Hackathons and incubators, which were originally reserved for up-and-coming tech entrepreneurs, are now opening their doors to blockchain projects.
Bitcoin and Blockchain fanboy market and the news spy
Of course, the blockchain sector is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, the advent of blockchain hackathons and startup incubators has brought about a major change in the adoption of this technology.
The previous strategy of many Bitcoin companies was the news spy to first address the Bitcoin and Blockchain fanboy market. The hope in this business strategy is to gain enough momentum to be accepted by the mainstream.
Scott Robinson, Vice President of Plug and Play Fintech, Scott Robinson, as the founder of an incubator, has met a number of startups who want to revolutionize existing technologies based on the blockchain. He believes that this strategy will not work:
„Ultimately, the channel through which a novel financial application reaches many customers is through the major players in the financial landscape.
The Accelerator Plug and Play
Entrepreneurs in the Bitcoin and blockchain sectors have recognized these problems. They hope that hackathons, which are often organized by large companies in the financial sector, can be used to build networks with them.
The fact that hackathons are helpful in building such networks has long been recognized by startups in other industries.
The Accelerator Plug and Play helps startups to do this and has been working in this context since 2014 with 96 very young companies, many of which are still in the start-up phase.
However, the work of the Accelerator is also worthwhile for large companies: cooperation with hackathons and incubators helps them to come into contact with a new type of technology without having to make large investments of their own. This also allows their established business to grow.
More and more large companies are taking advantage of this opportunity. Capital One, to give one example, organized a hackathon in San Francisco in July 2015 together with Chain. At this event, 70 employees were flown in to work together with Blockchain experts on blockchain-based solutions.
Hackathons like Capital One’s „bring those who know a lot about finance, but little about the blockchain, together with their counterparts, the blockchain experts without a large financial background,“ says Robinson.