At Lyft, we believe every individual has an inventor inside them, and, with our annual internal hackathon, we foster that capacity across the entire company. The point is to move fast, be creative, solve customer problems, have fun, and find something that sticks. It’s an integral part of Lyft culture — in fact, the idea for the company’s rideshare service itself came out of a hackathon back in 2012.
At a time when AI is making execution quicker and easier, finding the right idea to execute matters more than ever. And for that, we need humans. Humans from diverse backgrounds who can think outside the box to come up with solutions, yes. But also humans who depend on the product — and deeply understand the friction points they experience on a daily basis. Being obsessed with these sticky points has resulted in some of our best product features to date.
Our most beloved features prove it. And, not surprisingly, many of these features got their start — or received a jump start — during previous Lyft hackathons.
Restroom Finder
As this Reddit thread from an L.A. driver put it plainly, finding a bathroom can be a major challenge for drivers. This was just a person venting online, describing something annoying and real.
So in June of 2024, one hackathon team took it upon themselves to integrate a list of nearby restrooms (and routes to get to them) into the Lyft app. In 2025, drivers added more than 23,000 restrooms — and today, they take around 4,000 restroom rides a day.
Driver Accomplishment Letter
Some drivers are not driving with Lyft long-term, but as a stepping stone — and can find it hard to translate their rideshare activity into skills for their résumés. Enter: the driver accomplishment letter (another 2024 hackathon idea). The letter, which drivers can download and attach to their job applications, provides a summary of their achievements, including an overview of passenger compliments. Since launching in April 2025, drivers have downloaded more than 250,000 accomplishment letters. And we’re sending over 1,000 more every week.
Hackathon rocket fuel
Some Lyft products may not have started in a hackathon, but they received a necessary boost that helped accelerate their development: Lyft Silver (a version of the Lyft app designed with older riders in mind), Lyft Teen (a version of the app that helps parents set up and track rides for their teenagers), and Pet Mode (you guessed it, for riders to bring along their furry friends) all had help from hackathon teams before making it to market.
The ideas above didn’t emerge in a conference room. They started with real-world problems and people who looked at the gap between what the app does and what people actually need.
Those are the kinds of insights we’re looking for this month.
If you’ve taken a Lyft ride recently, whether as a rider or a driver, what’s still broken? What’s still annoying? What would make you tell someone about us? Reply to our CEO’s LinkedIn post. We want to hear from you.