Creator Economy Hack - powered by You.com | 500 USD Cash prize
📋 Event Description
Creators are the fastest-growing small businesses on the internet, and most of them still run on spreadsheets, DMs and vibes. Come build the tools that fix that.
Join GenZtea and localhost:nyc for a one-day, in-person hackathon where builders and creators team up to ship AI products for the creator economy, powered by You.com's real-time web search APIs.
Problem Statement
Every creator is a one-person media company: researcher, writer, editor, marketer and sales team. The tools haven't caught up. Build an AI product that helps creators make better content, grow faster, or get paid, using You.com to ground it in what's happening on the internet right now.
The Challenge Theme
Idea to Post: turn a voice note, a messy idea or a link into a post, script or thread, informed by what's trending right now
Trend Radar: spot what's about to blow up in a niche and tell creators what to make before everyone else
Creator Business: brand deal finders, sponsor pitch writers, rate card builders, media kits that write themselves
Research Desk: research agents for video essays, podcasts and newsletters, with real citations so creators never post something false
Anything else that helps creators make, grow or get paid
What to Expect
A kickoff demo on building with the You.com APIs (search, research and live web context for your app)
6 hours of high-energy building
Builder + creator teams: creators from the GenZtea community join teams, bring real problems and test your product live
Teams of 2 to 4, or come solo and we'll match you
Food, drinks and good energy all day
Live demos at the end in front of creators and investors.
Prizes
🥇 1st Place: $500 cash
More prizes and You.com API credits to be announced
To qualify, every project must use the You.com API, live in a public GitHub repo, and be shared in a demo post on LinkedIn or X tagging You.com, localhost:nyc and GenZtea.
Judges
TBD
Who Should Attend
Creators who want to build the tools they wish they had
Engineers (full stack, backend, frontend, AI)
Founders and aspiring founders in media, consumer and creator tools
Designers and product people who ship fast
Anyone curious, ambitious and hands-on
You don't need a finished idea. Just show up ready to build.
Sponsors
You.com is the leading AI search infrastructure — built for developers. Our APIs let you build intelligent agents and applications that use live, factual data from the web, news, and research, in real time. With just a few lines of code, you can power your LLMs with up-to-date, citation-backed results instead of static training data.
[More sponsors to be announced. Want to sponsor? Email somyag00@gmail.com]
Hosts
localhost:nyc: Making NYC the biggest startup ecosystem in the world.
GenZtea: A community for Gen Z founders, creators and investors.