Atlanta’s HackerHouse Takes Over a Former Nightclub, Plans National Campus Expansion
ATLANTA, October 8 (Hypepotamus) - Hypepotamus first met Yamil Quispe Silva last fall as the Georgia Tech senior was turning an old campus frat house into a HackerHouse for student entrepreneurs.
Now, the recent GT graduate is making an even bigger bet on building a new type of student entrepreneurial hub on campuses…and beyond.
Earlier this fall, Silva and his team took over a closed nightclub in Atlanta (Halo Lounge, for those who used to go out to the clubs in Midtown), in between Cypress Street Pint & Plate and Atwoods Pizza in the Biltmore Building.
The new space came after the original HackerHouse saw a huge growth in applications for its second year.
“We decided to accept 50 founders. That meant we needed a space big enough for all 50, open 24/7 so they could work on their companies full time, and able to host our community events,” he told Hypepotamus. “The second we walked in, we knew this was the place. We didn't know the price. We didn't even know if getting it was possible. But we knew. We'd already turned a fraternity house into the Hacker House, and now we got to do the same with a nightclub. It was exactly the environment we want for building startups: not corporate, but fun and full of energy, like the original Silicon Valley hacker houses.”
Applications for the house are reviewed on a rolling basis.
Silva and co-founder Yassin Reda spent five days, from 6 in the morning to midnight, cleaning and painting and turning the defunct nightclub into a workable space.
“We wanted them to feel like the space was theirs, so we dedicated a whole day to building desks. Everyone picked their spot and built their own standing desk, and whoever finished first won a free Claude Max subscription,” he added. “Our inauguration event was very special for us because it marked the end of renovations and the start of Season 2. We hung our sign outside, put up our neon signs and pieces of our history, and made the space our own. It's crazy that it's only been a month since we opened. This is now home for our founders, our events, and our community, and we're just getting started.”
Now, he’s bringing the concept to other places.
“We're starting with the top 20 engineering schools in the US. Next up: UT Austin, the University of Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, and Penn. We'll bring the entire Hacker House concept, getting a house on campus where people live and work together and selecting the first cohorts.”
Tech Square Ventures is an Atlanta-based firm investing in enterprise (B2B) and marketplace technology companies.
This Is Not A Career Fair
Another thing HackerHouse is looking to bring to more college students? “Not A Career Fair.”
The startup expo, first coming to Georgia Tech on October 13, is designed to fix a job-hunting frustration that Silva experienced as a college student.
“In places like San Francisco and New York, you can literally walk into a room at an event hosted by one of these companies and walk out with a full-time offer or an internship. In a matter of hours. That exact vibe, that environment, that opportunity, is what we want to bring to Atlanta,” He told Hypepotamus. “I went through the career fairs in college. You wait in these super long lines, you print a stack of 200 resumes, you wear a suit all day, and after a 60-second conversation they tell you to go apply online. So what was the point of going? After my freshman year, I never went to a single career fair again. Every opportunity I got, at startups or bigger companies, came from reaching out to people, getting on a call or meeting them in person, and telling them my story.”
Through the Not A Career Fair, companies see every resume in advance on the HackerHouse platform and book interview slots. The event is geared towards juniors and seniors at Atlanta colleges and universities, including Georgia Tech, Emory, Georgia State, Kennesaw State, Morehouse, Spelman, and Agnes Scott.
“On the candidate side, it's for what we call the Hacker House high agency people. The startup, builder mindset. People who are a real fit for a startup: they work really hard, they have proof of work, meaning they've built stuff in the past and gotten traction, and they genuinely align with the mission of the company they want to join,” Silva told Hypepotamus. “On the company side, fast-growing startups that are aggressively hiring, at least two roles, and bold enough to block out October 13th, nine to five, and offer jobs on the spot if it’s the right fit.”
“Everything goes back to the core of the Hacker House: bringing more people to start and work for startups, earlier and earlier. We want to bring that to every single campus,” he added. “We're bringing more than 30 startups, and the goal is at least one hire per company, ideally that same day. We want to do this every semester, because startups are always hiring. They literally ask us every month.”
Fast-growing startups that are hiring in Atlanta can reserve a booth for Not A Career Fair here.
See more Hypepotamus stories in your search results