Ash Francis, a three-time Stellar Hackathon winner, shares his journey from burnout in other ecosystems to finding success building on Stellar. He discusses his winning projects (Splicers, Chickens, Cards 402), his hackathon playbook, and why Stellar's developer experience and community convinced him to commit fully.
In this Builders Chat episode, Ash Francis recounts his path to becoming a three-time Stellar Hackathon winner after years building in other ecosystems like Dash. Burned out and considering leaving crypto entirely, a conversation with Omar Hanwe at Money 2020 about Stellar's Soroban launch reignited his passion. Ash explains what drew him to Stellar: built-in multi-sig support, provable fairness primitives like BM254, and exceptional developer accessibility. He walks through his three winning hackathon projects: Splicers (verifiable randomness using League of Entropy), Chickens, and Cards 402 (virtual Visa cards for AI agents). Ash shares his hackathon strategy: early discovery and knowledge base building, scoping work to complete 70% in the first week then iterate, prioritizing reproducible code and clear demo videos, and leveraging AI for productivity gains. He emphasizes that judges value succinct communication, easy deployment, code quality, and clear mission focus. Ash encourages burned-out builders to join Stellar, highlighting the supportive community, accessible core engineers, and available grants.
