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Hackers welcome [The Roanoke Times, Va.](Roanoke Times (Roanoke, VA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 27--BLACKSBURG -- Here's one way to expand a business. Earlier this month, Lujure Media Inc. invited outside developers to come to company offices and build Lujure a software accessory for designing Facebook pages -- the company's specialty. They had to work as quickly as possible. Food, drink, work stations and an Internet connection were provided through a Friday afternoon and into the night. Saturday afternoon, barely 24 hours later, a winner was selected. The company awarded that developer $5,000 -- a form of payment for the new accessory. In the quick-turn fashion of technology-based industry, Lujure launched the accessory before an online audience at 7 p.m. Sixty sold. Gross revenue: $8,820. Not bad for 28 hours of effort. From Silicon Valley to Southwest Virginia Competitive coding, coupled with rapid introduction of fresh goods to the marketplace, is a new approach to business in the region. "This is the kind of stuff they do in Silicon Valley. It's just amazing to see it coming out of our region," said Greg Brock, president of Firefli Media in Roanoke and an event judge. For the initial coding competition, Lujure, which is run by three college-age entrepreneurs, used a development technique that's become mainstream in technology hotspots for its ability to generate new ideas and solve problems quickly -- perhaps in hours. Still new to Southwest Virginia, hackathons, or competitive programming events, have taken place only twice around here, both times in Blacksburg during the past 45 days. One man, Hussein Ahmed of Blacksburg, won them both. Some are predicting there will be more. "It is almost a sport for many people in the development community, an opportunity to compete and showcase their talent in a very fun and electric environment," said Derick Maggard, who directs the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council. Who might hold a hackathon? Any firm or organization wishing to tap external creative horsepower. In addition to relying on a hackathon for its latest product, Lujure immediately turned to the marketplace to see if it was any good. This general approach reflects what David Catalano, president of Blackburg digital advertising company Modea Corp., said he casts as "the speed of modern day business." Design a new product. Ask customers to buy it, all in essentially one motion. The process illustrates "the rapid feedback/learning loop that we need in today's fiercely competitive market. Push something out, see if it sells. If it does, double down and maximize the business value, if it doesn't -- move on to something else," Catalano said. Bob Summers, a Blacksburg-based entrepreneurial investor, said medium to large software companies have used codeathons or hackathons for decades to motivate programmers and spur innovation. "A more recent phenomenon is the creation of public-facing code-a-thons or start-up weekends. Teams come together organically to solve a problem or create something new based on some set of challenges," Summers said. "These are popular and are getting good results -- innovation is happening!" The pros of hackathons outweigh the cons Peter Morano runs Hackatopia, a Chicago-based site that furnishes programmers with a compendium of events, resources for finding teams and other essential hackathon information. When he founded Hackatopia in December 2010, he was able to identify and track about eight to 10 competitive hackathons monthly -- not counting any closed company events. Today, his global database contains an average of 55 monthly. "It's clear the numbers are trending upward at an amazing pace," he said. It seems clear that the pros of hackathons -- winning a prize for rapid problem solving -- outweigh the cons -- such as committing a major chunk of time to develop goods that may end up belonging to somebody else. All the big names in tech, such as Google and Facebook, hold in-house hackathons; Facebook held one the night before its recent stock offering. The Like button was invented at one. Group.me and Docracy were born at a hackathon series by TechCrunch called Disrupt. Lujure belongs to a growing universe of companies building upon Facebook. The University of Maryland said Facebook has spawned a Facebook "app economy" and estimated more than 50,000 people write software for Facebook apps. Lujure, which has been in business only a year and a half, scored a success early on when it was mentioned in Facebook for Dummies. Lujure lets users "build custom Facebook Page tabs in a nice, WYSIWYG interface," the how-to book says. The company was recently booking revenue at a rate of $100,000 a month, said Nathan Latka, CEO. Employment, now at 10, is expected to rise to 25 by year's end, he said. The main room at company offices at 902 Prices Fork Road in Blacksburg (former Modea space) is decorated with blond and silver furniture and accents such as a structural beam painted orange. On May 11, it was still buzzing from an earlier announcement of $550,000 in venture financing secured by Lujure. Latka addressed a roomful of coders who had shown up with Lujure's hackathon challenge: build one of several possible accessories to improve Lujure's Facebook page-design software. Soon, teams were starting to form. To sustain the energy, house music played through the speakers. Sub sandwiches were on the counter in the kitchen. "It sounded like a dance club," Brock said. Then the groups got down to work, huddling in privacy around laptops. The office stayed open all night. Going in, there was risk. The company had shared with outsiders a wish list of programming needs to improve its product lineup. What if the results fell flat before invited media and guests? In the end, there was paydirt aplenty for the little tech firm. Four teams of non-employees worked at company offices May 11 and 12. Then, their solutions were judged. The judges liked all the entries; they recommended all receive a prize of some sort. Company officials were elated with the number-one pick of a panel of judges. "There's some smart people in and around Blacksburg, that's for sure," said Lujure co-founder Josh Gunter. But would it sell? Event quickly turns codes to currency Lujure was about to find out. It had previously announced an online infomercial to unveil what it called a remarkable improvement to its Facebook page-building toolbox. Shortly before 7 p.m., members of an online audience were registering for the company's event. Their names appeared in a directory of guests on Latka's computer screen, which was projected onto a wall. There was somebody from Athens, Ala., one from Gilbert, Ariz., and a person in Washington state. There was "Jenn from Chicago" and somebody from Montrose, Colo. Several people lived overseas. By this point in the evening, the crowd at Lujure had dwindled to about 10 people. Ahmed, the winning coder, was there, seated close to Latka. Gunter looked at fellow co-founder Brian Putt. "Let's take bets on sales," Gunter said. "I'm going to go with 30," Putt said. Some 152 people were tuned live when Latka began. "I got to believe you guys want what I'm going to show you," Latka said. Like his oversized, capsule-shaped microphone, Latka was commanding and colorful. In shirt sleeves and jeans, he seemed comfortable addressing the audience. He told them that Lujure's big announcement was the addition of an accessory -- a separate buy at $147 that enables a Lujure subscriber to easily convert his or her Lujure-enhanced Facebook pages for mobile viewing. Latka called the price little more than "a month's worth of vente peppermint mochas." He said the software was designed in Southwest Virginia, "the hottest tech community nobody knows about." At 7:08 p.m. came a potential problem: the software appeared to fail with the demo just getting started. The screen flashed to code. Latka, who has used webinars before and is facile in the format, calmly switched viewers to a generic screen and briefly muted his mic to summon Ahmed to his keyboard. Latka began to fill dead space with eloquent allusions to the utility of the new product as Ahmed fixed what he later said was a not a glitch in his code but with the interface with Facebook. Soon, Latka was back at the controls. He chatted with Jan, a children's author and illustrator, by giving her a moment to address the webinar with her mic unmuted. "This is really incredible, really incredible," she told him. Now 250 people were in attendance. They were typing mostly supportive comments. One who appeared to be tiring as the preliminaries ran to almost 20 minutes, wrote: "Dude, it's Saturday night." Finally, Latka gave the all-clear to buy. Eleven sold during the first minute, according to a counter on a screen that tallied up unit sales and gross revenue. By the end of three minutes, Lujure had covered Ahmed's $5,000 in prize money. The rest was gravy. Ahmed sat in awe. "It was staggering," Ahmed said later. "It's the fastest monetization I've seen." But people kept buying. The stated limit of 10 available at the $147 price was exceeded. Ten minutes after sales began, the webinar ended with 60 units sold. Latka stood up from his work station at the end of the marathon, two-day, business-growing process, during which he slept virtually not at all, and untucked his shirt. Money was zipping through electronic channels toward company accounts. "You're a rock star!" he hollered at Ahmed. Coder is 'a rock star' BLACKSBURG -- As competitive coding gains traction in the Blacksburg technology community, Hussein Ahmed has emerged as the man to beat. Ahmed has won both of Blacksburg's two recent hackathons. He originally went for social and professional connections. He then ended up collecting $7,500 in prize money, has laid the foundation of a new company and is receiving invitations to talk at conferences. Ahmed, 32, of Blacksburg is a software engineer at VTLS Inc. in Blacksburg, a library automation software company. Born and educated in Egypt, he said he entered the first local hackathon to meet more people in the local tech community and hear such speakers as Aneesh Chopra, former White House chief technology officer. The Hokie Health Code-a-thon was held April 13 and 14 at TechPad, organized by Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council and the Virginia Tech Entrepreneurs Club and sponsored by Health 2.0, a company that hopes to expand use of information technology in medical care. Ahmed, the only competitor to work alone, won the event, which he described as a challenge to make innovative use of government data related to health care. He hatched the concept for a company he is going to call HeyRecall, which sends custom alerts to subscribers about drug recalls. The prize was $2,500. He met his goal to connect. He met, among others, Nathan Latka, CEO of Lujure Media Inc. When Blacksburg-based Lujure sponsored its own hackathon May 11 and 12, Ahmed entered. Working alone again, rather than within a team, he won the Lujure hackathon by coding the best improvement to the company's Facebook page-design software. The prize was $5,000. Ahmed's edge includes his ample education. He said he holds three advanced degrees -- a master's in computer engineering from Arab Academy for Science and Technology in his hometown of Alexandria, Egypt; and a master's and a doctorate in computer science from Virginia Tech. He said he is working on his master's in business administration through online courses offered by Indiana University. A website detailing his professional and personal tastes states, "I really like the challenge of laying down an architecture of complex, highly scalable systems. I believe that a neat architecture makes all the difference." Since his success, he has accepted an invitation to two major events. He's been asked to join the innovation expo planned at the state convention of the Virginia Democratic Party in Richmond next month, meeting people and telling his story. A few days after that, he's accepted an offer to exhibit his success at the Health Data Initiative Forum III, nicknamed The Health Datapalooza in Washington, D.C. "In recognition of your outstanding performance in the code-a-thons, we would like for you to be a part of this fantastic event," his invitation read. ___ (c)2012 The Roanoke Times (Roanoke, Va.) Visit The Roanoke Times (Roanoke, Va.) at www.roanoke.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |