WTF is Startups of the Year 2023 and Other FAQs

What is Startups of the Year 2023 by HackerNoon?

Startups of the Year 2023 is HackerNoon's annual flagship event, where 30,000+ startups across 4200+ cities participate in a bid to be crowned the best startup in their city.

The event went live on May 8th, allowing the Internet to vote for their favorite startups. The voting period ends 8 months later, on Dec 31st, 2023, and winners will be announced in Jan 2024.

What is Hacker Noon?

How hackers start their afternoons. We are working to be the best place for technologists to read, write, learn, and publish. HackerNoon publishes 1000s of stories every month from the brightest people in tech belonging to every tech company on planet internet! More about us and how to publish.

How is Startups of the Year built?

startups.hackernoon.com is built by Hacker Noon’s custom voting software, which also powers the Noonies. The stack includes Prisma, Algolia, Firebase, Vercel, Heroku, and more. It integrates with the content management system we built to power hackernoon.com.

What's new this year?

🌎 There's a global map! To get to a city of your choice, simply click on one of the dozen HackerNoon clocks on the homepage. You can also search for any city via the search bar, or any of the 6 regions, including:

• North America

• Europe

• Africa

• Asia

• South America

• Oceania

  
  

🗳️ Last year's winners can be found in the "Last Year Votes" section under each city, like this one.

📜 Each city comes with a rich tl;dr of the history of the city, as well as the startups scene of the city. You could also browse around the web links for startups news within each city. For example, see the history of Singaporean startups here.

I’d like to put my company logo on a city/region/startups of the year page. Can I do that?

Of course, you can! If your company caters to startups, a win-win-win trifecta is ready to be created via banner/prizes/locational sponsorships. You can get Ad placements on the website, mentions and branding on HackerNoon posts, trigger emails, and social media posts.

You can book a meeting with us to learn more.

I’ve been nominated! Why..?

Because you are one of the hottest startups in your region! HackerNoon appreciates the difference you are making, and we believe that you can be the Startup of the Year!

How can I edit my company information?

Simply click on Claim your Startup on your city page - fill out the information you want to show and submit it with your company email ID for review. If the provided info is valid, our moderators will approve and update your information.

Do nominees get benefits? Like what?

Yaassss, THIS IS BIG. apart from validation from the coolest tech publication, all nominations get:

1. Free interviews relevant to their industry, region, and funding. Check your email for promotional assets and communication from us.
2. An amazing discounted package specially designed for the nominated startups. Learn more about the startup package here.

What do the winners get?

1. Pride and Validation.
2. Winner Interview.
3. An exclusive NFT from HackerNoon.
4. Free .Tech Domain
5. HackerNoon merch for the selected winners!

Can I pay to get nominated?

No, but you can submit your startup for us to review.

What startups qualify for nomination?

The requirements are between $50k-$50M in yearly expected revenue and/or $1M-$100M in secured funding. Additionally, the official HQ must be where the company city award nomination is. Like HackerNoon’s editorial line, we prefer startups that add more value than they extract. Some verticals we dig:   blockchain,  cryptocurrency,  programming,  bitcoin,  startup, software development,  javascript,  technology, web-development, artificial-intelligenc , tech,  entrepreneurship, machine-learning,  ethereum,  business,  crypto,  coding, marketing, react, security, ai, productivity, data-science, venture-capital, product-management, python, nodejs, web monetization,  ico,  investing, aws, startups, devops, software-engineering, good-company,  privacy, agile, cybersecurity, social-media, open-source,  design,  finance,  innovation, deep-learning, education, leadership, mobile-app-development, docker, decentralization, cloud-computing, api, and management.

How can I nominate a startup?

You can nominate yourself! On any individual city award, click on “Nominate a Startup” and enter the company’s name, description, company URL, and company email ID. Our moderators will review your information, and we will send you an email notification on acceptance and rejection. Nominations close on June 8th, 2023.

How does voting work?

We weigh votes to elevate the voice of our contributing writers further, reward verified expertise, and prevent spam. Hacker Noon published writers' votes count as 10, authenticated users’ votes count as 3, and unauthenticated visitors have their vote count as 1 (pending spam reviews).

The reasons for this are:

• The contributing writer, by publishing their words and expertise on Hacker Noon, has earned the right to have their voice count the most when it comes to who deserves HackerNoon rewards.

• Authenticated users have a much lower spam rate, so their votes should be given more weightage. We want to continue to ensure that anyone can vote. All users can vote once on each award in voting season.

I received an email saying that I was nominated for Startups of the Year, but couldn’t find our listing. What should I do?

Sorry about that! Please search for the name of your city or startup (in all their different variations, if any) via our search bar on the top right of the site. There could have been a spelling mistake. If you still can’t find your startup, our apologies! Our database is not perfect, and there must have been an oversight. But no worries, feel free to nominate yourself via the “Nominate a startup” option on your city page. Our staff will make sure to resolve your issue!

When can I vote?

Voting starts on May 8th  and ends on December 31st, 2023. People can vote once per day per award. ✅

When will the winners be announced?

Voting closes on December 31st, 2023. The winners will be announced in 2024 after the HackerNoon team reviews the results. (yes - people be cheating every.single.year 😤)

Our advice is to promote the shit out of this nomination (no, but really) to improve your chance of winning.

How do I build a custom award-voting site like this?

We built ours from scratch. If you'd like us to power a digital voting experience on your site, email [email protected]

Who can I contact about the Startup of the Year 2023?

HackerNoon.com/contact.

[email protected]