The Hatchery | Devpost

Lobby in the game
Looking at the software development AI crew working in real-time
Embedded stackblitz IDE
Diagram of the agentic AI architecture

Inspiration

The Hatchery was born out of a desire to make entrepreneurship accessible for everyone, regardless of their technical or marketing expertise. Too often, great ideas remain unrealized because people lack the resources, education, or time to learn essential skills. We wanted to build a platform that bridges this gap, empowering anyone with an idea to bring it to life without needing a degree or expensive training. Inspired by collaborative tools and games like The Sims, we envisioned a playful yet professional way to make startup creation fun, intuitive, and fast.

What it does

The Hatchery is a virtual startup incubator that simplifies the process of turning an idea into reality using and Agentic AI Workflow:

User Interaction: You, the user, share your startup idea with a virtual CEO.
Task Delegation: The CEO assigns tasks to two key directors:
- Marketing Director: Handles content creation, promotional campaigns, and social media strategies.
- Coding Director: Develops websites, apps, or other technical solutions.
Collaborative Workflow: Each director manages a team of specialists to execute tasks.
Real-Time Visualization: Through a GUI inspired by The Sims, users can watch as the CEO, directors, and teams interact to execute the startup plan.
Feedback Loop: Once tasks are complete, the user provides feedback to refine the results, ensuring the final product matches their vision.

The Hatchery brings entrepreneurship within reach for everyone, no coding or marketing skills required.

How we built it

The frontend, developed with React Three Fiber, features a Sims-inspired GUI for visualizing team interactions. Socket.IO enables real-time communication with a Python backend that manages task delegation. LangChain powers the AI workflows, while OpenAI and Cohere handle natural language generation for marketing and coding tasks. CrewAI facilitates collaboration between virtual agents, creating seamless outputs like marketing campaigns and functional websites. This system ensures a smooth, intuitive user experience and high-quality results.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges we faced was managing the undeterministic nature of AI. Small changes to the model size, hyperparameters, or the prompts we used often resulted in vastly different outputs, making debugging a complex and iterative process. Tuning hyperparameters like the number of iterations or understanding how prompt phrasing impacts agent behavior required significant trial and error and lots of research. Additionally, coordinating the interactions between multiple AI agents in a collaborative setting introduced a layer of unpredictability that made fine-tuning the workflow even more challenging.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

A User-Centric Design: We created a playful, interactive GUI that simplifies complex processes while keeping users engaged.
End-to-End Functionality: From idea input to feedback, we built a working prototype of the startup creation workflow.
Democratizing Entrepreneurship: The Hatchery has the potential to make startup creation accessible to everyone, regardless of background or resources.

What we learned

This project was a first for all of us in developing an agentic AI application that facilitates collaboration among AI agents to improve results. Using CrewAI and langchain, we gained a deeper understanding of how to enable AI agents to reason, delegate, and work together effectively. Beyond the AI workflows, we also ventured into new technical territory by learning React Three Fiber to create a 3D simulation for visualizing the interactions between the different AI agents (virtual CEO, directors, and their teams). This experience enriched our technical skills and expanded our understanding of building user-friendly, visually engaging interfaces.

What's next for The Hatchery

While our current focus is on marketing and coding, we envision adding more teams to cover all essential aspects of building a startup. For example, a Finance Team could be introduced to handle tasks such as budgeting, forecasting, fundraising strategies, and financial reporting. This would allow users to gain insights into their startup's financial health and ensure a well-rounded foundation for success.

As we expand, our goal is to include all the critical groups that are vital to launching and scaling a business. By integrating these additional teams, The Hatchery will evolve into a comprehensive platform where anyone can bring their startup idea to life with full support across marketing, coding, finance, and beyond.