Closing keynote delivered at HackZurich on October 12, 2014 in Zurich Switzerland. Lasting products have a solid team building together towards a shared goal. Hackathons and meetups are a great way to find team members who will compliment and push you to become better developers, designers, and product managers. Hear examples from Silicon Valley projects that started as side projects and became life changing projects and why being a hacker for life will keep you fresh and valuable.

1. FROM HACKATHON TO STARTUPS
BUILDING PRODUCTS
FROM FRESH IDEAS
CHRIS TRAGANOS
DEV RELATIONS, EVERNOTE
@CTRAGANOS

3. Evernote Zürich
Walchestrasse 9, 8006 Zürich, Switzerland

7. @fossil12
@KamilPyc @Binary_Brain

8. YOU BUILT A PROTOTYPE
NOW WHAT?

9. EXAMPLES FROM SILICON
VAL LEY AND BEYOND
DREAM BIG!

10. SIDE PROJECT
TWITTER

11. TWITTER
• Jack Dorsey was a lead Ruby
developer at Ev William’s
startup ODEO
• He hacked together a
prototype for short message
protocols via SMS
• Many bug fixes later, it
becomes the central hub for
social media
• Now its a Multi Billion Dollar
Public Company

12. “Make every detail perfect and
limit the number of details to perfect.”
–JACK DORSEY

13. BUILDING THE PRODUCT FOR YOURSELF
HACKER LEAGUE

15. HACKER
LEAGUE
• 3 developers identified a
need
• Keeping hackathons
organized and tracked
• Give devs and designers a
place to show off work
• Acquired by Intel /
Mashery

16. COLLABORATION BETWEEN TEAMS
INSTAGRAM / HYPERLAPSE

17. INSTAGRAM /
HYPERLAPSE
• Built prototype for video
stabilization clips
• Team shows working
prototype to CEO
• Impresses company, they
make it a stand alone app
• Adds value to overall
Instagram strategy

18. REMEMBER THE
KEY FACTORS
• Product Market Fit &
Customer Interviews
• Minimum viable product
• First launch experience
• Mobile first
• Mentors on topics
• Team building

19. REMEMBER WHY YOU ARE HERE
TO SOLVE PROBLEMS

25. STAY FRESH
NETWORK & LEARN

26. NEVER LOSE SIGHT OF THE END GOAL
STAY INSPIRED

29. “The very first company I started failed with a great bang.
The second one failed a little bit less, but still failed.
The third one, you know, proper failed, but it was kind of
okay. I recovered quickly.
Number four almost didn’t fail. It still didn’t really feel
great, but it did okay.
Number five was PayPal”
–MAX LEVCHIN

30. MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS
THANKS!
CHRIS TRAGANOS
DEV RELATIONS, EVERNOTE
@CTRAGANOS