Ryan Colby Reimagines Domain Industry Events with Upcoming AI-Themed Domain2Demo Hackathon Featuring Cash Prizes and a Social Focus

The domain industry is blessed to have many great events around the world that give investors, developers and service providers a chance to get out from behind their computer screens and meet face to face. Those gatherings provide opportunities to create new relationships and business connections (and strengthen existing ones) that can be invaluable on both the professional and personal levels for years to come. In most cases those take the form of conferences like last month's Internet Commerce Association Annual Member Meeting in Las Vegas and the annual NamesCon Global conference, the most recent of which was held in Miami in November. However, something new is on the horizon now - an innovative approach incorporating the AI revolution that is being engineered by domain industry veteran Ryan Colby. 

Ryan, who entered this business in 2010 as a Senior Sales Consultant at Sedo, moved on to creating well-organized tech events that have drawn as many as 4,000 attendees and 200 exhibitors. His new baby, the first Domain2Demo event coming up April 25-26 at Dogpatch Studios in San Francisco is a unique domain-first hackathon where teams draft premium domains, build AI-powered products, and ship clickable demos in a single weekend. Powered by a vibe-coding technology leader, Lovable, and modern AI tooling, builders go from domain to MVP 

Ryan Colby
CEO &  Founder
Domain2Demo

(Minimum Viable Product) to live pitch in just 36 hours. Running along side the Domain2Demo competition will be a Builder's Summit with rotating tech talks and curated networking for founders, domain owners, and investors exploring agentic AI, domains, and the future of digital real estate. Ryan has already rounded up an all-start list of speakers with many more to be added in the weeks ahead. That group includes super broker Larry Fischer, who just closed the all-time record $70 million domain sale of AI.com (representing the seller), as well as industry pioneer and RightOfTheDot.com Founder Monte Cahn who will also be there to run an AI-themed ROTD live domain auction.

While Domain2Demo is different from the traditional domain conference format we've come to know and love, it is also different from most hackathons. Ryan noted, "Most hackathons start with an idea. We start with a domain. Draft one, build fast, and demo for cash prizes with $10,000 going to the winner, $5,000 to second place and $2,000 to third. Domain owners will love this as we are going to bring a lot of media attention to domains in the heart of Silicon Valley. The venue is right down the street from OpenAI in Mission Bay. Over 250 names have already been submitted for the competition and we expect over 500 attendees. It will be a curated social experience including off-site VIP networking and private dinners."

Registration is open now and you can get all of the details by visiting the Domain2Demo website. 

(Posted February 16, 2026)   

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