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YC Hackathon without writing code

airdev.co

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Re: YC Hackathon without writing code

#2

Post by ahaller07 »

I wrote up some reflections on participating in last week's YC Hackathon using Bubble, a visual programming platform. My AirDev cofounder and I didn't take home the prize, but it was a great chance to put our code-free development approach to the test and build a new product (Mailmitten) with Gmail and Stripe integrations in 12 hours.

Re: YC Hackathon without writing code

#5

Post by restingrobot »

I don't mean to sound elitist, but this isn't a Hackathon, its an idea-athon. Participants are limited to the small toolset of pre-built components provided to them, (Bubble in this case). The whole benefit of a hackathon is to think outside the box, but this actually encourages staying inside the box in order to produce a more polished product. You're getting a deep dive but completely missing any breadth.

Re: YC Hackathon without writing code

#6

Post by mchannon »

restingrobot wrote: post #5

I don't mean to sound elitist, but this isn't a Hackathon, its an idea-athon. Participants are limited to the small toolset of pre-built components provided to them, (Bubble in this case). The whole benefit of a hackathon is to think outside the box, but this actually encourages staying inside the box in order to produce a more polished product. You're getting a deep dive but completely missing any breadth.

In all fairness, even a large proportion of real hackathons tend to be light on code, heavy on presentation. Maybe it's a misnomer but it doesn't stop them from using the term.

True hackathons, where everyone's technical, in the same place, and miles of lines of code are written on no sleep, pizza, and Mountain Dew, are really hard to come by, because few talented people have the spare time to do them, and they don't typically pay all that well. Older hackers also tend to avoid them because they're more likely to have incompatible family obligations.

The terminology doesn't suit it, but it's widely used, like "Software Engineer".

Re: YC Hackathon without writing code

#7

Post by toomuchtodo »

restingrobot wrote: post #5

I don't mean to sound elitist, but this isn't a Hackathon, its an idea-athon. Participants are limited to the small toolset of pre-built components provided to them, (Bubble in this case). The whole benefit of a hackathon is to think outside the box, but this actually encourages staying inside the box in order to produce a more polished product. You're getting a deep dive but completely missing any breadth.

I've seen entire businesses built on top of workflow SaaS products, and once the business is proven, the owner starts refactoring (hiring their own engineers) into their own codebase.

All that matters are the financials. If your experiment is validated with point and click tools, no shame in that. Prove it with one enormous Excel spreadsheet doing the heavy lifting if you have to. You are solving business problems, regardless of the tools you use.

Re: YC Hackathon without writing code

#8

Post by estraschnov »

This is awesome!! (disclaimer, I founded Bubble).

We've actually had a few teams at YC using Bubble, either to get in or after, once they were in the program. It's awesome as it's a great validation for our technology.

Thank you for doing the same in their hackathons!

Re: YC Hackathon without writing code

#9

Post by fabricexpert »

this is based on https://bubble.is/ - I just took the tour, it looks pretty neat for creating a quick prototype. I suspect I could get to market with a half working prototype faster with this, and then hire a team to develop a "proper" app later on. I'm going to try it out for my next app as I am getting a bit sick of getting started each time with create-react-app and running into dependencies etc. etc.
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