worth it.

👉🏼 Go and look yourself. Photos don't have sound. Photos definitely don't have smell. Seven hotels later, I can confirm this.

👉🏼 You can't organise accommodation for everyone. Different budgets, different visas, different flights. All you can do is make sure nobody lands with nowhere to go.

I wrote the whole week up on my Substack. Including the part where I got it completely wrong. Twice.

Link in bio.

Week one next: they all arrive. Pray for me!!

#popupcity #founder #nomadlife #founderlife #entrepreneurlife

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Susan, please reschedule my breakdown to next Tuesday lunchtime. 💨⏱️

new account. follow @debbybuilds so i'm not talking to myself 🚪

#payme #founder #builder #entrepreneur #businessowner

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Everyone thought I was on holiday for a month🍷

I wasn’t. (mostly)

I was building a pop-up city in #DaNang, Vietnam.

20+ nationalities, a whole lot of people who came for August and left with a family. 🇻🇳

Interesting people, insane stories, great dinner chats, dance moves that got you double taking, co-work, calm togetherness, adventures, new connections, deeper old connections, learning, creating, building, exploring, skill sharing, living, being, reflecting, teaching. 🫂🤝

What a wild month! The tears, the smiles, taking risks and not knowing how it would end up. Running events daily, running on fumes, running on adrenaline. Some of us ran from our problems, ran from responsibilities, ran away from our laptops.. and were ok with that. 🛵

Sometimes life is funny.. it hands you an opportunity you didn’t ask for. Some change the trajectory of your life, some are just there to see if you fold. Whatever you decide, trust your gut and give it 100%. Enjoy the presence. Because remember, the presence is the present. 🎁

I’ve built my businesses alone and never really shared what I do for work. This channel is where that changes. I’ve met so many nomads, lived in so many colivings and coworks, and I want somewhere we can stay in touch wherever we end up.. celebrate each other’s wins, learn from each other, build together, stop doing it alone.

I’m now building in public.
@17hoursaday isn’t going anywhere, that’s still me. But @debbybuilds is where I’ll be from today.

Every pop-up, every business, every mistake.. I’ll share. Starting right now, from a lock-in villa in Hoi An. I’ve learnt nothing. 🤣

If you were there this August, tell me your favourite moment in the comments. If you weren’t.. follow, we’re mid-villa. There’s always a spare chair/couch.🚪

Debby 💞💜

#travel #digitalnomad #vietnamtravel #founder Debby Chin raising a glass at a waterfront dinner in Da Nang, Vietnam, at the pop-up city she built.

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I'm gonna miss everyone! @jake__explores and @17hoursaday organized and ran a pop-up city this month in Da Nang, Vietnam while Network School respawned in Kazakhstan. It was a special experience that I’ll always cherish.

A pop-up city is a short-term association of nomads who come together in a city to live, work, learn, and grow together. Community members host events daily for each other: how to build an app with Claude, how to build out a social media following, a trip to Hoi An to get custom tailored clothes, sauna and recovery sessions, birthday parties, dinners together, etc etc etc. The clips in the video are a small sample of those experiences.

I made a bunch of new friends from all over the world, reconnected with old ones, and got to experience what it's like to bootstrap a community from scratch.

I'm grateful I got to be a part of it and met so many genuine and interesting people in one place.

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Girls night out 🤦🏻‍♀️ we’re so gullible heheheh #girls #trends #nightout #fitcheck #funny

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