About the hackathon

$27.5k+ in winner prizes. Thousands more in participant credits and perks. 8 hours to speedrun your startup.

Brainbase Labs, Anthropic, Cloudflare, and Stripe are bringing together builders in San Francisco for the Startup Speedrun Hackathon.

The premise is simple: take a startup idea and get as far as humanly or otherwise possible in 8 hours. Build the product. Deploy the infrastructure. Set up payments. Give your agents tools. Find customers.

Winners get free incorporation and thousands in compute to kickstart their startup, and we are giving you the resources to keep going after the hackathon.

This hackathon is in-person at Cloudflare HQ, 101 Townsend St., San Francisco, CA 94107. Participants should plan to be onsite for the duration of the event.

Tracks

Three suggested tracks to get you started. They are prompts, not requirements: combine them, or build your own idea entirely.

  • Agentic Payments: Build agents that can transact, buy, sell, provision services, manage budgets, or otherwise interact with financial infrastructure autonomously.
  • Agents That Deploy Infrastructure: Build agents that can take software from an idea to something running in production: provisioning infrastructure, deploying applications, managing domains, configuring services, and operating the stack.
  • Autonomous Organizations: Build teams of agents that coordinate through surfaces like Slack, Linear, and other tools to accomplish a high-level goal: assigning work, communicating, making decisions, and executing with minimal human intervention.

Schedule (Monday, September 28, Pacific Time)

  • 9:30 AM: Kickoff
  • 12:30 PM: Lunch
  • 1:00 to 1:45 PM: Panel: Agents That Act in the Real World (Stripe x Cloudflare x Taste Labs)
  • 3:30 PM: Hacking ends and submissions close
  • 3:30 to 5:00 PM: Judging and deliberation

What a winning speedrun looks like

The ultimate speedrun might look less like a hackathon project and more like a company created in a day: agents writing and deploying software, coordinating work, interacting with customers, managing infrastructure, and moving money.

Get started

  1. Register for the hackathon on this page.
  2. Form a team of 1 to 6 people, or go solo.
  3. Build until 3:30 PM.
  4. Submit your project on Devpost before the deadline: a 2 to 3 minute demo video with your team on camera, plus a written description. See Submission Requirements for details.

Come with an idea. Leave 8 hours later with a startup.

Requirements

What to Build

A startup, taken as far as you can get it in 8 hours. Three suggested tracks are on the main page (Agentic Payments, Agents That Deploy Infrastructure, Autonomous Organizations). They are prompts, not requirements: follow one, combine them, or build your own idea entirely.

All code and product work must be done during the hackathon, on Monday, September 28, between kickoff and 3:30 PM Pacific. You may use any language, framework, model, or tool, including the sponsor credits provided at the event. Open-source libraries and templates that existed before the event are fine; a product you built before the event is not.

What to Submit

Every team submits one project on Devpost before 3:30 PM Pacific. Devpost is the only submission channel; there is no other way to enter. A submission needs:

  1. Demo video, 2 to 3 minutes. Show the product working. Your team members must appear on camera in the video, not just a screen recording. Upload it to YouTube (public or unlisted) or Vimeo and paste the link in the submission form.
  2. Written description. What you built, what problem it solves, how it works, what you got done in 8 hours, and what you would do next. Include the tech stack and which sponsor tools (Brainbase Labs, Anthropic, Cloudflare, Stripe) you used and how. Mention a track if your project fits one.
  3. Public post tagging Brainbase Labs. Post about your project on X or LinkedIn and tag Brainbase Labs: @BrainbaseHQ on X, or the Brainbase Labs company page on LinkedIn. Paste the link to the post in your submission. This is required for prize eligibility.
  4. Link to your code. A public repository, or a private one with access granted to the organizers.
  5. Link to the live product, if deployed.
  6. Team members. Add every teammate to the Devpost submission. Teams are 1 to 6 people.

Late submissions will not be judged. Submit early and edit until the deadline.

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$3,500 in prizes
1st Place
$2,000 in cash
1 winner

$2,000 cash from Brainbase Labs, plus $3,000 in Brainbase Labs credits, $2,500 in Cloudflare credits, up to $4,000 in Anthropic credits, and free Stripe Atlas incorporation plus $3,000 in Stripe credits.

2nd Place
$1,000 in cash
1 winner

$1,000 cash from Brainbase Labs, plus $2,000 in Brainbase Labs credits, $1,500 in Cloudflare credits, up to $2,000 in Anthropic credits, and free Stripe Atlas incorporation plus $2,000 in Stripe credits.

3rd Place
$500 in cash
1 winner

$500 cash from Brainbase Labs, plus $1,000 in Brainbase Labs credits, $1,000 in Cloudflare credits, up to $1,000 in Anthropic credits, and free Stripe Atlas incorporation plus $1,000 in Stripe credits.

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

KARTIK PANDEY

KARTIK PANDEY
Brainbase Labs

Milind Shah

Milind Shah
Brainbase Labs

Lauren Dai

Lauren Dai
Stripe

Pratik Mulchandani

Pratik Mulchandani
Meta

Anusha Acharya

Anusha Acharya
Midstream Health

Harshil Rastogi

Harshil Rastogi
1Dial

Sems Polat

Sems Polat
Luron AI

Judging Criteria

  • Progress in 8 hours
    How far did the team get toward a real, working startup in the time available? Is the product deployed, usable, and doing something end to end, or is it still a mockup?
  • Agent autonomy
    How much do agents actually do on their own? Transacting, deploying, coordinating, or operating the business with minimal human intervention scores higher than a chatbot with a nice UI.
  • Technical execution
    Does it work, reliably, in the live demo? Is the architecture sound for what it claims to do? How well are the sponsor tools (Brainbase Labs, Anthropic, Cloudflare, Stripe) put to use?
  • Startup potential
    Is there a real problem, a plausible customer, and a path to revenue? Would you keep building this on Tuesday? Bonus for evidence of a real user, signup, or payment during the event.
  • Demo quality
    Is the 2 to 3 minute video clear and honest about what works and what does not? Does it show the product actually running, with the team on camera, rather than slides?
  • Public post tagging Brainbase Labs (required)
    Pass/fail. The submission must include a link to a public X or LinkedIn post about your project that tags Brainbase Labs (@BrainbaseHQ on X, or the Brainbase Labs company page on LinkedIn). No post, no prize eligibility.

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

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