Launching your website in today’s competitive market requires a platform that considers many factors including scalability, reliability, performance, and security. If you’re launching a complex web app, the total number of concerns only increases.

Velo by Wix is a full stack platform that alleviates these concerns and empowers developers to create web applications from idea to product. 

Our platform allows you to:

  • Build custom user experiences through a professional UI builder
  • Write Javascript on a serverless platform (frontend and backend)
  • Use integrated or external databases
  • Leverage third party libraries via npm modules, and Velo packages
  • Out of the box debugging and monitoring solutions
  • Collaborate seamlessly with your team using GitHub (Early access!)

Purpose and Goals

We invite you to use your creativity to launch an imaginary (or real) SaaS product using Velo. 

Software as a Service (SaaS) products are applications that are hosted remotely and serve multiple users. SaaS products tend to follow a subscription or usage based monetization model.

Your product should:

  • Solve a need for a target audience
  • Consider user experience 
  • Be in a market you are passionate about

By joining this challenge you will get a chance to learn about our platform while building your own SaaS product. 

How do I get started?

1. Brainstorm - What problem are you trying to solve? 

The best way to create a great product is to solve a real need. Use your personal and professional experiences to think of an idea. 

Your idea doesn’t need to be original! You can take inspiration from other services and make your own improved versions.

Some examples built with Velo:

Need: Creators need a place to easily share their content across platforms
Solution: Hopp.co

Need: An efficient way to transcribe video content for web accessibility purposes
Solution: deepscriptai

Focus Areas

  • Education
  • Productivity
  • Entertainment
  • Accessibility
  • Marketing
  • Community Building
  • Or anything else that interests you!

Technologies you may want to leverage:

Create your own metered API - Wix Http Functions
Securely call an API such as GPT-3 or DALL-E with Wix Secrets Manager and Fetch
Use an integrated or third party email API -  Wix Triggered Emails, Sendgrid Integration 
Use NPM Modules such as ‘@google-cloud/vision’ to classify images using machine learning - Detect Image Label

 

2. Find a Team (2-4) or Become a Solo Founder and join our discord community!

The best way to learn is to work together! Regardless of whether you choose to work alone or in a team we recommend you join our Discord Server.

We will be hosting various sessions, workshops, and challenges to help you grow your       technical skills for this challenge. 

You can also use it as an opportunity to network with our existing 1,500+ member developer community!

 

3. Start developing!

You are now ready to ship code. 

The Velo platform is available across our visual editors Wix.com and EditorX.com

Working solo?
Get Started with Velo by Creating a Site on Wix and Enabling Dev Mode 
Get Started with Velo by Creating a Site on EditorX and Enabling Dev Mode 

Working with a team?
Get Started with Velo by Creating a Site on EditorX and Enabling Dev Mode
Sign Up for the Github Integration Beta

Watch a walkthrough of the Velo development environment to learn how it works

Don’t forget to take advantage of Velo’s integrated Apps, Services and APIs. It’s required!

Some examples include: 

  • Storing player data: Using the Wix Data API you can have access to frontend and backend functions that allow you to use Velo’s integrated document based database. 
  • Associate players to their data: Wix Members Area is an app that allows you to create and integrate user accounts via an associated frontend and backend API.
  • Create real-time interactions: The Wix Realtime API can allow you to send data between your site and users in real time. This can allow you to create meaningful interactions in a more immediate way than querying and polling!

Hungry for more? Check out some of our courses for Velo on Wix Learn

Requirements

What to Build

Launch a SaaS product using Velo’s full stack development platform.

Project requirements:
  • Your submission must be a SaaS product
  • Your business and application logic must be primarily developed and hosted on the Velo Platform (External APIs and integrations are allowed and encouraged!)
  • Your project must utilize a minimum of 2 native Velo APIs. You must use Velo API/SPI’s when there is pre-existing Velo functionality for the service you wish to add.
    Example:
Bonus points:
  • Go to production! Build a real user base and get live feedback from your customers.
  • If you get customer feedback: Use it to improve your product. Tell us about your experience in your final video submission

 

What to Submit

  • Provide a URL to your working and published app
  • Provide a video (5-10 minutes) which includes:
    • A explanation of how your service works for your customer
    • An overview of your services architecture (Which APIs/SPIs/services did you use?)
    • A detailed explanation of how you integrated APIs and services within Velo to help you create your MVP
  • Provide a URL to your private or public Github repository. For private repositories please grant collaborator access to anthony-wix,tjimenezwix, and devposttesting.

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$27,788 in prizes

First Place

• $5000 USD
• 1-hour feedback session with Wix team
• Social promotion of project and team*
• 1-year Business Unlimited Premium Plan per team member (retail value: $384)

Second Place

• $2500 USD
• 1-hour feedback session with Wix team
• Social promotion of project and team*
• 1-year Business Unlimited Premium Plan per team member (retail value: $384)

Third Place

• $1000 USD
• 1-hour feedback session with Wix team
• Social promotion of project and team*
• 1-year Business Unlimited Premium Plan per team member (retail value: $384)

Honorable Mention (3)

• $500 USD
• Social promotion of project and team*
• 1-year Business Unlimited Premium Plan (retail value: $384)

Criteria Prizes | Best use of Velo Features

• $1,000 USD
• Social promotion of project and team
• 1-year Business Unlimited Premium Plan (retail value: $384)

Criteria Prizes | Best UX/UI

• $1,000 USD
• Social promotion of project and team
• 1-year Business Unlimited Premium Plan (retail value: $384)

Bonus Participation Prizes | Most Valuable Feedback (5)

• $100 USD

Only feedback submissions are eligible for this prize and will be judged based on completeness, viability, and potential impact.

Bonus Participation Prizes | Community MVP (15)

• $200 USD

Only community contributors that are also part of an eligible submission are eligible and will be chosen throughout the hackathon based on activity, content creation, support and feedback.

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

A qualified panel of judges

A qualified panel of judges

Judging Criteria

  • ✨ Grand Prizes
    View details on judging criteria here.
  • ✨ Criteria Prizes
    View details on judging criteria here.
  • ✨ Bonus Participation Prizes
    View details on judging criteria here.

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

Invite others to compete

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