first light

welcome to unfold.

i had to put that in big letters because i am SO FREAKIN EXCITED that you're here!! there is SO much cool stuff that's gonna happen this summer and i cannot wait to show yall what we have been cooking up

in the next six weeks, you're gonna build a crazy idea.

every week you'll ship some version of it — a one-liner at the start, maybe a product at the end. along the way you'll hang out with a small group of hackers that care about what you're building (a "circle"! more info below), join workshops, AMAs, and show and tells with awesome ppl, and cheer each other on during this adventure.

we'll give you something cool at the end of each week. grants, showcase pages, raffles, and a hoodie exclusive to this summer all await...

that's unfold. lets gooooo---

this week, week 1, is about your idea. there isn't any code yet, or bugs, or tech debt, or a hydration error that only appears in production for some stupid freaking reason. just you and a dream.

quick tl;dr on what this week looks like:

• sign up on unfold.garden if you have not done so already!! you need to do this so that we can add you to all the unfold channels + save your email for announcements. please do this!!!
• save unfold os as your homepage or new tab page
• decide on what you're going to be building for the next 6 weeks (stuck? read below)
• generate your idea slide here
• create an empty github repo and write a bit about your idea in the readme
• post in #unfold-ships and hype each other up!!
• fill out the submission form for this week's ship!

how to choose the right idea

that header is a bit of a lie. there is no right idea! the right idea is whatever sounds exciting now. i'm 100% serious.

don't worry about how profitable or impressive it is or product market fit or whatever. your idea will change over these 6 weeks, so don't waste time agonizing over whether you're picking the right one. ideas are forged and developed over time, not found fully formed in someone's head magically. whether you're excited about the direction that you're going in is 10x more important than whether it's an actually good idea.

a lot of you will fall into one of these 3 categories:

i have absolutely no clue what to build

i will now proceed to throw a bunch of questions at you in the hopes of sparking something

• what's something that you're good at or enjoy?
• what's something that your friends would like?
• what's something that hack club needs?
• what's something that your neighborhood needs?
• what's a problem that you run into daily that tech could solve?
• what's something that only you could build?

if you're still stuck, resort to the ol' reliable: build your own, better, version of something. quizlet is absolutely horrible these days. so are all those sketchy online conversion websites. maybe you could even build a better version of a hack club website?

i have like 5 different ideas and dont know which one to pick

pick the one that you're most excited about, or the one that you feel you could realistically complete in 5 weeks.

again, an idea that you're really interested in will get you way further than a "good" idea that bores you.

i have an idea already

awesome!! use this week to scope it and practice communicating it. a good one-liner will help with this.

don't worry about someone else already making your idea! that's a sign you're picking a good one! unless the other person is a CEO with millions at their disposal, you'll be fine.

we don't really care too much about what you build for unfold. it could be a game, an app, website, robot, whatever. due to Internal Hack Club Reasons 60% ish of your logged time must be technical (hardware or coding), and you must be able to track time worked via journals, lapse/lookout, or hackatime. other than that, you can bring any crazy, weird, huge, or dumb idea to life during these 6 weeks.

the one liner

along with picking an idea this week, you'll also practice communicating it to people and making it clear and legible.

your "one-liner" is 1-2 sentences that you can show to anyone — your best friend, your teacher, your parents — for them to instantly understand what you're building. don't load it with buzzwords or make it really generic, and instead focus on what makes your idea unique or the specific problem it solves.

ex:

you can vibe check your one liner by posting in #unfold! if someone doesn't understand without you explaining further, it's usually a problem with how you're communicating the idea instead of the idea itself. again, there are no bad ideas :)

what to do this week

first, make sure you've signed up with hack club auth here. this is how we'll track who's actually participating, so pls make sure you've done this

next, we've made a cozy little page called unfold os. it's intended to be set as your browser's home or new tab page and is an ambient reminder about unfold, and holds links to all the important docs and tools you'll need during the season. find it at unfold.garden/os.

once you've picked your idea and decided on a one-liner, you can generate a pretty, sharable image for it here. feel free to post this idea slide on your insta or twitter or retro or whatever new fangled social network yall are using these days. you're doing unfold!! tell the world!!

then create a github (or any git forge :3) repo, and write a bit more about your idea in the README! this is where you can brainstorm and flesh out what you want to make a bit more. some good questions to answer: who's it for? how much effort will it take to build this? what do i need to learn to make this happen? you could also attach your idea slide to your README

you can now share your first ship with us! post a short message in #unfold-ships with your git repo linked and idea slide attached

a huge part of unfold is the community and the feedback loop you gain from it; and it starts in week 1! i challenge you to give at least 3 people genuine feedback on their ideas in #unfold-ships. hype each other up and get excited!!

and finally, submit this form with a bit more info on what you're making. we'll use this info to form a circle, a small group of 5-7 hackers working on similar things for the program! you'll be added to your circle's private channel next week. it's a lot easier to show up and keep shipping when there are people around you that care about what you're making, and we hope to make that come built-in with circles :D

submit week 1 ship →

~~~

that's all i have for you for now! thanks so much for reading to the end & i'm really excited to see what you make. i'll be active in #unfold all week (and for the 5 weeks after :p) to answer questions and give feedback!

i can make something good, oh
something good