We just wrapped another Big Nerd Hackathon and it keeps getting better.
Forty-five minutes is barely enough time to overthink an idea properly, which may be why the format worked. There was no room for elaborate architecture or a twelve-slide strategy. Find the useful core, build it, and show people what it does.
Winning was fun, but the constraint was the real lesson. Speed exposes whether the product thought is clear. If I cannot explain the user, the pain, and the smallest useful interaction quickly, more development time usually adds surface area rather than clarity. Sometimes the clock is not the enemy; it is the editor.
We had designers, PMs, engineers, and students from around the world jump in and ship real products in ~45 minutes. No overthinking. Just building.
We reviewed 8 builds solving real-world problems and the quality keeps leveling up.
🥇 1st Place: Jayasri Guthula 🥈 2nd Place: Nikola Djokovic 🥉 3rd Place: Matt Hoelzel
Huge congrats to all of you and a BIG thanks to everybody that participated!
What continues to stand out:
1. People are moving from idea → working product faster than ever 2. Simplicity wins 3. The best builds focus on real human problems
We’re building something special here. A place to learn, experiment, and actually ship.
Full recap here: https://lnkd.in/g7pUCAA4
If you’ve been thinking about joining, come build with us next time. We’ll be hosting an additional workshop soon too -more to come.
#AI
#UX
What I remember most is the shift from an idea in my head to something another person could actually touch. Shipping makes the questions sharper, the feedback more honest, and the next version much easier to imagine.