Woof

Hello and welcome to my first blog post of 2026. So I’ve checked out a few of my fellow hack clubbers’ blogs and thought they were very cool and wanted to have a go at making a good blog so here we go!

So what is Woof?

Woof is a YSWS program that I ran at the start of this year. If you are not familiar YSWS stands for You Ship We Ship. Hack Club runs events regularly where you ship (publish a project) and then Hack Club will send you something in return. YSWS at Hack Club are sponsored by a member of the Hack Club staff, most likely a Gap Year / Intern.

Basically: you build something, and Hack Club sends you cool stuff.

The first message is sent for Woof!

The first message I sent about Woof in #ysws - December 17th 2025

Woof is based on a YSWS ran previously in December 2025 called Meow. You Ship 5 hours of coding on a cat related project and We Ship a cat plushie. I wanted to apply that premise to dogs!

My Dog called Cooper.

This is my dog called Cooper, he is an Australian Labradoodle.

YS: 5 Hours of coding for a dog related project

WS: A $25 dog plushie!!!!!

Working as a team

A YSWS can’t always be done on your own, luckily I had three volunteers to help me with Woof and I couldn’t have done it without them!

  • Aditya - Designed Website
  • Will - Moral Support
  • Safia - Designed the AMAZING Woof Logo

The Woof Logo, Made by Safia

Safia’s Woof Logo!

We worked together to launch the RSVP form and website. In total 54 teens RSVPed! The website is now available at woof.hackclub.com

Getting a sponsor

As I said above, getting a HQ sponsor is a very important part of a YSWS. They are your Point of Contact for Hack Club HQ and get you the budget (money), domain and handle fulfilment from HQ as well as lots more.

There are many ways to get a sponsor. Most commonly is getting a large number of RSVP’s. This can be gained through regularly posting in #ysws.

There is also cold DMing. This is not a recommended technique but I gave it a go. I DMed @AVD (Alex Van Doren) who is interning at Hack Club on Christmas Day if he would sponsor Woof. Alex also sponsored Meow that I spoke about above.

DM Thread with @AVD

Live

Over the next few weeks we all chatted in a group DM about launching Woof. We finalised the plans and set a two week deadline starting from New Years Day (GMT).

Woof Announcement

Context: @woofwoof is the ping group for all the woof organisers

Mentions

Sticker Sheet

@mysticbird’s sticker sheet

@mysticbird designed this amazing sticker sheet for woof! Unfortunately we were unable to print it out to send to woof participants but is is so good.

Ending

Overall Woof has been an amazing experience and I’m so happy I got to be a part of it. This is the first YSWS event I’ve run, so I learned a lot.

Thank you of course to: Aditya, Will, Safia, Alex and thanks to you for reading this. See you next time!