Want a Ticket to Etsy and Dwolla’s Hackathon? First You’ll Have to Solve a Puzzle

Nitasha Tiku — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 11:00:47 -0400

DIY marketplace Etsy and Dwolla*, a payments company, are co-organizing an Ecommerce Hack Day at The Hatchery in New York City in August featuring an impressive array of participants like Zappos, Constant Contact, Ordr.in, Sincerely, Twilio, Stripe, Gumroad, Kiip, and Busted Tees.

But to raise the bar for participants, the startups have thrown down a (mini) gauntlet.

Anyone who wants a "Developer" ticket will have to solve a puzzle embedded in the source code for the hackathon site. The first 200 people to solve it, get in free. "Let’s be clear," writes Alex Taub, head of business development at Dwolla, "We expect these to go fast."

Over the phone, Mr. Taub (formerly of Aviary) told Betabeat the idea was to be a little more discerning about who can get in. "Basically it's just hard enough that if you're a poser, you won't be able to do it," he said. "It you don't have a the chops to build something in 24 hours and do an API call, you wouldn't be able to solve the puzzle."

Participants will have 10 minutes to finish the puzzle. Because you have to enter you name and address, you won't be able to cheat and send the answer to friends.

Typically, Mr. Taub added, folks will get a developer ticket just to be there or recruit. But don't worry, designers, you can still get in, just not with a developer badge.

*Disclosure.

Betabeat » Want a Ticket to Etsy and Dwolla’s Hackathon? First You’ll Have to Solve a Puzzle

Want a Ticket to Etsy and Dwolla’s Hackathon? First You’ll Have to Solve a Puzzle