Clinkle, the $30 million startup that was supposed to revolutionize payments, has had a number of stumbles over the past year. Between launching a desperate commercial last September to offering users $10 if they used their card five times, Clinkle’s been struggling to attract and hold on to customers.
A hackathon is a marathon coding session used to develop and create new products or services for a company. For successful companies, they’re events for unproven developers to show off to their bosses. For unsuccessful startups, like Clinkle, hackathons are sometimes used as a way to develop new ideas and products. Twitter was actually born out of a hackathon idea from Jack Dorsey that impressed his bosses, which included Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone.
So, for Clinkle to host a hackathon for its employees seemed pretty interesting. Yes, it’s standard for Silicon Valley companies like PayPal and Facebook to hold hackathons, but why would Clinkle? Not only that, but — as Valleywag notes — the professionally made video is a huge waste of money for a struggling company that has recently vacated its posh digs for parts unknown.
Check out the high-quality hackathon commercial from Clinkle.