Shipaton 26 is live. Now help people find what you built.

Shipaton 26 is officially underway.

Submissions are open through September 30 for the world’s biggest mobile hackathon. Builders can compete across more than 20 categories for $1 million in prizes, including the $30,000 Growth Loop Award sponsored by Layers.

The Growth Loop Award reflects a simple idea: the best part of any hackathon is the moment an idea becomes real. But even a working app still has to find its users. The demo clicks. The build finally feels like something. For a moment, that can feel like the finish line.

Then you publish.

You wait.

Crickets.

No clear audience. No obvious channel. No useful signal. Just the question every builder eventually has to answer: how do we help the right people discover this?

Why we’re sponsoring

That is why Layers is sponsoring Shipaton 26. It brings together the builders we care about most: people turning ideas into real apps. Layers is here to help with what comes next, getting those apps discovered, tried, and growing.

Throughout Shipaton 26, participants will have access to two months of Layers Pro, support in Discord, practical growth content, live sessions, and hands-on working sessions with our team. You can claim your Layers Pro at layers.com/shipaton.

Layers reads the context behind your app and helps turn it into a focused growth plan: who to reach, what to test, which signal to read, and what to do next.

Our approach is informed by an analysis of millions of social videos that collectively generated 13.3 trillion views. The findings challenge much of the conventional advice about content and distribution. Combined with each app’s product context, they help Layers develop more focused plans and sharper experiments.

One useful loop

You do not need a giant launch plan. You need one useful loop.

• One audience.
• One hypothesis.
• One experiment.
• One signal you will actually read.

Then use what you learn to make the next move sharper.

We will be supporting teams throughout Shipaton 26 as they build, ship, and start growing their apps. Submissions close September 30. Get started here.