No Pain, No Gain

We approached the second half of Garage48 event in Riga. What did we see?


      Just the idea of making something from nothing in 48 hours is challenging. But the actual execution is really tough and exhausting. It starts on Friday evening, when participants come to the venue, pitch their ideas, form the teams and wait for being accepted. And then, the real challenge starts. You have to find a room, get used to new ‘colleagues’ and most importantly, start to work on the idea.       

Is the name right? What platform should be used? How should the logo look like? How will we make money? And many more questions. This is even more challenging as it is all happening during the first night. Some do not sleep at all, some sleep just few hours. Then, there is Checkpoint #1, where you have to present what you have done in last ten or twelve hours. To be honest, the teams do usually quite well and Riga event is not an exception. We could already see some cool design and heard some improved ideas at the first Checkpoint.    

   While all this happening, the teams have to advertise and do some marketing. Tweets, Instagram pictures, Facebook posts and texts are ‘flying’ around. To make it even more difficult, the mentors start to walk around and ask tough questions. Sometimes you can have a feeling that you attended a barbeque as the grilling (questioning) is in progress. However, if you believe in your idea, you can get through the storm easily. The mentors are here to help, not to show off. Their comments will make you look at your product/idea from different point of view, which is more than helpful. We have ‘tech’ and ‘business’ mentors from companies such as Rubylight, GameInsight, MTGx and Microsoft in Riga.       

As you might have seen from our coverage, we had thirty six pitches last night and sixteen teams were accepted. These are huge numbers. And once again, they confirm one thing – Riga is probably the best place in Baltics to make a hackathon or start your business. Apps such as Best Friends Game for Facebook; Vintage Photo Camera app which will make literally an old camera from your new phone or Feel Riga which helps you to find the best events in Riga are being currently developed at Garage48 event in Riga. And there are more. You should watch the Live demo show tomorrow at 17:30 CET +2. In meanwhile, you can follow the Garage48 event on Storify.       

But it is not just hard work, it is also fun. And you also need inspiration. That’s why we had guys from QminderApp and Fastr Books. They did some amazing stuff. And we hope that others will be successful too. Stay tuned for more!   

You may also like

SPARTA CyberSecurity Hackathon: building solutions on the open-source software
For Garage48, the year 2022 started with a SPARTA Cyber Security Hackathon that took place on...
Read more →
SPACETECH EUROPE Online Hackathon: solving present and future challenges in space.
In cooperation with Garage48 and SpaceOn, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine has launched the SPACET...
Read more →
How we met the future female founders of Estonia, Latvia and Sweden
Over the weekend of 22-24th of October, 85 girls in the age of 15 to 18 across Estonia἞...
Read more →