On June 21, 2024, we held a Farcaster Writing Hackathon, what I believe to be the first event of its kind. In this post, I share the concept for the hackathon and how it was organized.

The purpose for the hackathon was to create a mechanism to bring together thinkers and writers from across the ecosystem to contribute to the Farcaster canon, solve current challenges within the community, and help create Farcaster’s future.

As a venture backed startup, Farcaster (the protocol) & Warpcast (the client) has one job: find product market fit. As founder Dan Romero often says, unless Farcaster grows by several orders of magnitude, it’s just a science experiment. Dan’s strategy for finding PMF has largely been focused on developers. Because Farcaster is an open protocol on a blockchain network, as opposed to a corporate walled garden, it allows literally anyone with an internet connection to build clients, apps, or APIs on top of Farcaster data. If Farcaster were merely trying to mimic the functionality of existing social networks—X, Facebook, Reddit, TikTok, etc.—there would be no reason or incentive for anyone to use it, and it would be dead on arrival. However, the ability for anyone to build anything on top of an open social graph means that the killer app is likely something very different from the social networks we’re familiar with. Accordingly, developers have been getting a lot of love on Farcaster: there have been hackathons, grants, developer calls, etc.

One of the reasons I love Farcaster so much is the strong developer culture. Not a week goes by without a developer somewhere in the world building and launching something new on top of Farcaster - a new app, client, API, frame, dashboard. The best part is it’s all done permissionlessly - the developers have no formal relationship with the core Farcaster team. There is an open invitation for anyone to come and build.

Because of Farcaster’s desire to find PMF through developer creativity, developers have had outsized influence over the Farcaster roadmap. The easiest way to get Dan & Varun’s attention is to build on Farcaster. CTO & cofounder Varun hosts bi-weekly calls for developers and encourages developers to contribute to the protocol through Farcaster Improvement Proposals or FIPs.

This is all to say, developers are treated like royalty on Farcaster. With a background in engineering, I love to see it! Developers deserve their elevated status.

However, I’ve observed other types of builders who are just as passionate about Farcaster’s success. This hackathon is for one such class of builders—the writers.

Jesse Pollak, founder of Base, has said, “Writers and editors are builders too.” Colin Armstrong, founder of Paragraph, added that writers and editors are builders of ideas, knowledge, truth, and community. Steve Jobs once said, “The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.” Mario Gabriele, founder of The Generalist, launched a VC fund on the promise of narrative power.

Farcaster has not yet found product market fit. Success is not guaranteed. All early users have a unique opportunity to make an impact and help create the future we want. Yes, developers have had significant influence and opportunities to make an impact, but writers are builders too. The idea for the hackathon was to give voice to the writers.

The Writing Hackathon was imagined as a way to bring writers together to publish a ton of Farcaster content en masse, leveraging Onchain Summer and network effects to create a PR blitz for Farcaster.

The set up for this first writing hackathon is fairly simple. We created two tracks: one in person in NYC, and one for remote folks using Gather. We provided 4 topics/themes for people to choose from, and people could participate as individuals or groups. The actual hackathon event was Friday, June 21, which gave people an opportunity to come together, share ideas, and meet new people. The deadline for publishing was set to be one week later, on Friday, June 28.

There were 2 simple rules people must follow:

1. Everyone ships (publishes)

2. Must be onchain

Farcaster Tutorials
Practical “how to” guides for any audience or any topic.  Reach new users, new developers, new communities, etc. Make onboarding easier. Make building on Farcaster easier.   

Reaching Non-Farcaster Audience
Essays to reach new users as well as companies and brands. 

The Future of…
This one is for the big thinkers.  Imagine Farcaster in 10, 25, or 50 years from now. What does it look like and why does it matter? 

Why I love Farcaster
Personal essays about what you personally love about Farcaster or why you are here

This first writing hackathon was organized by a small team of volunteers and supporters:

• Adrienne (me) and YB were the core organizers and ran the IRL track

• Ted (not lasso) and Nounish Prof organized and ran the virtual/URL track

• Variant, Base and Paragraph partnered with us and provided office space, tons of food, and will be helping with distribution.

• There were about 20 people who RSVP'ed for the NYC IRL track and more than 50 in the URL track. Thank you to all the writers who leaned into the first hackathon and are making it special.

After the submission deadline, everyone is encouraged to post and share their work as widely as possible. The hackathon organizers will also be sharing and promoting select essays throughout the summer. Select essays will also be consolidated into a digital and physical booklet.

There is already talk about holding writing hackathons in the future on regular intervals. Follow /writinghackathon for updates.

"The best way to make a better future is to imagine it and then write it down"