Hacking on Rd.io at Spotify - Competitive Advantages

This is part of my experience when I attended the Spotify NYC hackathon, way back in the day.

One great aspect of hacking on the Rd.io API instead of the Spotify API, is I had greater access to the developer evangelist. They flew in from San Francisco and planned on staying the whole night.

I hacked on an API where the developer evangelist was in San Francisco and I was in NYC.

Having the developer evangelist on-site the whole hackathon and available to ask for help changes the game.

Did you know, the developer evangelist attending a hackathon is the person that helps everyone, they also get to decide who has the best hack?

By working with the developer evangelist at a hackathon, you gain a competitive advantage:

• you have the best resource to access the company’s APIs
• they have visibility into any ideas you share with them to validate feasibility
• they can judge your idea for longer than the one minute pitch at the judging part of the hackathon

If you want to “win” a hackathon, get to know the developer evangelist(s)!

At the same time, hackathons are more than winning