I gave away $1M to prove anyone can build with AI

The Chain Smokers kicked off the hackathon with an insane party. People are signing up by the thousands. Here's a quick recap of how we got here. This is the beginning of a new era. >> It's easier than ever to make money with AI. >> Right now is the time to harness the availability of AI. >> We're definitely in a gold rush. >> Let's do the biggest hackathon that there ever was. >> Yeah, let's do it. 66,500 submissions is the world record for like the largest hackathon. And so we're going to try and hit 67,000 submissions. >> How are we going to actually pull this off? >> I had been gambling for like years. I mean, everybody knew me as a gambler, but it was okay because I made a bunch of money. the things leading up to the hackathon. I lose my job right before I have my second child. Get a severance package and I lose the whole seance package. Gamble it all away. So, at this point, I don't have any money. Bills are due. But the prayer changed from, hey, God, I need some money like right now. I need I need some help to, hey, give me the strength to endure this cuz nothing lasts forever. Right after the Chain Smokers party, we went straight into execution mode with the hackathon. >> Are we ready to handle this? We've prepared a lot. You just you have no idea until until you actually uh kind of hit the starting line. >> A part of me actually still felt like, are we going to be able to pull this off? >> Every time you do an event like this, it's always extremely quiet and then once it starts, it's just like insanity. >> Morning guys. >> Good evening everyone. >> Hey guys, I hope you're going fine. We are building a project with Bolt for the hackathon. >> This is my idea. >> We're excited to show you how it works. >> I'm going to stop yapping and I'm just go going to go to work. >> Good luck to everybody and I will see you in 30 days. >> Like, oh my god, there's thousands of these applications coming in. I think we underestimated the demand. >> I decided to make an app that lets you design your perfect dream date. >> Park swap is like Airbnb but for parking. >> Today we're introducing real or rendered. My boat hackathon submission is story engine. >> I first heard about the hackathon when I was scrolling Twitter. Bolt hackathon came into my feed and uh I was working on an ops on demand agency listening to different podcasts. I just realized at the beginning of the year uh AI is going to eat all that up, right? So essentially I just decided to pivot completely. I completely sunseted all my clients, committed to like making no money essentially and just learning how to build apps with AI. >> First time using Bolt. I'm impressed. This is awesome. >> Here are some apps that I've created. >> There's four things that the judges are all looking for in all the submissions coming in. One is the potential impact. How big of a difference can this product make in the world and you know how big of a problem almost is this that's being solved here? And it's specifically this solution. The second thing that judges are looking for is the quality of the idea. We want to make sure that the ideas that are behind these apps are ones that are like pretty unique. The third thing is the technical implementation of the actual product. Why is this, you know, really well engineered and really well laid out and what different integrations is it using and it's a good example of how you build a really quality, you know, piece of software. The fourth and final one is design and the user experience. You want to build products that are not just okay to use, but you want ones that are like stunning. >> Let's be real, you can't have the world's biggest hackathon without the world's biggest prize pool, right? So, here's what we got. $90,000 for the regional awards, $100,000 for the bonus awards, $250,000 for the challenge awards, and $597,500 for the global awards. Over a million of non-dilutive funding for people to go do whatever they want with. I'd say that's pretty cool. >> I have a feeling that in the 10,000 there's going to be one or two that are like absolutely groundbreaking and novel. People started working on projects, creating solutions for everything you could possibly think of. My boat hackathon submission is story engine. It allows you to create, design, and grow self- evvolving AI universes where player actions ripple into world changing narratives. >> It's what? It's what? >> And I mean everything. Ever wonder how much your U time is really worth? I did notice that a bunch of people build games. I thought that was cool cuz there was like a light bulb moment where I was like, "Oh, I could not just be a consumer of games now. I can actually go and create games." And there was even a submission from a guy who created a video app I can't wait to use. Next time we make a documentary, I know the first job we can cut. >> There's a better way. The world's first AI end to end video editor. >> Now they give me more time to do all the things that I love. Good throw, man. Good throw. >> A lot of the things that folks were building were so uh deeply meaningful to the experiences that they have faced in their own lives and the struggles in their own lives. There's this gal named Zang. Zang, how you doing? >> Hi. >> You know, she's a mom. She's and she's never built software before. She's a new mom and there's not really a manual that you get when you have a kid. What Zang did is she actually built an AI agent that helps be like a coach and mentor to new moms. I was really shocked by because my website just come to life with just one prompt. >> One was from a guy. He had a problem with sports gambling. >> Benchstrap was created um to solve a problem I personally had when I was a addict. >> In the hackathon, what he built was an app that helps folks that have a problem with sports gambling to, you know, be on the straight and narrow. >> So, I wanted to find a way to reach a younger audience. Um do more than just track savings. Like, I want to kind of rewire some of the thinking. Not only is the the premise of the ad meaningful, but also like um that guy sharing his lived experience and story publicly just incredibly brave and and inspiring. >> Ultimately, this is built for the user. It's not built for monetization or anything like that. As you can tell, uh it's built to help and I hope uh Bench just does that. And Bolt has allowed me to kind of break down that barrier and reach more people. >> Isn't even about the apps or the businesses that people are creating. It it it it was really about the why. The project is essentially we let people offset their digital carbon emissions by planting seagrass. >> I built Ellis which is a voice AI agent um that is essentially like a AI social worker or case worker. Hi guys, I'm Alex and I'm 12 years old and I am participating in the bolt on new hackathon and I decided to build an AI therapist that can help you since I was experiencing burnout and like a lot of different emotions. So, I decided to build an AI that can also speak Gen Z for all of you brain rock kids. Hi, I'm feeling kind of depressed since my girlfriend left me. A bro, them feels are rough. Far, far. But remember, your main character energy. No cap. This setback might just be setting you up for a major comeback. Don't let this be a red flag in your life script. It's time to grind on self-improvement. You got to slay the self-care era vibes. It's all love here, bro. You got this. It was inspiring. I mean to see the stories and and and the stories that of why they were building what they were building. >> Millions of people including me have struggled with weight loss because app focus only more on workouts and calories. I wanted to build a platform that supports the entire journey. >> Sukell disease is a large fragment of my life I've had to journey with. This disease affects 8 million people globally. Allow me to introduce to you our app called Satu Circle Advocacy and Tracking Assistance. >> The global reach of this has been absolutely wild. I mean, I think almost every country in the world had people participating in this. >> We're live here in Koala Lumpur, Malaysia. >> We're in London. >> I'm based in Toronto, >> the south of Portugal, >> Bangladesh. >> I joined the hackathon because I really want to be around like-minded people that are really motivated to build just like I am. Here I am showing up every day to build and to learn from so many cool people posting the work. >> So I'm super excited to have the tools at my disposal now to create anything I can imagine. Uh this is really uh an amazing time to be alive. >> So I'm going to start a new series where I'll be building in public. Building in public is this idea that every feature that you ship, you're letting people know. What's up world? Serge here, developer from Toronto, Canada. Um, I haven't done one of these in a while, but I thought now would be a good time to start recording again. >> Yesterday, I got uh the formatting to work well. >> I think I have the prompt right now. >> The product is racing ahead. New features, new wireframes. >> Every dollar that you make, you're tweeting about it. >> We just went from $1 to5 a month consumer app to a enterprise level workplace communication solution. guys. >> Whatever you would share with your co-founder, your team, you share it with the public. >> Day one of building a revolutionary music app. >> I'm going to do the demo >> today. I built the creators conference landing page. >> There were even people who posted videos every single day of the hackathon. >> Hey, I'm Namesh. If you're new here, I'm trying to make $100,000 in the next 30 days in the world's biggest hackathon. And I'm documenting every day of that journey. It's day two, day three. That's it for day six, day 10. 15 days done and 15 days to go. >> Think about quitting every day. >> I should be focusing on finding a new job. >> There's no point in doing this. >> There's no way I can win any of the top finalist prizes. >> It's day 22, day 26. >> What if I get to the last day and I'm not even close. >> And I have been creating over the last 29 days will face its final boss tomorrow. I used bold more than 20 times every day for the entire last month. and it completely changed the way how I build websites. >> So, it's crunch time and there's a lot of things I need to do. >> So, the most challenging part of the hackathon was within the last few hours of the submission period. >> I submit my project at 2 minutes before the deadline and the app crashes and I lose my >> We did go viral. when we were trending on Axe and it was because everyone was just pushing to submit their projects onto Devost and we actually crashed the website because there were just so many people that were trying to submit their projects. >> I mean, I haven't been this mad in a very long time. >> I think a lot of people were like, I spent 30 days doing this thing, this better work, and I don't blame them. >> I was about to get in my car and just drive around cuz I was so mad. And so it was very tricky because at the end we were getting I mean floods of tweets of people just being like I can't submit and I've worked I've worked 50 hours 80 hours on my project like is there anything that you can do please? And so we were just kind of in a war room with the dev post team. We're like what do we do? >> Guy said don't get in that car just take a walk. I come back inside the house. My mom shows up. She goes did you get your project submitted? I said man you won't believe this. I did not get it submitted. She goes oh man that's a bummer. And then I get on Twitter and I start tagging dev post and say, "Hey man, all I know is you guys got to give us some more time. >> We want to make it fair for everyone." And so we did decide to extend the submission period by an hour so those folks could get their projects in, but it was very stressful. Uh there were a lot of responses coming through. And if you've been working so hard on a project for a whole month and you're trying to get it across the finish line but can't make it happen that that is so frustrating for them but also for us because we want to see those projects and we know people have been working so hard on them. So that was that was definitely a challenge. >> And I got my project submitted but if I would have gotten my car and drove around I would have never got my project submitted >> and that's it. >> The hackathon has been amazing. >> It was really fun. >> This is my submission. I can't wait to see how far this really goes. >> At the time of the start of the hackathon, I think we had around 40 to 50,000 uh builders that had signed up or were ready to rock and roll. >> The world record for the largest hackathon. Prior to this hackathon with 66,000 people on day one, we crossed that number. At the end, we had over 130,000 people and over a million new web apps were created in in that 30-day period. >> They say, "Shoot for the stars and you'll land on the moon." It's like we shot from the stars and we landed like way past the stars in another galaxy. >> The hackathon is officially over. 30 days ago, I had no product. I had never built my own full stack web application on my own. And I also had no baby. And now 30 days later, I have both. And I couldn't be happier. >> Woo. I'm getting emotional right now, guys. Hot diggity dar. We have done it. >> It was a hard month. But today, finally, my app, it's officially left. Yes, >> my app's done. It's complete and it's submitted. I can't believe honestly how far I bought it in the space of 19 days. I'm going to bed. It's 3:00 in the morning. It's bedtime. >> Oh my god, there's thousands of these applications coming in. How are we going to actually get through all these applications? >> The judging process takes essentially 3 weeks to go through 10,000 plus submissions. >> I felt bad for the judges. For example, Addi Osmani, engineering leader for Google Chrome, and Alex Albert, the head of developer relations at Anthropic, or Evan Yu, founder of Void Zero and creator of View and Inve Logan Kilpatrick, leads product for Google AI studio. These are some of the busiest people like on the planet like solopreneur legend Peter Levelvels and Jason Calcanis and the All-In podcast. And people like Sarah Guo, founder and investor of Conviction, don't have a lot of available time. So, I was just like thinking, "Oh my god, like they got to figure out a way to get through these applications." So, that was another piece of anxiety that I had. >> All of our judges really have different perspectives. They come from different backgrounds and so I'm really interested to see who the winners actually are going to be. >> I thought the design and user experience was pretty decent. >> Thought it was a fantastic idea and submission. >> I've seen this project a number of times, so I would judge it uh more on like how well they used Bolt. Sometimes it's helpful to see how far we've come. Let's just take a second here. Kickoff by the Chain Smokers. 130,000 people have entered the hackathon. Melted servers, a million apps, and a million dollars are about to be given away. Hello. Welcome to the conclusion of the world's largest hackathon. And with that, we're going to go to the top 10 winners here of the hackathon. At 10th place, we've got Health Plan AI won $10,000. It's a web app with an AI voice agent that helps users understand and find the right health insurance plan for them using real-time data from the federal market. >> We got number nine, Bored Opposite, which turns boring math into fun. In the AI era, math is your edge. Is math boring? Nope, it's not. Number eight is Legion. Legion. Join thousands of men building better lives through structured missions, brotherhood support, and weekly challenges. Really inspiring app and product and mission. Congratulations on getting eighth place. >> Number seven, Model Nash. Amazing. So, you can easily test different LLMs and find the best one for a specific cast. >> Number six is Call Vance. They also won the startup challenge, bringing the total winnings to $45,000 today. and they automate AI powered voice calls to confirm appointments and update statuses in real time. >> Number five, you have Ecobolt. This is one of those boring ideas that people need. So, it's a comprehensive IoT monitoring system for agricultural environments. At number four, we have Quinnbot, the ultimate CRM SAS for commercial cleaning companies to streamline your operations, track your teams in real time, and grow your cleaning business. really well done, really well designed and executed. And that brings us down to the final three. These are these are the the big prize winners here. And let's go ahead and start off with the third place winner. >> Keyhaven 50 G's. >> Keyhaven is an all-in-one API key management analytics product. From tracking usage across multiple services to automated rotation notifications, Keyhaven does it for you. >> Are youing me? Are you me? What? >> Very cool. Congratulations to Key Haven. Like really well done. Excellent execution of the idea on that. So, $50,000. Number two. Who won number two? Second place goes to Weight Coach. The second place champion, $75,000. They also won the 11 Labs AI voice challenge. So, total winnings today, $100,000. Weight coach lets you scan your groceries with your camera, plan meals with your voice, and cook with confidence. All powered by intelligence that learns how you eat. >> Hey, Sergy. Ready to cook some delicious grilled chicken with vegetables. Let's get to it. >> This is a good example of just an app that a lot of people need. Uh, and I think would be really hard to do on your own. Like, I've done this. So if you try and you know track your dieting whatever have you. I think the inclusion of AI whether we can just talk to this thing really makes it different. The final reveal who won first place in the largest hackathon ever done in the world. Taylor >> L. >> Oh my Oh my goodness. My whole family's downstairs. You can hear him. You did good ma. You did good. I appreciate it. >> You did a great job. Okay. So tell us tell us a bit about your app. So tell us about Taylor Labs. >> Okay. So perfect. So I had the idea of what is the hardest thing I can build. So something that can edit my videos from start to scratch. >> There's a better way. The world's first AI end to end video editor. >> Congratulations, man. Welld deserved. Welld deserved. Was really mind-b blown. You know >> congrats, my man. The craziest part about this entire thing is that I cold turkey quit my gambling addiction. God was like, "Hey, I want to give you more, but you're not taking care of me cuz if you don't, I can't keep giving you stuff." And my relationship has completely changed with money. Stop gambling cold turkey. And boom, right after I stop gambling cold turkey, I get wired $100,000. >> That's actually not quite the end of the excitement. You know, Greg, I think we there's there's one other really cool thing. The winners are going to be in Time Square featured on a billboard, which is insanely cool. That those billboards are expensive. That's free advertising. >> 1 2 3. >> I'm very proud of the team. We pulled off the world's largest hackathon within only a few weeks. The whole reason I did this dock series is because I believe that this is a historic moment in time. AI allows you to take what's in your head and build something. Build something with superhuman intelligence. It is remarkable. I believe millions of people who wouldn't be entrepreneurs are going to be entrepreneurs. And if I inspired at least one of you to take the jump, to get inspired, to be motivated, to see what's possible, I achieved my goal. Welcome to the AI Gold Rush.