Shippers Ship
There’s coding - which is creating new software (which is something you do at jobs) and then there’s shipping, which is the act of cutting requirements, pushing deadlines, and getting new things live. They are distinct and related skillsets, but the later is MUCH more valuable and rare.
I didn’t learn to ship in school, or even doing side projects. I learned to ship here, at my college hackathon:
When I was studying engineering at CU Boulder, I helped organize the largest hackathon in the central US called HackCU. Every year we’d host multiple hackathons, raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from 20+ sponsors, and fly hackers from around the world to build for 36 hours straight. I also attended hackathons across the country, and most recently have won some major hackathons in San Francisco.
There are some distinct advantages to hackathons:
They force you to build something useful or creative (not a school or work project)
They give you a deadline
Most hackathons happen for 24-36 hours and you sleep there, but really, the last 4-6 hours of a hackathon are the most important. This is because it’s when you’re running up against the clock (usually also running on redbull) and you need something and the time limit forces you to choose. This is important because it’s the first time that most programmers and engineers will be forced to cut, not add, scope and really think about what is critical for your product. If you add too much, you don’t finish. If you add the wrong stuff, no one likes it and you lose. This means the work done in the last 4-6 hours of a hackathon is by far the most important.
Most students and programmers never get this experience, which is why so few know about shipping. There’s nothing like being under the gun with something important on the line.
It also tells you a lot about how to build startup teams. You want to demand intensity and long hours (but in sprints) and committed deadlines that force you to push products to prod. It’s the best way to really make progress.
PS: people also build fun stuff at hackathons. For HackCU 6 my favorite project wasn’t something serious. We had a modernized photo booth connected to our socials that would print out polaroid photos of attendees and post them to our instagram. Someone hacked it to every 1/3 pictures print a different “hide the pain Harold“ meme. Soooo funny.
