I'm getting ready for Ecommerce Hack Day,, which means I won't sleep tonight (due to teh Phagwa party which ends at 4am) as well as Tomorrow night ( it's a sleep over hack) i'll be honest i was seriously considering NOt attending! The reason... hacks are fun way to flex your tech muscles but I had been commenting on how many great ideas, that could help society were left abandoned... such a shame! Then I came across this venture beat article and Alex's comment ... see my response below.
But I really eliev that a great team shoul include back end developers, Front end developers, Individuals who know the niche , a professional Business consultant/ and or a brand consultant!
And along the way everyone should be asking "where's the money at?" , since the revenue model will ultimately shape the business model and the tech development!
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I'm going tomorrow but PRAYING this Hack is about developing solutions! The reason Most hacks do NOT go further is that while many hackers may "know the difference between binary, base64, and JSON, and can make AJAX calls" they do not know the sector they are hacking in this case "sales", and bringing Sales online is about more than product organization and a cash register! Many never have had any experience selling! But Hackers are "Artist" of code and like most artist are Not really interested in the day to day running of a business so their winning hacks are left abandoned... check the hacks from MusicHack Day, Photohack day and videohack days in NY. Secondly even though the ideas may be great and the hackers may mean well on the day of the hack, however there is no post event structure to see potentially great hacks develop... We won Best Use of An ApI at Fashion Hack Day NY with an idea I know stylist can use, Good luck trying getting the members of an adhock team to communicate after a week! I'm attending tomorrows hack... I know selling and sales in my niche: businesses need ecommerce solutions that work, I've tested several ideas around ecommerce in the field yet... hacks are about coding and successful business needs more than good code!
