How Devfolio is helping Matic build a thriving developer community
An account of how we helped Matic Network in their endeavor to build a strong developer community by partnering with us in our hackathons!
Most developers in this day and age have a sea of companies, initiatives, and projects vying for their attention with each trying to convince them that spending their time and effort either working for or building upon their projects is worth it. Beyond having a kickass product and comprehensive documentation, the key ingredient that some of the most iconic tech companies in the world like Google, GitHub, and Twilio have discovered is engaging the developer community effectively. Matic Network is one such company that has realized the importance of building a strong developer community early on, and we at Devfolio being community loving folks at heart couldn't be happier to help them in their endeavor.
What is Matic Network?
Matic Network, hereafter referred to as Matic, is a Layer 2 solution spearheading mainstream adoption of blockchain by making transactions lightning-fast at scale and making the decentralized ecosystem more user-friendly for the masses. With Matic, users can have a seamless interaction with the decentralized world without any need to understand the complexity of the underlying system.
Here's how we found common synergies with them to push the developer ecosystem forward!
Matic @ Devfolio official hackathons
Even before Devfolio came into being as a state-of-the-art hackathon platform, the team behind it has been involved in organizing India's most loved community hackathons, starting in 2015. Since then, these hackathons have evolved into India's biggest and most anticipated hackathons, and Matic has made an effort to be an active participant at them in the recent editions in addition to curating bounty tracks worth thousands of dollars.
ETHIndia 1.0 and 2.0 - Asia's biggest Ethereum hackathons
The first edition of ETHIndia in Bangalore in 2018 was the event that brought us in touch with the Matic team. Though not a household name in the crypto space yet, the commitment of the founding team (Jaynti Kanani, Anurag Arjun, and Sandeep Nailwal) who attended the hackathon in-person to help developers #BUIDL amazing dApps was apparent even back then. Anurag Arjun wrote the "Newbie Guide to Blockchain Programming" ahead of ETHIndia to help budding developers take their first steps into the world of Ethereum development.
With a maturing Ethereum community in 2019 and the most talented hackers in attendance, ETHIndia 2.0 saw a record number of hacks (close to 1/3 of the total) getting built on Matic. Matic also hosted a dedicated Dev Lounge for the entire duration of the event for hackers to enable discussions on the future of the decentralized ecosystem in a relaxed setting. Check out the entire recap of Matic's time at ETHIndia here.
InOut 5.0 and InOut 6.0 - India's biggest community hackathons
InOut is one of India's most anticipated annual tech events that sees massive interest from the developer community. In October 2018, InOut 5.0 received 4500+ applications from across eight countries! Recognizing the value of connecting with developers through community hackathons, Anurag from the Matic team came down to Bangalore to mentor the hackers through the 30 hours of hacking.
This hype only grew a year later with 5398 passionate hackers applying to hack at InOut 6.0, and the Matic team dedicated their time to guiding and mentoring hackers throughout the hackathon on everything from Blockchain 101 sessions to 1-1 sessions. Here are recaps of their time at InOut 5.0 and InOut 6.0.
wmn; - India's largest women-only hackathon
Devfolio and Matic realize the importance of promoting gender diversity in tech. The wmn; hackathon did this by bringing over a hundred talented female developers under one roof in June 2019. Sayli and Ateeta from the Matic team were present to encourage these hackers to explore the decentralized ecosystem.
Co-hosting the Game Oasis Hackathons with Matic
One of the most exciting use-cases of Blockchain has been its integration into gaming infrastructure, and this was the inspiration that helped transcend the Game Oasis hackathon series. Devfolio helped Matic co-organize the Bengaluru edition of the hackathon by hosting the hackathon on the Devfolio platform, taking care of the entire on-ground logistics for the event. For the San Francisco edition, Devfolio enabled the hackathon to take place as an in-person + virtual hybrid hackathon with hackers from around the world building integrated blockchain games. The in-person mentorship efforts by the Matic team ensured that a large number of teams ended up integrating Matic in their projects.
Matic as Devfolio Hackathon Season Partner
At @maticnetwork we hv been ecosystem focussed from get go. We pledged $500 (10% of our entire raise) to Developer fund. Many teams hv received support from us already
— Sandeep Nailwal-Matic Network (@sandeepnailwal) November 22, 2019
We also participate in organizing @ETHIndiaco with @Devfolioco team and have conducted 40+ hackathons in <1yr
As exemplified by Sandeep's tweet, Matic is committed to building the blockchain developer ecosystem in India. Seeing the potential of student-run hackathons supported by Devfolio, Matic decided to join in as our hackathon season partner.
Since Devfolio's public launch in early 2019, for every university hackathon in the Indian subcontinent (including one in Nepal) that Devfolio has hosted on its platform, Matic has been a part of each of them by default. Some of them at premier technical institutes across India have been:
- iHack - IIT Bombay
- DotSlash - NIT Surat
- Hackfest - IIT Dhanbad
- Hack On Hills - NIT Hamirpur
- Hack in the North - IIIT Allahabad
- HackIIITD - IIITD
- HaXplore - IIT BHU
- Syntax Error - IIT Roorkee
- Hackout - DAIICT, Gandhinagar
- Hack-A-BIT - BIT Mesra
- HackOff - VIT Vellore
- HackVerse - NIT Surathkal
Hackers at all these hackathons have the chance to get mentored on Ethereum and Matic online or in-person, grab Matic's prized schwag, opportunity to get interviewed for internships or full-time roles and a shot at winning up to $300 prize money per team!
Devfolio takes care of Matic's entire hackathon association and logistics efforts. From arranging appropriate online and offline branding to shipping schwag and aiding the evaluation and prize distribution process, we do it all on behalf of Matic so that they can focus on engaging with the participants at these hackathons.
Key Benefits for Matic
While many believe the benefits of participating in hackathons for companies are usually intangible, Matic has gained immense value from engaging with the developer community.
Positive Brand Association and Recall
Hackathons have proven to be the best way to build a positive brand image in the minds of the next generation of developers. Participating in a large number of student-run university hackathons through Devfolio apart from Devfolio's own official hackathons has resulted in high brand recall value for Matic. Matic schwag being given away and branding being prominently displayed at each hackathon has only compounded this effect. Matic's active presence in these hackathons has paved the way for hundreds of hackers to start their journey with the Ethereum ecosystem and then eventually build on Matic.
Devfolio brings in the stickiness for the platforms like Ethereum by capturing the developer journey from an entry level blockchain engineer to a Ethereum veteran in one place which creates a deep connection between the developer and the platform. - Sandeep Nailwal, Co-founder & COO
They've done a lot of hiring from these hackathons
Hackathons are magical events where a diverse set of builders, makers, dreamers, and doers converge. A fun fact that we're super proud about is that a good number of the Matic team members originally learned about Matic through Devfolio hackathons and eventually joined the Matic team!
Devfolio has been really helpful to us - in terms of both as a hackathon partner, as well as helping in hiring directly. Partnering with them on hackathons has really helped in brand recall for Matic amongst college students, and that spurs them to apply to Matic later on. - Anurag Arjun, Co-founder & CPO
Runaway hits that have become parts of the Matic ecosystem
Participating in a large number of hackathons has resulted in many more developers getting familiar with Matic's codebase and documentation to build on top of it. Some hackathons projects have shown the potential to go a step beyond to evolve into full-fledged products.
A good example of this is Incento. Chetan, a hacker with a passion for building on decentralized infrastructure, first met the Matic team at ETHIndia in August 2018, where he became familiar with their work. When inspiration struck at InOut 5.0, he decided to build his hackathon project Cryptostaw on Matic. Matic team helped elevate his project to the next level with their support, which resulted in Incento - a peer-to-peer digital payments solution. The second edition of ETHIndia saw Incento showcasing real-world adoption, with hackers using it to redeem refreshments at the Matic Dev Lounge.
Here's the hackathon project on Devfolio as submitted at InOut 5.0: https://devfolio.co/submissions/sendinout
Hackathons organized by Devfolio has attracted talent from different regions of the country in the past few years. The quality of those projects is topnotch. Incento app on Matic is a great example that shows how Devfolio has played an important role in building & nurturing the developer community. - Jaynti Kanani, Co-founder & CEO
Major Announcements for Matic and Devfolio Partnership
ETHIndia Online and Devfolio Online hackathons
Devfolio is tapping into its vast experience with hosting in-person hackathons to launch an all-new online hackathon platform. Taking our association forward, we are glad to welcome Matic as our partner for online hackathons in the coming months. The proposed month-long hackathons will each have a different theme based on popular use cases, and Matic will be awarding exciting bounties at them along with their mentorship to incentivize hackers to accelerate mainstream adoption of Ethereum.
Matic will also be participating in ETHIndia Online, the first-ever edition of ETHIndia that will break down geographical constraints to let thousands of hackers come together with true to the spirit of decentralization.
$50,000 dedicated towards developer fund for Devfolio Season Hackathons
In the quest of nurturing an amazing crypto community in India, Matic is allocating a whopping $50,000 Developer Support fund from their developer grants program for Devfolio hackers who want to move their projects forward! Teams that build on Matic at Devfolio Season hackathons will be eligible for a seed funding of $5,000 each from Matic's Developer Support fund! Talented students at Indian universities building great product can get the support and boost they need for their projects. We look forward to seeing the next project to take off and become the next runaway hit in the Ethereum ecosystem.
We have a deep connection with the Ethereum developer community, largely due to our consistent supporting of Devfolio hackathons. Even before our official formation as Matic Network, our team has been involved in supporting and building the Ethereum ecosystem for a very long time. Hackathons have enabled us to connect with some of the best and brightest talent in the blockchain development scene over the past 1.5 years, which has bolstered Matic’s strong developer community massively. We find that hackathons are the best place to meet passionate blockchain developers, and countless dev’s have joined our ecosystem through connecting with us at such events. Thanks to Devfolio for constantly assisting us in reaching out to more devs! - Nirbhik Jangid, Growth hacker & Community Manager
Want to partner with us?
A focus on a meaningful developer relations strategy can be an effective way to put the word out about your product in the developer community, collect feedback, and grow your team. We'd be happy to help companies and projects who understand the value of engaging with the developer community.
Want to grow your community? Be it organizing your own in-person/online hackathons or participating in Devfolio Season hackathons, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us an mail at [email protected], and we'll get back to you at the speed of light!