a thought on generating 1M+ views from an event.

hey peeps, i’m bhushan and one of the co-founders at blockwee.

a month ago, we were in SF working with Sentient on the video content for their hackathon event.

today, we’re in the bay area again, not to work, but to meet event teams and help them realize the power of irl event content. the same approach we used for sentient generated 1M+ views organically.

we've been working with sentient for the past 8 months as their video arm, meaning every video you see on their socials came from us. shoutout to the entire team for always believing in us and giving us the freedom to craft the varied content IPs you see on sentient today.

during that time, we got to know that sentient was organizing a cohort for AI devs around the world who wanted to learn, prototype, and network while solving some of the hardest challenges in AI reasoning. the cohort was called "Arena."

our team started brainstorming immediately because it was a 21 day hackathon, and we wanted to push out video content every single day.

the goal behind these videos was simple: help builders gain real traction by helping them market, validate, and improve their products through the arena.

we created a complete content plan covering the launch, pre-hackathon, during the hackathon, and post-hackathon phases. the aim was to build a content pipeline for sentient that not only gave participating builders eyeballs, but also helped them scale the products they were building inside the arena.

we started by creating a launch video crafted with ai titled "Continuance."

the story revolved around how AI is advancing at a relentless pace, yet there are still reasoning capabilities left undiscovered. that idea aligned perfectly with the direction we wanted to communicate.

the video blew up and crossed 270k+ views.

after that, we dropped 2 more high energy videos that encouraged builders from around the world to participate in the cohort.

both videos combined crossed 200k+ views and drove thousands of registrations for the arena.

now back to the story.

21 days. 3 crew members. fully locked in.

we didn't just ship videos. we built content ips for hackathons.

the first IP had to be about the builders and their journeys.

we got the opportunity to interact with 20 to 30 builders, and their stories were genuinely inspiring. from interviewing founders who raised millions of dollars to speaking with someone who turned down a blank cheque, every conversation had depth.

we asked raw questions. ups and downs. successes and failures. relationships and breakups. everything.

that became the foundation of our builder stories series.

when you put two AI builders in a room, there's always going to be a clash of opinions, and we wanted to bring that escalation to the audience.

that's how "arena debates" was born, hosted by our guy Vivek.

3 questions. each builder got 30 seconds to answer and defend their opinion. Vivek would decide who earned the winning badge.

sometimes the debates got so intense that we had to call it a tie.

p.s. go watch them. some of the best debates i've personally come across.

2 content ips. 30+ videos shipped. 1M+ views (all organic).

it turned out to be a massive success, and we're genuinely proud of what we built.

we've never looked at hackathons as just side events focused only on building and networking.

they're experiences. experiences every participant should remember long after the event ends.

brands spend anywhere between $10k to $100k organizing these events, yet most walk away with empty hands.

that's exactly what we as a team want to change.

hackathons are usually designed for builders and audiences, but we believe there's a way to make it a win-win for both brands and builders.

if you made it this far, i hope you got at least 2 cents of insight into the content side of events.

share this newsletter with your event friends if it resonates.

and if you host events, you already know who to hire for your next one.

shipping content regardless.

~ blockwee.