In 2021, Miami was having a moment. Tech founders were moving south, crypto was booming, and the mayor was tweeting "How can I help?" But something was missing: a place for builders to actually build together.
Miami Hack Week started as an experiment. What if instead of one centralized hackathon, we created a federated network of hacker houses across the city? Fifteen houses, each with its own theme and community, all building simultaneously for a week.
The Idea
Traditional hackathons have a problem. They're centralized. Everyone goes to the same venue, works on the same schedule, competes for the same prizes. This works, but it also limits what's possible.
“What if the hackathon wasn't a place, but a permission structure?
The idea was simple: instead of bringing everyone to one location, we'd bring the hackathon to where people already were. Partner with existing communities. Let them run their own houses. Give them the resources and the framework, but let them make it their own.
The Model
Each house had a theme. There was a crypto house, an AI house, a climate house, a creator house. Each had its own sponsors, its own mentors, its own vibe. Some were in Wynwood. Some were in Brickell. Some were in people's actual houses.
The Structure
Fifteen houses. One week. Thousands of builders. No central venue. Just a shared deadline and a shared purpose.
The houses were connected but independent. They could collaborate or compete. They could share resources or keep to themselves. The only requirement was that they build something and present it at the end of the week.
What Happened
The model worked better than we expected.
Thousands of engineers showed up. Projects got built. Companies got started. But more importantly, something shifted in the city's culture. Miami started to feel like a place where you could build things, not just talk about building things.
The federated model created something that a single venue never could: a sense that building was happening everywhere, all at once. You couldn't walk through Wynwood without running into someone working on a hackathon project.
The Difference Between Events and Movements
I learned something that year about the difference between organizing an event and creating a movement.
An event is logistics. You book a venue, you line up sponsors, you manage the schedule. It starts and it ends. People come, they participate, they leave.
“A movement is permission. You create the conditions where people feel empowered to do something they wanted to do anyway.
Miami Hack Week wasn't really about the hackathon. It was about giving Miami's tech community permission to be a tech community. The hackathon was just the excuse.
The Backers
We were backed by Founders Fund, Softbank, Ramp, Atomic, and Craft Ventures. This mattered, but not for the reasons you might think.
The money helped, obviously. But what really mattered was the signal. When serious investors back something, it tells people this is real. It gives them permission to take it seriously.
On Credibility
Sometimes the most important thing backers provide isn't capital. It's credibility.
What We Got Wrong
We got plenty wrong. The first year was chaos. Communication between houses was inconsistent. Some houses thrived while others struggled. The demo day was a logistical nightmare.
But the mistakes were instructive. They taught us that the model needed more structure in some places and less in others. They taught us that community leaders need support, not just resources. They taught us that a federated system requires different management than a centralized one.
The Lesson
The lesson of Miami Hack Week isn't about hackathons. It's about what happens when you give people permission to build together.
Most of the time, the barriers to building aren't technical. They're social. People don't know who else is working on similar problems. They don't have a deadline to force them to ship. They don't have a community to hold them accountable.
“The job isn't to build things for people. It's to create the conditions where people can build things together.
Miami Hack Week created those conditions. And once they existed, people did the rest.
What's Next
Miami Hack Week continues. Each year it gets a little bigger, a little more refined. But the core insight remains the same: the best way to build a tech community isn't to import one. It's to give the people who are already there permission to become one.
I think about this a lot. Not just for hackathons, but for everything. How do you create permission structures? How do you lower the barriers to building? How do you turn a collection of individuals into a community?
These are the questions I keep coming back to. And Miami Hack Week is where I first started to find the answers.
