Earnin Puts its Own Spin On Hackathons

We are getting ready for our second hackathon at Earnin, and we are excited about the event. Feels like a good time to reflect on where it all started.

Anyone who has worked at a startup will tell you there’s something almost magical about communication — it’s almost telepathic. I remember in the early days we didn’t have to take steps to align on goals — we just were. Ideation tended to be more democratic because of the smaller size too — it was both easy and efficient to go from ideation to iteration.

But as we grew, we realized that the culture around democratizing ideation isn’t always going to be automatic. We need to be more conscious about fostering a culture where people continued to believe their ideas matter.

Enter the Hackathon

I’ve experienced my fair share of hackathons and the formulas were fairly straightforward: late nights, endless coding, and tons of initial excitement that faded rapidly. We decided to add a uniquely Earnin twist: we decided to “pay it forward” to the winning team by giving them a week off from their regular responsibilities to pursue the idea further. Pay it Forward is a central idea that guides how our app works — it emphasizes community. And internally it’s a framework that guides our decision making. It made perfect sense to think of this as our winning prize.

So… How’d it Go?

In short, fantastic. It was everything I hoped it’d be — and more.

1. The teams produced 80 different ideas. Many of them were spot-on for us and we ended up with a list of innovative ideas to bring more value to our community.
2. We implemented 4 new tools that automated a big chunk of work across engineering teams.
3. (This one’s my favorite) 14 new teams with employees from various teams came together at the hackathon. A lot of these teams were people who otherwise didn’t get to work with each other on an everyday basis. This sort of collaboration has always been a part of how we work at Earnin and it was exciting to see this happening at scale.

The hackathon solidified and reinvigorated what I felt during my first few weeks at Earnin: everyone’s ideas are valued, and the company, just like the people who use our app everyday, is very much a community. I fully believe that through our products, Earnin can help usher in positive changes for our society by empowering individuals to come together, support one another, and achieve more than we ever could alone.

The hackathon proved that the same values and approach, combined with hard work (and lots of caffeine and snacks) can do the same for our company and products.