A pretty bad hackathon project got me a founding engineer job
People always ask me why I go to so many hackathons and so many tech events.
Well, the truth is I'm not going for the prizes. I'm going to meet all the crazy people in those rooms. Because those people can become your future co-founders, they can be future billionaires building crazy startups, and they can become your lifelong friends.
And that's exactly what happened at a hackathon I went to back in June.
The project was honestly pretty bad
The hackathon was hosted by 8x, a startup out of Entrepreneurs First, and the project I built there was honestly pretty bad. It was called Goose, and it was basically a duck that follows you around your screen and nags you to keep doing your work.
We didn't win.
Six days later
At the hackathon I'd met Jack and Theo, 8x's CEO and CTO. The day after it, even though we didn't win, I got an email from their CTO.
I did a timed technical test as a 15-year-old, then an interview, and six days after the hackathon I was hired as the founding engineer for the startup that ran it.
For a little bit of context, 8x runs a creator network, leasing out creators around the world to brands who pay them to make content. Basically, it's UGC.
What came after
Since leaving 8x, I've worked as a marketing intern at Cluely in New York and started my own UGC agency, hypjam.
And all of that came from a pretty bad project.
So go to those hackathons, go to those tech events and meet those people. Not for the prizes, but for the opportunities they give you.