Guides, patterns, and hard-won lessons for the person building at 2am.
I went through real winners from 8+ major hackathons to find what stacks keep showing up. Here's what I found.
Why the best hackathon projects sound the same — and what that tells you about winning.
New tools worth your attention this month — and the ones to skip. A curated look at what's actually useful when the clock is ticking.
The research phase was never the pedagogical value of a hackathon. Protecting it isn't protecting learning — it's protecting waste.
The most common way hackathon projects fail isn't a bad idea — it's building the wrong version of a good idea. Here's how to scope for a 3-minute demo from the start.
Bad team dynamics surface faster in a 24-hour sprint than anywhere else. Here's what to watch for before the clock starts.
Stop researching. Here's the exact stack to use when you don't have time to evaluate options. Next.js, Supabase, and Vercel — and why everything else can wait.
Authentication kills more hackathon projects than bad ideas do. Here's the decision framework to get past it in under 10 minutes.
Every hackathon has the same bottleneck: the first 60 minutes. Here's why it happens and what to do instead.