Zero to Done: Pitching InzerPro at a Startup Hackathon

I spent a weekend in Brno at Zero to Done, and it's one of the best events I've taken part in. It was the very first run, put together by Petr Sochora, and a partner at mime digital, who ran the whole thing out of mime digital's own office in the centre of Brno. mime digital is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce agencies in the Czech Republic: one of only four certified Shopify agencies in the country, and more than 800 e-shops built by a 40-strong team under founder and CEO Michal Mervart. The premise is right there on the banner, Máš nápad, ale nevíš kde začít? (Got an idea, but don't know where to start?), and the answer they hand you is blunt: build a real MVP in a single weekend. It lives at zero-to-done.com.

A Different Kind of Hackathon

What made it stand out is that it wasn't a hackathon for fun. It was a startup-build event. The bar wasn't "ship a cool demo," it was "build something people would actually pay for." Over the weekend you were expected to go talk to customers, test the product with real users, and show there was real demand. Investors were in the room, so it wasn't about winning an audience vote. It was about which teams were worth working with after the weekend ended. That changed how you spent every hour.

I Brought InzerPro

I brought InzerPro, my classifieds-automation product, and used the weekend the way the event wanted: talking to potential customers, testing, and sharpening the pitch instead of just adding features. The highlight was sitting down with Michal Mervart, mime digital's founder and CEO, and walking him through the product line by line. Working on something I already care about, in a room full of people doing the same, made the whole thing click.

High Quality, Top to Bottom

What surprised me most was how good the whole thing was, both the execution and the people. The organisation was tight, the program was well thought out, and there were a lot of genuinely impressive projects being built around me. Between Petr Sochora and the other mentors, I walked away with a pile of concrete advice: price on value, not cost; showing the product to 20 people beats adding 20 features; "great idea!" means nothing until someone actually pays; a pivot isn't a failure. The kind of feedback you only get from people who've actually built and sold things.

Off the Clock

The office had a rooftop terrace, and that's where most of the breaks happened. Some of the better conversations of the weekend were up there in the sun, away from the laptops.

Final Thoughts

Huge thanks to Petr Sochora for creating Zero to Done, and to Michal Mervart and the whole mime digital team for hosting and setting the bar this high on a first run. Events that push you toward real customers instead of a demo are rare, and this one did it well. I would definitely attend again.

Curious about the project I built? Head to my projects on my homepage and look for InzerPro.