How Two Friends Built The World’s Most Popular Discord Bot

Anyone who’s ever moderated an online forum knows that it can be overwhelming. From managing countless threads and keeping conversations civil to safeguarding the community and keeping things running smoothly, things can pile up quickly.

This is especially true in Discord servers, where administrators and moderators have to perform a lot of behind-the-scenes work. To alleviate the workload, the vast majority of servers rely on bots — scripts that add functionality and flavor, doing everything from automatically censoring harmful material to integrating support for social media platforms. These bots are essential for modern server management, but there’s a catch: most bots specialize in just one thing. This means Discord moderators have to install dozens of bots in order to fully manage their servers, which can get messy fast.

The answer is an all-in-one bot that packages a comprehensive suite of tools into one user-friendly plugin. The most popular option is MEE6, which combines a suite of tools and plugins that empower easier moderation, engagement, and personalization. Trusted by more than 22 million servers, MEE6 has become the tool of choice for owners and moderators to create a fully-fledged online experience.

But MEE6 didn’t start as a polished product. It began as a small idea shared by two friends, Brendan Rius and Anis Belkacem.

Here’s how they partnered to create the most popular Discord bot in the world.

The Daring Hacker

Brendan Rius got an early taste of entrepreneurship and what it’s like to build solutions that impact real-world users. At just 12 years old, he developed a passion for coding and built his first app. At 14, he launched a file-sharing platform that quickly garnered attention and was soon used by thousands of users.

But his natural curiosity compelled him to go beyond just building things — he wanted to understand systems deeply, even if it meant testing their limits. This led to one of the most memorable moments of his teen years: the hacking of the Silicon Valley Bank website. It was a gamble that paid off in a big way, earning him an invitation to the Le Web conference in Paris. A few years later, he hacked the French Ministry of Education, a stunt that earned him a meeting with the French Internal Security Agency.

Rius looks back on his teenage shenanigans with fondness and a modest amount of pride: “It wasn’t about causing harm,” he notes. “I was just fascinated by how systems worked and how they could be improved.”

After laying a foundation of strong yet risky technical skills, Brendan decided to dive deeper into the realm of business. A defining moment in his career was being one of five people chosen for Xavier Niel’s No MBA Program, an intense, 9-month program that served as a crash course in entrepreneurship. It was this experience that sparked a passion that had lain dormant for years: creating impactful solutions.

The Builder and Dreamer

While Rius was hacking into systems, Anis Belkacem was building them. He got his start at the same age, having built his first website at just 12 years old. Over the next several years, he launched over 20 digital products.

“Most of them didn’t work out, but each one taught me something,” he shares. “I just kept trying.”

Inspired by the humble beginnings of tech industry giants, Belkacem believed that anyone with a good idea and the technical skills to back it up could make a global impact.

Belkacem saw programming as not just a skill but a way to create tools that could change the lives of millions. This belief is what fueled his early innovation, and over the course of his teenage years, he learned the importance of rapid experimentation and the power of user-focused design.

But the turning point in Belkacem’s life wouldn’t come until he was in college, which is when he realized that he’d rather spend his time building products, not sitting in classes he wasn’t excited about. Determined to blaze his own trail, he jotted down a bunch of ideas and committed to launching one new product every two weeks. “I just wanted to keep improving my skills,” he explains.

This watershed moment was just six weeks before the conception of MEE6.

A Meeting of Minds

When Rius and Belkacem met, they were both at a point in their lives where they were ready to apply their knowledge and build something incredible. Rius came equipped with a history of bold technical exploits and a wealth of business knowledge, and Belkacem brought his practical experience and passion for rapidly creating and iterating products.

After working on a series of smaller projects, they soon identified the perfect application for their expertise. As avid users of Discord themselves, they noticed that servers were often chaotic and difficult to manage, witnessing firsthand the mad scramble that admins and moderators seemed to constantly deal with. But the duo realized that this chaos wasn’t necessarily the fault of admins and moderators; they simply lacked the tools to scale their online spaces efficiently.

This realization became the driving force behind their next project, a tool that could empower online communities by streamlining management and better encouraging user engagement.

The Birth and Growth of MEE6

MEE6’s core strength lies in its versatility. It comes equipped with over 40 powerful features that automate and enhance various aspects of community management.

They include:

• Moderation Tools: MEE6 can automatically detect and filter spam, flag inappropriate behavior, and maintain a safe environment for users.
• Custom Commands: Packaged with the ability for moderators to create custom commands, MEE6 allows for personalized automation, from assigning roles to sending welcome messages.
• Engagement Features: Admins and moderators can use MEE6 to conduct polls, host giveaways, and automatically reward active members with an exciting leveling system — keeping communities lively and users engaged.
• Social Media Alerts: MEE6 can broadcast triggered messages, notifying members when content creators go live.

This robust suite of tools makes MEE6 invaluable for both novice server admins and seasoned community managers. Setup is incredibly easy but instantly gives server managers access to very powerful capabilities.

Making The Decision To Bootstrap

Since the duo came armed with a broad set of skills and real-world experience, developing the tech that powers MEE6 was the easy part. The challenge was funding the project.

While many startups pursue outside funding, some choose to bootstrap their ventures — that is, solely relying on their own resources. This move wasn’t about simply rejecting outside help; Rius and Belkacem made the decision to maintain full control over their product and its direction. “Bootstrapping forces you to focus on providing value to your users, not your shareholders,” Belkacem explains. And since the entire point of MEE6 was to make Discord a better place for its users, bootstrapping was the obvious choice — albeit one that was not without its challenges.

For example, to keep costs low, the duo moved to a remote countryside in France, allowing them to save on rent and other expenses. To minimize operating expenditures like server infrastructure, they relied on free trials from major cloud providers.

This approach, while being tricky to navigate (especially when it came to scaling) and a constant source of uncertainty, ended up being a wise decision. Rius and Belkacem were able to retain complete control over the scope of MEE6, developing a robust tool that serves only the needs of its users. And given that it’s now the most popular Discord bot in the world, funding is no longer an issue.

Reaching Millions

Rius and Belkacem knew the potential of their tool, but they in no way expected just how wildly successful it would be.

Today, it powers over 22 million Discord servers, reaching a base of more than 300 million users. Whether it’s helping gaming clans schedule their sessions or aiding professional workspaces in keeping their communities productive, MEE6 has become the go-to solution for anyone wanting to better manage their server.

Looking Forward

Having already found incredible success with MEE6, Rius and Belkacem are doing nothing but resting on their laurels. They continue to keep their users at the center of every decision, actively seeking feedback from Discord server managers and regularly updating the bot with fixes and powerful new features.

With the rise of artificial intelligence, the two founders are actively looking for ways to enhance their industry-leading tools. AI has the potential to allow MEE6 to further simplify complex tasks and offer more personalized features that adapt to users’ needs. “We’re entering a new wave of software innovation,” says Belkacem. “Just like the internet gave rise to SaaS, AI will reshape how people use tools and connect with others.”

Outside of MEE6, the two founders are committed to giving back to the community and fostering innovation among founders around the world. Over the past few years, they’ve invested in and mentored multiple startups, offering not just funding but insights from their own journey. For Rius and Belkacem, helping others succeed is their way of paying forward the lessons they’ve learned and staying connected to the community.

These two founders have proven that even without outside funding, startups can make a global impact by taking a user-first approach and solving critical needs. “It’s not just about features,” Rius says. “It’s about making things easier for people who want to build great communities.” It’s this mentality that’s propelled MEE6 to its current popularity. It’s not just a bot — it’s a tool that empowers millions of communities around the world.

If you haven’t tried it out for yourself yet, check out MEE6 to learn how you can equip your server with better automation, scalability, and community-building power.

BDG Media newsroom and editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content.