on StartupBus Florida, July 2019.
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We’re about a week and a half away from Wednesday, July 27th, when four buses — one from here in Tampa Bay, along with buses from Cincinnati, Silicon Valley, and Mexico City — will start a three-day journey to Austin Texas.
During those three days, the buses’ riders will be participating in a hackathon, where they’ll be challenged to:
- Come up with an idea for a startup business
- Develop a plan for that startup
- Work on a pitch for that startup
- Develop the software for that startup
We’ve got a lot of idea, business, and design people on this year’s StartupBus Florida, but we need more developers.
This is a call to developers in the Tampa Bay area and beyond to join StartupBus Florida. You don’t have to be from Tampa Bay or even Florida to ride StartupBus Florida — you just have to be up for a hackathon, road trip, and personal growth all rolled up together!
You don’t have to be an genius-level coder; you just have to know how to code!
our StartupBus 2019 app Hyve on StartupBus Florida, July 2019.
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I’ve participated in and organized plenty of hackathons, and I’ve seen so many people resist participating because they believe that they’re not good enough coders. I think that if you can code, you’re good enough — and more importantly, participating in a hackathon can make you a better coder!
Here’s the thing: in a hackathon, you’re not coding a full-fledged app in its final form. You’re building a prototype application that demonstrates what would be possible if you had the time and resources to build a full-fledged app in its final form. You’re building the thing that makes the difference between a startup idea and a startup reality.
If you’re unsure about joining StartupBus Florida as a coder, ask yourself these questions:
- Can I program a basic web, mobile, or desktop application that can respond to user input?
- Can I make that application save data to and retrieve data from a database?
- Can I make that application make use of an API?
- Can I figure out new things by asking questions and Googling?
If you can answer “yes” to questions 1 and 4, as well as answer “yes” to either questions 2 or 3 (or both), you should join StartupBus Florida as a coder!
Can you code a back end in Express, Flask, or Laravel? You should code on StartupBus Florida.
Can you code a front end in React, Next, Vue, Angular, Svelte or any other framework? You should code on StartupBus Florida.
Can you write a mobile app in Swift, Kotlin, Xamarin, Ionic, or React Native? You should code on StartupBus Florida.
“Okay, I’m convinced. When does everything take place?”
- The bus ride: StartupBus starts with a 3-day bus ride that runs from the morning of Wednesday, July 27 to the early evening on Friday, July 29 when it arrives in Austin, Texas.
- The pitch competition: The final two events happen in the destination city, with the semifinals on Saturday, July 30 and the finals on Sunday, July 31.
- Travel back home: You’re responsible for your trip home from Austin. I’m flying back on Monday, August 1.
“How do I sign up?”
Sign up on the StartupBus “Apply” page, select “Florida” and use the code JOEY22.