Hackathons for people who don't code
from Product Build Day // Podcast Hosted by Marcin Klimaszewski
A day of building teaches you the tools. Delivering a better product takes a decision and a test. Inside a company, a hackathon is worth it when it ends with both. What you'll hear: What happens to hackathon projects afterwards What I changed after the first of four September evenings in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Berlin Products that came out of hackathons that took a year and a half to decide What helps a hackathon project survive inside a company How to design a company hackathon backwards When a day of play is enough Try this week: write a one-page plan for a company build day, backwards from the decision, and send it to the person who decides before you send a single invite. Next episode: Which skills matter now that everyone can build? I'm Marcin Klimaszewski and I run Product Build Day. Send me your question on LinkedIn, and it might become an episode. Sources: Hacker News: Are hackathons still worth doing? (19 February 2026) OpenBSD: Hackathons Devpost: World's Largest Hackathon (2025) Michael Matloka: Running hackathons, startup and scaleup edition (30 May 2026) Nolte, Chounta and Herbsleb: What happens to all these hackathon projects? (CSCW 2020) TechCrunch: Zuckerberg's letter in Facebook's S-1 (1 February 2012) Atlassian: From ideas to impact, the story of ShipIt (14 January 2025) Fast Company: How Facebook designed the like button (15 November 2022) Pe-Than and colleagues: Corporate hackathons, how and why? (Human-Computer Interaction) Product Build Day September tour: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Berlin
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