Neo4j accelerates product adoption with strategic customer hackathons

Summary

Neo4j, the world’s leading graph intelligence platform, uses customer hackathons—intensive, three-day events where Neo4j experts work side-by-side with its customers’ developers—to rapidly prototype high-priority use cases into working MVPs. Since launching its hackathon program a year ago, Neo4j has developed a repeatable, high-touch model for engaging its customer accounts, led by Senior Community Manager Vincent Mayers.

Neo4j uses Devpost for Teams to centralize hackathon management, streamline the participant experience, and accelerate the transition of "unfunded" use cases into fully funded projects.

This structured approach has delivered measurable impact for the company and its clients:

• Successful proofs of concept: Every hackathon has produced a functional technical prototype.
• Unlocked internal funding: These hackathons turn ideas into funded projects. After a recent hackathon, a major media company funded 80% of the use cases into production.
• Accelerated time-to-value: By proving technical feasibility in just 72 hours, Neo4j helps decision-makers validate ROI and clears the path for long-term adoption.

“Every hackathon we've done so far has resulted in the majority of the use cases we’ve worked on being funded post-event. For us, that's a tremendous outcome.” — Vincent Mayers, Sr. Community Manager, Neo4j

Company profile

Neo4j is the graph intelligence platform that transforms data into knowledge to power the next generation of intelligent applications and AI systems. The company formalized its customer hackathon program to help clients deepen product expertise and build working prototypes for high-value business needs.

These three-day, in-person "Graphathons" bring together Neo4j’s engineers and trainers along with 30-40 of its customers’ team members. This means that the company’s product experts can guide teams as they build working prototypes tied to pre-defined business use cases. 

“Anything that we can do to help our customers get stronger and get better at what they do is just a complete win for us,” says Vincent.

“If you can come out of every single hackathon with the customer having a better understanding of what they're doing with our platform, that's a huge win,” he added.

Today, Neo4j runs one hackathon per month, with a model designed to scale to two or three per month—and potentially more.

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The challenge: The bottleneck of manual scaling

Running a high-touch, multi-day event for 30-40 participants requires clear communication, access to resources, project visibility, and coordination across teams. Managing that through spreadsheets, shared drives, and scattered documents quickly becomes difficult.

Vincent, an experienced organizer, recognized that scaling a high-touch program to meet his CEO’s vision—potentially running dozens of hackathons per half-year—would be challenging without a centralized platform.

“I know from experience that being able to manage everything in one portal is so much easier than connecting together spreadsheets and documents,” says Vincent.

“Otherwise, we would be sharing out links to various documents in G Suite or SharePoint, and it could get very confusing, and people could miss things.”

The solution: A strategic engine for customer innovation

By hosting all resources, details, and schedules in Devpost for Teams, Neo4j has scaled its program, with a model that can support running hackathons even more frequently.

Key results

• 100% MVP delivery: Every Graphathon on the platform has resulted in a working prototype or POC.
• 80% funding rate: 4 out of 5 projects at a recent UK media company hackathon secured full internal funding.
• Strategic program launch: Successfully established a dedicated customer hackathon program.
• Program scalability: Repeatable model capable of scaling to weekly hackathons across customer accounts.
• Enhanced CX: One hub to manage all links, data, and communications for participants.

#1 From "unfunded" ideas to core products

Neo4j’s hackathon program provides a structured pathway for customers to move high-potential projects off the back burner and into production. By providing the expert guidance needed to build a proof of concept in just 72 hours, Neo4j helps teams secure the internal buy-in that "unfunded" projects often lack.

“A hackathon is a great way to get an MVP or proof of concept of an unfunded project,” says Vincent.

The results of this approach are tangible. At a recent hackathon for a major UK media company, four out of five use cases—including high-value projects designed to reduce customer churn—successfully secured full internal funding within just a few months. “That one project is now going to become part of their core internal platform for data analytics,” says Vincent.

By proving ROI in just 72 hours, Neo4j helps customers quickly shift from "walking" to "running" with graph technology. It’s about making the platform an indispensable part of the customer’s stack by showing decision-makers what’s possible in a fraction of the usual time. 

“Running these hackathons definitely accelerates getting an MVP out the door, and getting the internal decision makers to realize the value,” says Vincent.

#2 Centralized management for consistent, high-quality events

Devpost for Teams provides Neo4j with a secure, central hub to manage every part of its customer hackathons—from guest access and event communications to project submissions. With everything in one platform, the team can scale efficiently by using custom templates and running multiple customer hackathons at the same time.

“It’s a single place to view the projects and any available data that's associated with them,” says Vincent Mayers.

To ensure these hackathons remain consistent and repeatable, Vincent and his team leverage the following features:

• Customizable templates: “The template's really good, because it allows me to spin this up very quickly.”
• Scheduled announcements: “It's a nice way to pre-populate a whole bunch of announcements.”
• Additional Details (for sharing resources): “I use the [Additional Details] functionality to add links to data sources, whether they're in Google Drive or in the customer repos—which participants can access, but we can't.”

“The ability to have all the information that we need to share, and the attendees need to see, in one place is huge,” says Vincent.  

“It all adds to the consumer experience—being able to have just one portal to do this through.” 

#3 Securing long-term adoption through hands-on building

Enterprise teams often struggle to realize a product’s full value when they lack a deep understanding of its nuances, which puts long-term renewals at risk. Neo4j’s hackathons proactively bridge this gap by immersing customers in the code alongside technical experts.

“There's no substitution for working with us hands-on for 3 days in a row, building something new to really, really learn more about the technology,” says Vincent.

By observing engineers in action, Neo4j can identify training needs and provide tailored Graph Academy learning paths to help teams continue their education.

This focus on meaningful building creates a professional experience that turns customers into long-term advocates. In fact, the first company that participated in a Graphathon requested a second event and another for a sister organization.

#4 Gathering specific product feedback

Beyond driving adoption, Neo4j has identified these hackathons as a valuable opportunity to gather high-quality insights from its users. This hands-on environment offers a clear look at what’s working and what could be improved in ways that traditional meetings or support tickets can’t.

The company recognizes the potential of hackathons to serve as a direct feedback channel for its product teams. The goal is to capture the specific suggestions and technical hurdles that arise during these events and use them to help the product evolve.

"Because we have a great number of people from the customer with us for 3 days, it’s a good way for soliciting information that the product team would find useful," says Vincent.

A repeatable, high-quality event structure

Neo4j’s program is designed to maximize impact for its customers. 

• Before the event: Weekly meetings with the customer point person for 6-8 weeks to define the use cases the teams will build.
• Day 1: Comprehensive, tailored training shaped around the customer’s technical requirements. Teams share their assigned use cases and align on goals before building begins.
• Day 2: Teams spend the entire day coding. Neo4j engineers and trainers support the build by running regular stand-ups to check progress, answering questions, and unblocking teams.
• Day 3: Teams wrap up their integrations in the morning and present their MVPs after lunch. Judges evaluate the builds and may attend in person or join remotely through Devpost for Teams.

“It's a very high-touch, very high-quality experience, although it is extremely repeatable,” Vincent notes. 

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Conclusion

Neo4j’s commitment to its customers is reflected in its high-touch hackathon program. Each event delivers hands-on learning, working MVPs, and strong momentum toward funded projects.

Devpost for Teams centralizes logistics, communication, and project visibility—allowing Vincent and his team to focus on what matters most: helping customers build real value.

As Neo4j continues to scale its program, it does so with a model that is structured, repeatable, and proven to drive adoption.

Ready to turn your next hackathon into a pipeline for funded projects? Book a demo to see how Devpost for Teams can help you run it.