At CloudTrucks our core values are “Put Drivers First”, “Bias Towards Action”, “Foster Innovation”, “Stay Curious” and “Be a Team Player”. The second annual hackathon, CT Hacks, was a great example of these values. For two days in October, our scrappy teams put aside non-time-sensitive work to focus on prototyping their brilliant ideas. At the end of the two days, they presented their projects to the panel of judges and the entire company.
Everyone across the company participated, not just our engineering group! Teams formed independently and brought together cross functional expertise. Projects varied from building out developer tools to products that will delighting customers. Teams submitted their project under three tracks for judging:
- Growth focused on attracting new drivers and scaling our existing products.
- Efficiency focused on improving processes in the driver experience, or internal operations.
- Freestyle was anything else! The wide spread of perspectives meant there was no lack of excellent ideas!
To get a demo within a short amount of time it was important for teams to collaborate effectively — keep everyone on the same page, make decisions quickly, and code away! Most groups brought together a range of skills, from product and design to operations know-how to data and software engineers. The hackathon brought a buzz of excitement and helped people build new connections. These bonds and collaboration carry through into our day to day work.
Congratulations to our winning teams! 🎉
Tobenna Arodiogbu (CEO & co-founder), Jin Shieh (CTO & co-founder) and Michele Pendergast (Head of Growth) were our discerning judges. After intense deliberation, the judges awarded winning teams by track and a fan favorite. Winning teams got prizes — and, of course, bragging rights. Here are the winning teams in each category:
Growth
CT Gamification aims to retain and attract drivers with a points based program. It awards drivers for reaching milestones — for example, completing the onboarding process and percentage of monthly jobs. For each tier of points, drivers can receive incentives like cash back, partner discounts, etc.
Efficiency
Drivers sometimes call in needing help with the app. With different driver permissions and product lines, it’s useful for operations members to know exactly what drivers see. Operation Mode allows our staff members to navigate the app as a member of the driver’s team without engineering support.
Freestyle
At CT, we must validate and manage a lot of documents from driver medical cards to proof of delivery. It’s important to automate document validation as we scale. As the name states, Document Photoshop accurately identifies documents that have been doctored — comparable to some of the vendor solutions in the market!
Fan Favorite
It can be hard for potential CT drivers to truly understand all of the benefits of our products before subscribing. Tiny Carrot allows them to explore the app while keeping the core of our product available to only subscribers.
Congrats again to our winning teams! Our judges loved the ideas so much that they have committed to sponsoring the productization of these four projects!
Thank you to everyone who contributed to the hackathon and making it a fun experience for all. We hope to see you at the next hackathon!
And if this type of creative, collaborative, and mission-driven culture is one you can see yourself in, please reach out to either Alvin (alvin.ye@cloudtrucks.com) or Charlene (clouie@cloudtrucks.com)!
