Hackathons for people who don't code

This spring, 85 percent of the finance chiefs Deloitte asked in twelve European countries said now is not the time to take on more risk. A request for a project gets a no.A day is a small risk with a ceiling. Ask for one day with a number that could kill the idea, put the do-nothing option on the page with its own number, and let the day earn the next step.What you'll hear:What happened in Thessaloniki after the dayThe five-line ask that fits on one pageWhat the UK's Green Book says about doing nothingWhy each step gets approved on what the last one showedWhat to say when your manager works in sprintsTry this week: write your one-day ask: the challenge, the metric that would kill the idea, the do-nothing option and its number, who you need and which day, and what you'll ask for next. Send it, and ask for a yes or a no by Friday.That's the end of the third week of Product Build Day Podcast. Thank you for listening.I'm Marcin Klimaszewski and I run Product Build Day. Send me your question on LinkedIn, and it might become an episode.Sources:Deloitte: European CFO Survey, spring 2026HM Treasury: The Green Book 2026Die Produktwerker: Making decisions under uncertainty, Dominique Winter (23 February 2026, in German)Product Build Day with Ionian Technologies, Thessaloniki, May 2026

Show people the same idea twice, and the second time they rate it almost a full point higher. The decision about your idea starts before your first slide.The meeting is the second time they see your idea. Make sure the first time happened: a link two days ahead, the first slot on the agenda, and a decision rule everyone agreed to before seeing the result.What you'll hear:A mistake I made in Athens, and the rule the room noticedWhat 210 car-maker employees did with an idea they had seen beforeWhy the proposal after a funded one gets less moneyWhy a former CPO calls corridor conversations essentialWhen talking before the meeting turns into lobbyingTry this week: before your next decision meeting, send the decider the prototype two days ahead with one question, ask for the first slot, and write the decision rule into the agenda.Next episode: don't ask for a project. Ask for one day that earns the next one.I'm Marcin Klimaszewski and I run Product Build Day. Send me your question on LinkedIn, and it might become an episode.Sources:Greul, Schweisfurth and Raasch: Does familiarity with an idea bias its evaluation? (PLOS One, July 2023)Criscuolo, Dahlander, Grohsjean and Salter: The sequence effect in panel decisions (Organization Science, 2021)Le Ticket: François de Bodinat on why the CPO role is hard (17 May 2026, in French)Itamar Gilad: Why good product ideas don't survive (24 September 2026)Product Build Day Athens, July 2026Product Build Day September tour: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Berlin

Almost everyone says AI saves them time. Few can say where that time went. And 71 percent of product people say they don't spend enough time with customers.Nobody gives you time for discovery. Claim ninety minutes a week, the same slot every week, and name it after one decision.What you'll hear:Where a third of a product owner's week goesA street test in Zwolle with clear findings, and what happened nextWhy findings without a decision get filedWhat fits into ninety minutes: two conversations and one decisionWhat to do when your manager keeps taking the slotTry this week: write the one decision you want to make by the end of the month, book ninety minutes at the same time every week for four weeks, put the decision in the title, and invite your first two people.Next episode: why the decision is made before your first slide.I'm Marcin Klimaszewski and I run Product Build Day. Send me your question on LinkedIn, and it might become an episode.Sources:Product Focus: 2026 Survey of the Product Management Profession (PDF)ProductCraft: The state of product management in Poland 2025 (3 February 2025, in Polish)Productowner.nl: National Product Owner Survey 2026 (April 2026, PDF, in Dutch)Linus Wiggers, Productowner.nl: Product owners and AI (12 October 2026, in Dutch)Gebruiker Centraal: Testember 2025, election materials tested on the street in Zwolle (in Dutch)Product Build Day with Ionian Technologies, Thessaloniki, May 2026

Ninety-six percent of companies plan new AI features. For most of them, the revenue impact stays below ten percent. So what do you do when your CEO counts AI features?The CEO's wish is reasonable. The unit is wrong. Count customer problems where a number you already track moved, and let AI compete for the job against simpler answers.What you'll hear:Two winning teams, one with AI at its center and one withoutThe question I asked on stage in Athens, and why the challenge's last words decided itWhat Klarna counted in 2024, and what its CEO said in 2025The report to bring your CEO instead of a feature countWhen AI is the whole answerTry this week: take your AI feature list, write next to each feature the customer problem it solves and the number that should move, check the clearest problem with five conversations, and propose a new report: problems solved and numbers moved.Next episode: how do you do discovery when nobody gives you the time?I'm Marcin Klimaszewski and I run Product Build Day. Send me your question on LinkedIn, and it might become an episode.Sources:Simon-Kucher: How to win with AI in 2026 (3 February 2026)Product Focus: 2026 Survey of the Product Management Profession (PDF)Productowner.nl: National Product Owner Survey 2026 (April 2026, PDF, in Dutch)Linus Wiggers, Productowner.nl: Product owners and AI (12 October 2026, in Dutch)tech.eu: Klarna's AI assistant does the work of 700 people (28 February 2024)Maginative: Klarna dials back its AI customer service strategy, reporting Bloomberg (8 May 2025)Mind the Product: Klarna goes on recruitment drive after ditching AI-first policy (14 May 2025)Product Build Day Warsaw, July 2026Product Build Day Athens, July 2026

"I think this is a good idea" is not enough. Product owners in the Netherlands gave that advice to new colleagues this year. So what is enough to win your idea a place on the roadmap?A one-pager full of conviction answers one question, and only in words. Bring a prototype your boss can click, a first signal from real people measured against today's number, and a date for the decision.What you'll hear:How a product lead at Payfit got another squad's roadmap to make roomThe question an experienced product person asked me in Stockholm, 45 minutes inWhy a baseline wins budget conversationsThe three answers to ask your boss for, with a dateWhy a bad signal is still a good meetingTry this week: pick one idea, write today's number and the metric that would kill it, build one path with fake data, show it to five people who have the problem, and ask your boss for a decision with a date: build more, change one thing, or stop.Next episode: my CEO counts AI features. What now?I'm Marcin Klimaszewski and I run Product Build Day. Send me your question on LinkedIn, and it might become an episode.Sources:Le Ticket: Being a senior product manager in 2026, lessons from Dust, Payfit and Pennylane (15 February 2026, in French)Itamar Gilad: Why good product ideas don't survive (24 September 2026)Productowner.nl: National Product Owner Survey 2026 (April 2026, PDF, in Dutch)Linus Wiggers, Productowner.nl: Product owners and AI (12 October 2026, in Dutch)ProductCraft: The state of product management in Poland 2025 (3 February 2025, in Polish)Product Build Day September tour: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Berlin

In Bucharest I had ninety minutes on stage to build an app, test it and fix it, and the room had just voted on what I'd build. My first prompt was everything in my head, dictated in one go, filler words included.It's AI. It will understand you anyway. Say it all once, press the button, and do your thinking with the first version on the screen.What you'll hear:Ninety minutes, two votes, one dictated promptWhere I've watched people wait too long, from Athens to BerlinWhy your thinking gets better once something is on the screenThe number from 1993 that still decides how fast you improveWhen planning first is rightTry this week: say everything you know about your idea into the tool in one message, dictate it if you can, press the button within ten minutes, then fix one thing per message until a stranger could finish the one path.That's the end of the second week of Product Build Day Podcast. Thank you for listening.I'm Marcin Klimaszewski and I run Product Build Day. Send me your question on LinkedIn, and it might become an episode.Sources:How to Web 2026, Bucharest, 6 to 8 OctoberHow to Web agenda 2026: Build & Grow Stage, 7 OctoberPlateful, the prototype built live on stageThe synthetic usability test report from the stageJakob Nielsen: Iterative user-interface design (IEEE Computer, November 1993)Product Build Day Warsaw, July 2026Product Build Day Athens, July 2026Product Build Day September tour: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Berlin

LinkedIn stopped training junior product managers and started training product builders. Its chief product officer at the time, Tomer Cohen, put it in one line: "We're going to teach them how to code, design, and PM at LinkedIn."So if everyone can build now, which skill is still rare? Building fast is the entry ticket. The rare skill is bringing back data from real customers, fast enough and good enough to decide.What you'll hear:What LinkedIn's new program asks for, and how Europe is moving the same wayWhy building no longer separates teamsWhat people said they learned, in Warsaw, Athens and four September evenings in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and BerlinFour skills, in order: build fast, define the challenge and the metric that would kill it, get the first signals from real people in days, turn the signal into a decisionWhy fast data is small dataTry this week: take one idea through one full day, or one week in small steps: the challenge and the metric, the first version, the usability fix, five real conversations, and one decision sentence.Next episode: stop looking for the perfect prompt. Start building, then iterate.I'm Marcin Klimaszewski and I run Product Build Day. Send me your question on LinkedIn, and it might become an episode.Sources:[Lenny's Podcast with Tomer Cohen: Why LinkedIn is replacing PMs (4 December 2025)](https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-linkedin-is-replacing-pms)[Business Insider: LinkedIn is scrapping its associate product manager program (5 December 2025)](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/linkedin-scrapping-associate-product-manager-063508011.html)[LinkedIn job ad: Associate Product Builder, rotational program (expired)](https://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/LinkedIn3/a3b09881-7c3e-444c-9e65-ac0e2c6a8970)[Product Focus: 2026 Survey of the Product Management Profession (677 respondents)](https://cdn.productfocus.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Product-Focus-Industry-Survey-Report-2026.pdf)[Product Focus: Product management, amplified, part 2 (8 April 2026)](https://www.productfocus.com/product-management-amplified-part-2-its-not-just-the-ai-its-the-organisation/)[Spotify Engineering: Spotify's experiments with learning framework (September 2025)](https://engineering.atspotify.com/2025/9/spotifys-experiments-with-learning-framework)[Product Build Day Warsaw, July 2026](https://productbuildday.com/case-studies/warsaw-july-2026)[Product Build Day with Ionian Technologies, Thessaloniki, May 2026](https://productbuildday.com/case-studies/ionian-technologies)[Product Build Day September tour: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Berlin](https://productbuildday.com/case-studies/september-tour-2026)

A day of building teaches you the tools. Delivering a better product takes a decision and a test. Inside a company, a hackathon is worth it when it ends with both.What you'll hear:What happens to hackathon projects afterwardsWhat I changed after the first of four September evenings in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and BerlinProducts that came out of hackathons that took a year and a half to decideWhat helps a hackathon project survive inside a companyHow to design a company hackathon backwardsWhen a day of play is enoughTry this week: write a one-page plan for a company build day, backwards from the decision, and send it to the person who decides before you send a single invite.Next episode: Which skills matter now that everyone can build?I'm Marcin Klimaszewski and I run ⁠Product Build Day⁠. Send me your question on ⁠LinkedIn⁠, and it might become an episode.Sources:Hacker News: Are hackathons still worth doing? (19 February 2026)OpenBSD: HackathonsDevpost: World's Largest Hackathon (2025)Michael Matloka: Running hackathons, startup and scaleup edition (30 May 2026)Nolte, Chounta and Herbsleb: What happens to all these hackathon projects? (CSCW 2020)TechCrunch: Zuckerberg's letter in Facebook's S-1 (1 February 2012)Atlassian: From ideas to impact, the story of ShipIt (14 January 2025)Fast Company: How Facebook designed the like button (15 November 2022)Pe-Than and colleagues: Corporate hackathons, how and why? (Human-Computer Interaction)Product Build Day September tour: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Berlin

Your CPO looks after many teams, so your idea gets twenty minutes between two meetings, and the decision happens later, somewhere else. This episode is about another way: your whole team vibe codes a few versions of the solution, you test them, and your CPO comes for the last hour of the day. You leave with a decision in the room, and a team that saw its CPO show up.What you'll hear:Who really sets priorities: only 6% of product people say their roadmap follows a structured frameworkThe three questions every team answered in Product Build Day // AthensWhy the people with the most power should arrive once the options existWhy progress you can see is what lifts motivation at workHow to run the last hour, and what to do when your CPO won't comeTry this week: pick one challenge your team is stuck on and send your CPO an invite for the last hour of a build day: three versions, test results, a decision at the end.Next episode: hackathons used to be for people who write code. Now anyone can build. Are they still worth doing?I'm Marcin Klimaszewski and I run ⁠Product Build Day⁠. Send me your question on ⁠LinkedIn⁠, and it might become an episode.Sources:Product Build Day: Ionian Technologies case study, Thessaloniki (May 2026)ProductPlan: State of Product Management 2026Chip and Dan Heath, Decisive: notes on Paul Nutt's researchLovallo and Sibony: The case for behavioral strategy (McKinsey Quarterly, March 2010)Amabile and Kramer: The power of small wins (Harvard Business Review, May 2011)

"Landing page visitors: 470. Users who took purchase action: 3. Given these metrics, should I continue pursuing this idea?" Someone asked that on Hacker News, and nobody could answer, because the number that would answer it was never written down.This episode is about setting your metrics before the test, so the result gives you a clear decision: invest more, stop, or change one thing and run it again.What you'll hear:Why deciding after the test goes wrongPick a signal that costs people somethingThree lines to write before you buildWhere benchmarks come from, and why 200 views is the minimum for a rough signalHow often the best teams are wrong: Microsoft, Booking.com and SupercellTry this week: for your next test, write what you'll invest if it works, the go line, the stop line and the middle. Send them to one colleague before the test goes live.Next episode: your CPO is busy with other teams. How do you get a decision out of them? Hand them a better hour.I'm Marcin Klimaszewski and I run ⁠Product Build Day⁠. Send me your question on ⁠LinkedIn⁠, and it might become an episode.Sources:Hacker News: Should I continue based on my fake door test results? (7 February 2025)Atlassian: The State of Product in 2026 (3 September 2025)Norton, Mochon and Ariely: The IKEA effect: when labor leads to love (Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2012)Kromatic, The Real Startup Book: Fake door testKohavi and colleagues: Online experimentation at Microsoft (2009)HBR Cold Call with Stefan Thomke: At Booking.com, innovation means constant failure (3 September 2019)Ilkka Paananen, Supercell: The next chapter (15 February 2023)Indie Hackers: How do you validate your ideas? (20 September 2025)