How a joke launched an international hackathon — Pt. 1
Is my title cliche? Maybe. But none-the-less, I had to share this amazing story. To give you a little background, I am part of this small? (2400+) Startup Study Group on Slack. It’s a great group of individuals that include: founders, entrepreneurs, developers, marketers, angels, VCs, and more. It’s a place where the entire community participates in all sorts of activities ranging from sharing ideas to getting feedback on pitches.
Now to the main attraction for this post. On this particular day, as I signed onto the Slack Group, it started off as usual. As this is an international group, members were already on from all parts of the world, sharing ideas and discussing topics. As I did my usual “lurking,” I came across an interesting post from a new member in the “General” channel (If you have no idea what I mean by General Channel, GET SLACK). The member had asked a question about on how best to approach angels/vcs and what was the best way to pitch them. It appeared this member was struggling with his current pitch for his company, and was in need of some feedback from other members. Following the normal routine, the various members of SSG (Short for Startup Study Group) who were online, chimed in asking for more detail. It was here, at this moment, another member of SSG who was online at the time, Borja Rojano, made a simple joke: Pitch me in 140 characters or less. Give me your Twitter pitch.
Pitch me in 140 characters or less. Give me your Twitter pitch. — Borja Rojano
Upon reading Borja’s joke, it seemed the other member was a little taken aback at first. However, he saw the connection — short, simple pitch, that relayed his message. He responded brilliantly and everyone got the gist of what he was pitching. However, it was then, at this moment, Borja made another comment. He liked the idea of short, simple pitches and said “What about Twitter + Pitch, Tweech. Connecting Founders with VCs?” It was at this moment, Tweech was born. The idea took off on fire. Immediately, other members in the channel began chiming in with their thoughts and inputs. What started off as a joke, was now beginning to form into an actual idea. As Borja Rojano continued to discuss more, he connected with Laszlo Levente Mári, stefan, Seth Louey, Chris Cates, and myself — The Founding Core. It was at that moment, THAT EXACT MOMENT, we all decided to take this idea, and make it into an actual product.
The idea was really solid, and the other founding members didn’t want to sit around and wait. Immediately, a new channel was formed, called Tweech. Open to all, the channel allowed all of us to continue hashing out our ideas and formulating next steps. Borja Rojano took the reins and shared a mockup of what he felt the platform should look like. From there, the developers (Stefan Stokic, Laszlo Levente Mári, Chris Cates) began to start coding away while Seth Louey was in charge of design. Essentially, what had transpired was a “Hackasprint” was formed. It’s what we coined as our own version of a Hackathon. Since we were all located in various parts of the world with different time zones, we decided that “Hackasprint” was more appropriate. The code ninjas continued to discuss front end and back end development while Seth Louey was sending screen shots of the UI design with color schemes. Tweech was no longer a joke or an idea, it was now officially becoming an actual product.
Tweech was no longer a joke or an idea, it was now officially becoming an actual product.
For the past 2 days, it has been non-stop coding, collaboration, and discussions. You want to know the best part of all it? — EVERYTHING is being communicated through SSG’s Slack Channel. Everyone has been working non-stop to create this product.
So why the RUSH you ask? Well — because we’re all in it to build shit. That’s the beauty of this entire project(?) — it’s something everyone saw formulate from an idea, into reality. It’s a team collaboration, and each one of us was fueling off of each other’s passion and fire. The entire team not only felt that it could actually be feasible, but also felt they could take on the challenge. Here’s what I mean:
The entire core team, has put a deadline upon ourselves: LET’S BUILD THIS OVER THE WEEKEND AND LAUNCH. This is the goal, and as I am writing this post, the rest are busy still coding and building Tweech.
I know what you’re thinking: “WTH IS TWEECH, WHY HAVEN’T YOU EXPLAINED IT MORE?!” — Well, that’s the beauty of a series of posts :). If you recall, this post is titled Pt. 1. Part 2 will be posted upon the release of our product. Who knows — maybe we’ll be Hunted on Product Hunt?
Stay tuned for Part 2 — We’ll disclose more about Tweech.
