This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/pi-hackathon-2025-signals-a-maturing-open-network-ecosystem.
Pi Hackathon 2025 reveals Pi Network’s shift into the Open Network era, showcasing real Mainnet apps delivering utility across social, commerce, and gaming.
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This story was written by: @sarahevans. Learn more about this writer by checking @sarahevans's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com.

Pi's first Open Network hackathon invited developers to move beyond experimentation and into deployment. The two-month event drew more than 215 Mainnet app submissions that met ecosystem requirements.

This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/social-commerce-the-new-growth-engine-for-brands.
Discover why the next wave of brand growth will be driven by communities, creators, automation, and social commerce, not TV or banner ads.
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This story was written by: @lomitpatel. Learn more about this writer by checking @lomitpatel's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com.

The traditional marketing mix can’t keep up with how people discover, trust, and buy today. The next decade of breakout brands will be built on communities, creators, automation, and social commerce.

This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/forget-authenticity-its-the-age-of-the-founder-story.
Authenticity is dead. Gen Z rejects corporate 'realness'. Trust is hard to find. But here's why The Founder Story is now excelling where big business failed.
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This story was written by: @felixhmohr. Learn more about this writer by checking @felixhmohr's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com.

Authenticity in marketing is dead. It was doomed by corporate hypocrisy and buried by a Gen Z audience that instinctively tunes out fakery. Trust is migrating from faceless institutions to human personalities, making the "Founder Story" a tailor-made replacement for traditional branding. Modern customers reject the authenticity manufactured by big business campaigns; they want a connection that feels true to reality. Learn why you should stop trying to fake it and start performing a story which, while still a story, at least builds an undeniable human element into your business.