Hackathon Day 1

For the next week (at least) at work, we’re taking a break from our usual tasks for a hackathon, where we can each prototype an idea, hopefully produce an MVP and see what opportunities might be viable for us in the future. Today was the first day, so naturally it was a case of brainstorming, market research and back-of-napkin math.

I think in the public consciousness start-ups are perceived as being only as good as the idea upon which they are founded, and that if one could come up with a suitably novel concept (that would invariably disrupt some major industry yada yada yada), the transition to cashing in and living the rest of your life on a yacht is a straightforward one. In the tech industry though, it’s conventional wisdom that the idea is almost irrelevant, and execution is everything, hence why start-ups these days love a good pivot so much. Today’s exercise in idea-generation really brought the point home for me - ideas aren’t difficult, they’re a dime a dozen. Once you sit down and apply yourself for a little bit, viable products come thick and fast, and that’s incredibly reassuring. It means that none of us have to keep waiting to be struck by lightning and by transferred divine wisdom in the process, if you simply start executing on an idea, it will be good enough. Perhaps you’re not going to build a unicorn, but still, there’s a lot of unexplored ways in which technology can improve people’s lives, and I don’t have to be stricken by paralysis of choice as to which one to pursue.