Written by Pawel.

Setting the stage, introducing characters.

I’ve never been to a hackathon before. Neither has Joe. Ok, you face a problem: 2/3 of Leto team don’t really have an idea what’s what on a hackathon. What do you do? You panic and then you google. Usually you do this again and again, ‘rinse and repeat’ – that’s what I did. What you find is of course lists, slides, light-hearted tips & tricks, in the vein of “6 ways to win a hackathon”, “How to hack the hackathon” etc…

Regardless of how “meta” it sounds, I would like you to enjoy this humble account of our successful participation in the Re.Hack Unilever hackathon as much as we enjoyed the hack. Take your time with the idea and have fun. Surprisingly the latter is a lot easier if you are being bold – do it even if it feels scary.

For the impatient here is a video that sums up the whole event:

Tip 1: Solve the problem before the hackathon (or don’t).

The one piece of advice I read most often was to understand the problem before getting to the venue (ideally bringing a fully formed idea with you).

The issue with this approach was that we just didn’t want to do it this way. This was our first time, so we wanted to make it count and be inspired by the enforced time frame. In Joe’s words “catch lightning in a bottle”… yeah, but you don’t want to get burnt either.

Alex, our CEO, is a more seasoned tech veteran, so we decided to grab him for 30min the evening before the hackathon, pick his brain a little and get excited before the event. What has become a winning idea, started as a joke we were throwing around during this short session.

Tip 2: If you are not building your best idea you are wasting your time.

‘Joke’ is probably not the best word to describe it, it’s just that people are usually a bit scared of big ideas (I am). The phenomenon we were subconsciously subject to is probably more like what fiction writers like to call a suspension of disbelief. You don’t see anything out of place during a light sabre duel in Star Wars, do you? Contextually it makes perfect sense, it is a cohesive part of the Star Wars universe.

Last week I’ve learned that building an ambitious product prototype is not unlike creating a universe (as far as anyone can tell). You need to picture people using your product like it’s the most natural thing in the world. If it feels like Luke with a light sabre to you, don’t hold back–“Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.”

Tip 3: You don’t have to build a finished product! A.k.a Sellotape and Keynote is just fine.

On a 24 hour hackathon there is not much time for execution (especially when you build a universe at the same time, right?). Fortunately, thanks to our long and arduous creative brain storming process we knew that we had found the solution most naturally fitting the brief – this was our fuel. I have a feeling that this makes some of the bold ideas so powerful– a strong belief that’s left after you shake off the initial fear.

On a slightly tangential note: don’t jump on your first idea, take your time, you don’t have to build a finished product!

Tip 4: Make it fun for yourself!

 

We’ve had a wonderful, creative time, part of which was working with Rob Brown from Explainifyr, whom we met on the first day of the hackathon and who eventually became a part of our team.

The Brief

How do we influence the purchasing decisions of a personal care shopper to buy Unilever products before they reach a retailer.com site?

The Solution

The bold part is that we decided to “get physical” and build a hardware device. A prototype we built was a content delivery channel that is going to break the disconnect between consuming health and beauty related content online and acting on it.

Both of the above mentioned traits of our prototype stole the hearts of the jury and the audience.

This is what Philip Long, Director IT Sustainability at Unilever, said about our idea:

The winner really stood out. They looked at the brief and went: “how can we deliver this brief back to Unilever?”. It was an ecosystem that could be developed accross the whole of the organisation not just the personal care.

We’ve also captured a quote from Michael Hobson of 3beards, who organised the hackaton together with Hoxton Mix.

The energy at Re.Hack was intense and the ideas were brilliant – a truly great demonstration of what is possible in 24 hours when you have the right people. Congratulations to everyone that took part, and especially to the winning teams chosen by the Unilever judges. We’re happy for Leto to have won the hearts of the judges and also the community vote [...]! Truly a vision of the future.

Stay tuned, more on the solution coming soon.

All the thanks go to Unilever, 3beards, and Hoxton Mix for organising such an awesome event!