--- tags: bolt.fun --- # Part 3: Building Your Hackathon with Modules ![](https://i.imgur.com/bnClCGg.png) Before you organise your virtual hackathon, you should first sort out what your desired outcomes are. Based on these goals, you can use a varying number of event “modules” to build the core of your online hackathon’s schedule and calendar. Focused mainly around onboarding, education, community engagement and building, event modules will help you stay organised whilst driving up participant engagement and hacking success. *We split events into 2 categories:* **Workshops & Tutorials** Focused around maker onboarding and education, these types of events provide participants with the skills required to be a successful hacker. Talks and keynotes (conference style) can provide inspiration of ideas, whilst more technical workshops and tutorials dive deeper into applying practical skills and mindsets. **Community Hosted Satellite Events** During our longer format hackathons (tournaments), we provide different community members and groups the opportunity to host their own “satellite” events. This encourages local engagement and community ownership during remote events, whilst continuing education and onboarding efforts. ![](https://i.imgur.com/xmMTB8V.png) ## Workshops / Tutorials Onboarding makers is usually the most challenging part of hackathons and online events. Not everyone enters at the same level of knowledge and skill. Most participating hackers are bitcoin developers who build in their spare time, designers, and project managers. To help them learn and accelerate their onboarding process into building successful products, we recommend hosting online workshops and events from industry professionals. You can focus your workshops and tutorials on specific topics that match your event description (e.g. Nostr), helping participants achieve your desired end goal or outcome. *For example, if the goal of your event is to onboard 100 new developers into lightning web development, consider hosting workshops around topics like WebLN, LNURL, WebBTC, etc.* ![](https://i.imgur.com/RD6qo1B.png) ### Development Workshops Development workshops provide hackers with more information and training on how to implement particular software, or combine multiple to solve a problem. These workshops are very technical and require some prior understanding of other coding languages or tech stacks. Developer workshops are a great way for companies to onboard new talent into their own ecosystem and open-source community. Here is an [example of a development workshop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT9MiC5pQh8&t=2s). *Development topics include:* - How to set up your local developer environment - How to use {Company X}'s API - How to use tailwind styleguides - How to build on Bitcoin's testnet - Bootstrapping liquidity into your lightning web app ### Design Workshops The design of applications often plays a huge role in the successful adoption of technologies, ideas, and concepts. At our virtual events, we place a huge importance on design and encourage event organisers to do the same by hosting design sprints and workshops for all types of hackers (designers, developers, PMs). This way you will attract a wide range of talent to your event and you will have a diverse set of opinions during the early planning phase of your product life cycles. To quote Christoph Ono, “design is a great planning tool.”, and can help teams formulate ideas and align their efforts towards building a specific feature, application, or solution. We agree with you, Christoph! Here is an [example of a design workshop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsq9JUCiW8A). *Design topics include:* - How to use Figma - How to plan your MVP build - How to use design kits & UI libraries - How to build a working design prototype - How to test your product on users and get fast results ### Growth Hacking Workshops Growth hacking, or business development, is an essential piece of the product lifecycle. If you’re looking to encourage participants to take their projects beyond their initial ideation and concept phases and to build an actual product or business, then these workshop types are important. Here is an [example of a growth hacking workshop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFLumZ_qIJA&list=PLTIjqo3gXzjkrYD3YgKkl2Snl1eKXCNTG) *Growth Hacking topics include:* - Problem Definition & Value Proposition - Product Market Fit & MVP - Go-to-Market Strategy - Branding & Marketing Strategy ### Funding Workshops & Deal Rooms If your hackathon or event looks to encourage participants to form teams around longer-term, sustainable projects, we recommend providing some workshops on how to approach funding. This could be through forms of private investment, such as equity or shared ownership, VC funding, or grants and crowdfunding. If the project will look to raise capital, it would be worthwhile to provide further information on company formation and incorporation. What’s more, you can even connect participants to investors directly through Deal Rooms or ‘Pitch Days’. These give hackers and founders the opportunity to pitch their projects to funding experts in order to receive valuable feedback for future meetings or to invest directly into their ideas. *Funding topics include:* - How to build your pitch deck and business plan - How to approach investors - How to incorporate your business - How to decide equity amounts and deal structures - How to raise funds through grants :::info If you host your hackathon with us, since we are well connected with the top VCs and accelerators in the space, we would be able help funnel the top projects to them. ::: ### Mentorship & Checkin Sessions Throughout your event, participants will benefit from close monitoring and mentorship. This aids accountability for participants, and gives you accurate insight into how teams are progressing in their formation and project design, development, and acceleration lifecycles. There are several ways you can run mentorship sessions within your virtual hackathon: **1-to-1 Mentorship** Assign a hacking mentor for each team. The hacking mentor can be on hand to answer any event or product related questions. We recommend finding a suitable mentor that has relevant industry or product experience. **Expert Mentorship** Another approach is to have mentors who are experts in a particular area or field, available for Q+A from any team or participant. This could either be at a set time of day, or asynchronously via online chat applications or discussion forums. **Group Mentorship** Group mentorship reduced the amount of contact hours mentors are required to have. This approach is especially useful when mentors have other commitments and/or aren’t being compensated for their time. Mentors can be available for large group calls for 1 or 2 hours once per week. Hackathon participants can join a group call and form breakout rooms around certain topics or blockers that mentors can help with. ### Design & Code Reviews Design and code reviews enable teams to form close relationships with a working professional or mentor (or set of mentors) in order to receive feedback on their project. Design reviews enable refinement around UI/UX feedback, formulating user journeys and flows, sketching wireframes, and more. Similarly, code reviews are useful for development teams who are looking to optimise their codebase, unblock an issue, or integrate a particular set of technologies or API requests. You can run review sessions with an individual or a group. Individual feedback sessions will provide a more direct and focused approach, whilst group feedback might provide participants with a more diverse set of opinions and eyes. If you opt for the latter approach, make sure to have a defined leader of the session to make sure things stay on track. > **Bitcoin Workshop & Tutorial Ideas** > 1. Introduction to Bitcoin: What is it and how does it work? > 2. Introduction to Bitcoin's Lightning Network > 3. What are LSPs? > 4. Boostrapping Lightning Node Infrastructure > - How to provide liquidity to your lightning web app > 6. Stack Specific Intros, Tutorials, and Payments > - Introduction to WebLN > - Value4Value Payments & Online Economies > - Introduction to LNURL > - Introduction to Lightning Address > - Introduction to Taro > - Introduction to LNC-web > - Introduction to LSATs > 7. Design workshops > - Using design sprints to map, decide, and sketch your hackathon's focus > - How to use the Bitcoin Design Guide > 9. Growth Hacking Workshops > - Problem Definition & Value Proposition > - Product Market Fit & MVP > - Go-to-Market Strategy > - Branding & Marketing Strategy --- ## Community Hosted Satellite Events Throughout your hackathon, consider putting on different “satellite” events, hosted by either you, companies, or members and meetup groups within your wider community or network. These types of events are better suited to longer format events, and help take some of the organisational pressure and cost off your team. *Before asking others to host satellite events (workshops, discussions, feedback sessions) on your behalf, we recommend providing straightforward information about your event along with branding and marketing assets, to willing organisers.* ![](https://i.imgur.com/ZpgCLit.png) *Some examples of these types of community events include:* ### Twitter Spaces Bitcoin Twitter is a place where a lot of discussion and outreach takes place. Think about organising online Twitter spaces that allow your participants to engage in open conversation, debate, and idea formation. These are also good for public announcements and key event details, etc. ### Discussions & Webinars Expand your audience and participation by asking different communities and companies to host online or in-person discussions and seminars. ### Masterclass Workshops Get different members from your community, willing participants, or external companies and stakeholders to host masterclass workshops for hackers on a specific subject or technology suite. ### Social Meetups Encourage local bitcoin meetups to organise their own community events and give makers an opportunity to network, discuss ideas, form teams, and begin building their projects. ### Conferences & Hackathons For larger tournament style events, try to team up with other hackathon or conference organisers in order to cross promote your events. Your participants could learn from conference talks and workshops, or they can even take part in smaller weekend hackathons to help them form teams, generate ideas, incubate and accelerate their projects to achieve a larger goal. ## Piecing it All Together Once you have come up with ideas for event modules and begun organising them with hosts, you can begin creating your hackathon’s event schedule by dropping these modules into a calendar. Make sure to clearly communicate key event details with participants, as well as to promote and market early. If your event is online, you will also need to decide on a video recording options and software providers, as well as social channels to livestream your content to. ![](https://i.imgur.com/7gAyL6t.png) **Key Event Details** You will need to decide on the following event details and communicate/market them clearly to your audience: - Event Name - Event Date & Time - Event Host (+ Representing Company) - Event Link & Streaming Platform (if online) - Event Description and Series Theme **Streaming Software** If you’re running your event online, it is worth exploring different streaming providers that suit your team’s budget and feature needs. We run our streams through [Streamyard](https://streamyard.com), using their pro plan. This way we can customise our graphics, stream live or recorded videos to multiple social channels (Twitter, YouTube), record content, and host up to 10 unique guests anytime. **Display your event schedule online** Once you have successfully created your hackathon’s event schedule, display it on your event’s homepage and have it visible to any participant looking to take part. --- ***Interested in running your own hackathon?** Our platform can help teams create tailored events that market key event details, allow participants to register, form teams, and submit projects whilst tracking their progress. Interested in learning more?* Contact us **Up Next:** [Prizes & Judging](https://hackmd.io/V6I6OF4rTdOBktZQIBxdyQ)