Follow & Connect: Find the Right People Building in AI in Asia

Every AI founder, AI builder, or AI expert in TGB ecosystem has had the same experience: 5-30k LinkedIn connections, and no idea who to call when you actually need help.

You meet brilliant AI talent at a TGB masterclass. You swap contacts at an AI conference pavilion. You're in ten AI communities across multiple chat apps. And six weeks later, when you hit the exact problem one of those people has already solved — you can't find them, you don't remember their company, and a cold "Hi, we met somewhere?" message feels wrong.

The problem was never meeting people. TGB members meet constantly — offline, online, at conferences, across other AI networks. The problem is knowing who can help you, and who you can help — and having a trusted way to reach them that doesn't feel like spam.

That's what we just shipped.

Not another social network

Let's be clear about what this isn't: we are not rebuilding LinkedIn. The world doesn't need another feed to perform on, another inbox of "quick sync?" messages from strangers.

TGB is Asia's largest AI community of like-minded professionals who already share rooms, events, and problems around AI. Follow & Connect exists to make that community legible — so the 3,800+ members on this platform can actually know each other, not just co-exist.

Everyone here is looking for something: a co-founder, a design partner, a GTM answer, someone who's deployed the thing you're about to deploy. And everyone here is that person for somebody else. The give-back runs deep in this community — what was missing was the wiring.

Follow — stay close to the builders you rate

Follow is the light touch. Hit Follow on any member's profile and their activity on TGB — the products they launch, events they host, projects they share — starts showing up in your feed.

They'll know: a notification and an email, with one click to your profile. If they follow back, you're in each other's orbit. Your own followers live in a private section on your profile — visible only to you.

Connect — when you actually need to talk

Connect is the strong move, and it works nothing like a LinkedIn request.

Say why  →  They decide  →  TGB introduces you both

1 — You say why. Every Connect request carries your reason — the problem you're working on, the overlap you see. No blank requests. This is the single highest-leverage field on the platform: a genuine, specific reason is what gets a yes.

2 — They decide. The other member gets your request — with your reason — by email and on their dashboard. Accept or decline, one click. A decline stays completely private; no awkwardness, no notification shame.

3 — TGB makes the introduction. On accept, both of you receive one email — a proper introduction with both profiles — and the conversation is yours. Nobody's email address is shared until both sides have said yes.

Consent-first isn't a compliance checkbox here; it's the product. The reason spam outreach doesn't work is that nobody opted in. The reason a TGB intro works is that both people did.

Your daily five

Paired with this: every day, TGB recommends five members worth knowing — matched on what you build, where you are, and where the community overlaps. Recommendations surface on your dashboard and in your notification emails. See someone interesting → Follow to stay close, or Connect with a reason. The loop is that short now.

How to get the most out of it

• Complete your profile, honestly. Your role, company, what you're building, your LinkedIn. Matching quality — and other members' willingness to accept — scales directly with it.
• Write real reasons. "I'm building an AI voice product in Jakarta and saw you shipped one last year — would love 20 minutes on what you'd do differently" beats "let's connect" every single time.
• Give back. Accept the requests where you can genuinely help. You'll be on the asking side soon enough.

This is the start

Follow & Connect is the foundation of TGB's networking layer — the graph of who knows whom, who's building what, and who can help. Meeting scheduling, richer matching, and more are coming on top of it.

Try it now: open any member profile, and look for the two new buttons.