Hacking on Rd.io at Spotify - Change Game Plan

This is part of my experience when I attended the Spotify NYC hackathon, way back in the day.

As the API I wanted to hack on wasn’t easily usable for me within the first hours of the hackathon, I looked at other sponsor’s APIs at the hackathon.

I learned Rd.io - a direct competitor to Spotify - at the hackathon and they had an API to use. I met the developer evangelist and he spent an hour with me to get me going on the API. I felt confident I knew the API as I could start toying with it.

This brought up an interesting question. To hack on the main sponsor’s API OR hack on the direct competitor??

From my hackathon experience - I have found:

• Hacking on a hackathon’s main sponsor API is good, because they are the largest sponsor and would have the best prize.
• Not hacking on a hackathon’s main sponsor API is good, because there would be less competition for the prize.

In this situation - I knew everyone was going to use the Spotify API, so competition would be high and I didn’t even have an idea.

I switched strategies to developing a hack for Rd.io’s API where there would be fewer competitors and I would have greater access to Rd.io’s developer evangelist when I get stuck.

This provides competitive advantages