Build Your AI Co-Founder Hackathon
You bring the idea. Build the AI that makes it happen.
The Challenge
Build Your AI Co-Founder is a hackathon where you build and ship a company with a founding team of 2–4 co-founders, combining humans and AI.
Every team must have at least one human and one AI co-founder. You decide the rest—including who takes which role, what you build, and how your founding team works together.
AI co-founders can take any role: CEO, CTO, Product, Marketing, Sales, Research, or anything your company needs.
The goal is to experience what it means to build a real company with AI as part of the founding team—from idea to execution to a shipped product.
Optional Tracks
Build It - Launch the business
Take an idea from concept to a launch-ready business.
Example:
“I want to start a food truck.”
Your founding team researches permits, insurance, costs, suppliers, branding, operations, and creates a launch plan.
Fund It - Raise capital
Build the strategy and materials needed to raise funding.
Example:
“We're building an AI healthcare startup and need $500K.”
Your founding team identifies relevant investors, researches investor fit, builds the pitch, prepares outreach, and creates a fundraising pipeline.
Sell It - Get customers
Turn your idea or product into real customer conversations and revenue.
Example:
“We built software for dental clinics.”
Your founding team identifies potential clinics, researches prospects, creates personalized outreach, runs sales conversations, and aims to secure the first pilot customers.
Grow It - Acquire users
Build and test a repeatable way to attract users or customers.
Example:
“We launched an app for independent creators.”
Your founding team identifies the target audience, develops positioning, chooses growth channels, launches campaigns, runs experiments, and measures results.
Make It - Build the product
Turn a problem into a working product people want.
Example:
“Small businesses struggle to manage appointments.”
Your founding team validates the problem, defines the MVP, designs the experience, builds the product, gets feedback, and iterates.
Run It - Operate the business
Make a real business run more efficiently.
Example:
“Our cleaning company manages 50 jobs through spreadsheets and text messages.”
Your founding team builds systems for scheduling, customer requests, worker coordination, inventory, reporting, and automation.
Make it Profitable - Improve the economics
Understand how the business makes money and improve its economics.
Example:
“I want to open a coffee shop.”
Your founding team models costs, pricing, customer volume, margins, break-even, cash flow, and different business scenarios.
Make it Matter - Create impact
Build or scale something that creates meaningful social or community impact.
Example:
“Our nonprofit wants to expand a job-training program from 30 to 100 people.”
Your founding team identifies funding, partners, participants, volunteers, and resources, then builds a plan to expand the program and measure its impact.
Your choice - Build your own mission
Don't see a track that fits your company? Make your own.
How It Comes Together
The company is up to you. The co-founders are up to you. The roles are up to you. The track defines what you want to accomplish.
For example:
Company: AI bookkeeping platform
Co-founders: Human CEO + Human CTO + AI Product + AI Sales
Track: Sell It
→ Build the product, find potential customers, run outreach, and aim to secure the first paying customers.
Or:
Company: AI travel startup
Co-founders: Human Product Lead + AI CEO + AI Growth
Track: Grow It
→ Build the product, define the target audience, launch growth experiments, and acquire the first users.
Or:
Company: Developer productivity tool
Co-founders: Human CTO + AI Product + AI Marketing
Track: Make It
→ Validate the problem, build the MVP, test it with developers, and ship a working product.
Choose your company. Build your founding team. Pick your mission. Then go build.