Entrepreneur Events Spotlight: AngelHack

July 13, 2017 by - Entrepreneur Events Spotlight, Startup Stories

angelhack

Attending our hackathons doesn’t just make you a part of our community, but makes you a better entrepreneur with more opportunity.

angelhack

Kelsey Ruiz

Name: AngelHack

Website: AngelHack.com

Event: Global Hackathons

Interviewed: Kelsey Ruiz, Media Relations Manager

This article is part of our Entrepreneur Events Spotlight featuring entrepreneurial events from around the world. We hope these interviews will inspire and motivate you as you undertake your own entrepreneurial journey.

In four sentences or less, tell us about your event and its objectives.

Over the years AngelHack has seen teams of coders, designers and entrepreneurs from around the world become whole developers, watched as their thoughts become things, and proved that anyone can code through Hackathons and early-stage idea acceleration. So, for our 10th Global Hackathon Series, we’re asking our developer ecosystem to Commit To Your Code, as we scour the globe for the top 1% of hackers, turning elite hackathon projects into startup realities.

Why is AngelHack unique? Please describe the benefits.

AngelHack, a female-owned, female-majority company, is the world’s largest and most diverse global hacker community, helping to drive open innovation of tech products, platforms and brands with extraordinary smarts, scale and speed. Known as pioneers of global hackathons for more than three years, AngelHack’s more than 65,000 developers, designers, and entrepreneurs compete to build, test and launch new solutions over the course of a weekend.

Though we are halfway through this year’s 53-city Global Series we still have 16 more events before the winning teams are inducted into HACKcelerator (kicking off August 7th).

Looking for an Accelerator? Try the Find My Accelerator Tool.

This year, we will be concluding our 10th Global Series with our largest event of the Series in Silicon Valley, and new stop, Honolulu, Hawaii – both on July 29th-30th.

  • Honolulu, Hawaii is a not only a new city for AngelHack, but a new state! We have been wanting to explore the tech scene and community there for sometime, and when interest for events there increased we knew it was time to head to the Aloha State. This will also be the first-ever hackathon at the brand new Impact Hub in Honolulu.
  • Every year we conclude our Global Series in Silicon Valley, this year we are upping our game with a brand new venue; Draper University in San Mateo. We also have secured top-tier mentors and highly experienced judges to help select the best prototype to accelerate.

What difficulties did you face in the early stages of event development?

Understanding a new tech community and which venue locations would work best/be interested.

What do you find most appealing about working with people who are interested in your event?

Being that this is the first time AngelHack is entering #StartupParadise it’s not only fun but informative to work with people that are interested in the event. The best part about meeting people that are excited about bringing this opportunity to their peers is learning the ins and outs of their unique tech community.

Tell us about your success stories.

Hackathons are the perfect atmosphere for rapid innovation. Our developer ecosystem creates, builds, and launches new apps, or hardware in just 36 hours. This environment allows developers, designers, and entrepreneurs to be creative, and create amazing technology that we then later help push to market with our HACKcelerator program.

Which are the most interesting event winners? In your opinion, have they been successful?

From Estonia, to Sri Lanka, to Mexico City and all around the globe we’ve had some major successes that have come from our hackathons, and HACKcelerator.

  • Testlio went through our HACKcelerator, and also spoke at our Annual Global Demo Day a few years back. The founders are both business partners, and husband and wife. They won at AngelHack London, underwent our HACKcelerator program and now are rapidly expanding in San Francisco. They have been written about in TechCrunch, and named Top 100 Estonia Brands of 2017.
  • HypeHash turned the hashtag from a social media trend into a business platform –  another awesome startup that came out of our 9th Global Series in 2016. HypeHash won in Sri Lanka, went through our HACKcelerator and pitched to Guy Kawasaki and 150+ tier-one investors at Global Demo Day. Since then, they have gone on to attend Mobile World Congress Barcelona, and Menorca Millennials, and was also featured in documentary Seed streaming on Amazon Prime.

How has your event benefitted the attendees?

I’ve heard so many stories from the AngelHack community about how they have met their cofounder, best friend, or significant other at one of our events. Beyond an awesome opportunity to network, attending one of our hackathons is also a great chance to learn new skills, learn the art of how to pitch, and build your own startup. At AngelHack, we are firm believers that great startup founders have skills beyond just technical. They have business knowledge, pitching skills, and know how to balance work and personal life. Attending our Hackathons doesn’t just make you a part of our community, but makes you a better entrepreneur with more opportunity.

What are the three most important factors people interested in attending your event should consider?

  1.  AngelHack helps facilitate team formation.
    You don’t need to have a team, or have to know anyone attending to participate! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen an entrepreneur, even non-technical business Devs come out without a team, and win the whole thing! At the close of the opening ceremony you will have the chance to pitch your idea and/or your skill sets. So, you can feel comfortable attending alone. You may even meet some new friends or your future co-founder.
    What Elements Create a Perfect Team?
  2. Pitch Practice with AngelHack.
    For years we have been traveling all over the globe, finding the best tech talent, and accelerating winning ideas. We’ve seen countless demos and pitches, and as a result have seen first-hand what works best. At each of our events we host a pitch workshop with all the tips and tricks we’ve collected from around the globe.
    How To Improve Your Pitch
  3. The Grand Prize: entrance into our invite-only accelerator (HACKcelerator) focused exclusively on early-stage startups.
    This is a 12-week curriculum that allows you to work with other startups and founders from around the world. As a cumulative end to our program, each year select teams are given stipends to fly out to San Francisco to represent their city and pitch their startup to 150+ tier-one investors, and prolific figures in tech.

If someone is interested in your event, what should they do?

Sign up with code: startupetsu for 100% off tickets!

To see if we’ll be stopping in your city, visit:

Are you familiar with other events you believe should be spotlighted? If so, we would like to hear from you. Tell us about them, sharing your comments below! 

Dave Clark