Summary

Tim Hafner, co-founder and CEO of OpenServe, walks through what they learned running a hackathon at Berlin Blockchain Week and how it shaped the product. He talks about why Telegram is becoming the default home for crypto apps and why most people still find building usable apps way too hard. Tim shares how OpenServe is trying to give builders a simple way to ship agentic apps that feel like real products, not just demos. Along the way, he digs into supporting developers as entrepreneurs, making good product decisions with messy inputs, and where he thinks AI agents and crypto-native apps are heading next.

Takeaways

— The Berlin hackathon showed how fast builders can ship creative agentic apps when the tooling gets out of their way, crypto marketing with Peter Abilla.

— Telegram is turning into a primary surface for crypto, so great apps need to meet users where they already spend time.

— OpenServe wants to remove the complexity of agentic app creation so developers can focus on ideas, not infrastructure.

— A clean, opinionated user experience is the difference between a cool demo and something people actually keep using.

— Treating developers as founders, not just users, means giving them paths to distribution, revenue, and real products.

— Simple decision-making frameworks help teams move through vague requirements and still ship with confidence.

— Agentic applications can take over the busywork and let users express intent in natural language instead of clicking through tabs.

— Tim’s entry point into crypto came from an early fascination with AI and what agents could unlock for real users.

— The future of app development looks like democratized access: anyone with a good idea should be able to launch an agentic app.

— OpenServe wants to become a launchpad where hackathon projects can grow into production apps used by real communities.

Chapters

(00:00) OpenServe intro and Berlin hackathon highlights

(02:34) Standout projects and creative ideas from the hackathon

(05:06) What OpenServe is building and the core mission

(07:56) Rethinking app development through agentic backends

(10:32) Why Telegram is becoming the front door for crypto apps

(12:52) What users and builders learned from the hackathon UX

(15:37) Helping builders think like entrepreneurs, not just coders

(18:06) Real-world challenges of building agentic applications

(21:43) Using frameworks to guide builders through vague goals

(24:32) Blending human workflows with automated agent flows

(26:00) The rise of creative agents as a new app primitive

(28:11) Agents for content creation and social analytics

(30:27) Tim’s path from AI curiosity into crypto building

(35:48) What’s next for OpenServe and its community launchpad

Follow me @papiofficial on X for upcoming episodes and to get in touch with me.

See other Episodes Here. And thank you to all our crypto and blockchain guests.