Pop the Bubble Hackathon
5–7 June 2026 · 36 hours
https://www.popthebubblehack.co.uk/
The room
80 builders. ~12% acceptance, manual review.
Half are pre-company shipping side projects with real users. Half are ex-Stripe, ex-YC, indie hackers running their own MRR. We filter for your hunger.
Judged by a16z scouts, OpenAI developers and more.
Investors and operators in the room from day one
The prizes
£10,000 cash · first place.
Other prizes TBD.
Top 3 teams join us at the closing dinner Sunday night.
The test
Did anyone click, reply, pay, reject you, change a workflow or care enough to argue?
Three tracks
Outbuild · find a slow, bloated product. Ship the sharper version. Steal their users.
Validate · build the evidence pack, dashboard, or report against a company that makes the truth harder to ignore.
Effect · pick one real person or org. Remove a recurring burden with them, not for them. Get paid.
How we judge
Economic exchange — did someone pay?Rejections — proof you askedReal-world impact — something is different on Monday
Apply
If you're done gambling weekends on hackathons that go nowhere, this is the clean test.