** Scroll to Bottom — For Product Slides**
On Saturday, June 11th at 6 PM, I set out for the experiment of building a completely new product from scratch: competing for money was just the bonus.
When I saw Perks at Work advertising for the Human Performance Hackathon in my Red Hat email, I jumped on the opportunity and braced myself for the wild ride.
Journal of My Hackathon Experience
On Day 1, I arrived at the Hackathon late and heard the last couple of pitches. I had no idea what I would say. I had no solid idea yet. I forced myself to at least stand in front of the crowd of strangers *cues adrenaline*. I introduce myself and the problem I wanted to solve: burnout when WFH.
The Team Formation & Building
Next up the awkward phase of team formation came *flashback to gym class in high school and feeling like the odd kid left out when you weren’t picked on a team*. I took matters into my own hands and didn’t wait for anyone to come. I went around shopping for the best ideas and pitched my value add to those teams interested and available. *cues fear of rejection*
I then said hi to an AI guy — Tushar, who wanted to track blinking (eye fatigue) through a webcam. I immediately recalled the purpose of the hackathon and the problem I wanted to solve: burnout.
Seeing fatigue-burnout as a similar theme, I then pitched him a product of a burnout dashboard that tracked biometrics via webcam like: blood pressure, posture, sleep deprivation and eye fatigue, and sent push notifications to alert the user of their behavior when working from home. We hit it off and the rest was history!
At dinner, 2 NYU Data Science students came up to me, who heard my pitch earlier. They inquired about what I was doing to solve burnout. I pitched the product idea to them and they joined on the spot! Burnout Buddies was born! *Relief!*
Next, we ate an exquisite dinner on a patio looking out on the beautiful NYC skyline background as we discussed our background and assessed our strengths and skills.
We then witnessed the most beautiful sunset light up the sky before running to the next workshop. We already had our roles, and product set, all by the dawn of Day 1. I named us the “Burnout Buddies” as a joke, but we ended up keeping it.
After dinner, we had to race to find the best office, aka home for the next 24 hours in this beautiful NEXT JUMP office. With too many choices and too little time, we chose the largest room with a view of the river. We then got to work!
The Feedback and Evangelization
I mapped out a strategy and clearly defined roles for myself and the team to get to our end goal of a demo-able product. We utilized Python for the backend facial recognition and Javascript for the front-end dashboard.
It felt like we were on a battleground and our sole operation was winning. While they battled on the technical front: I battled on the EQ, design, product, UX and business front.
After I devised a plan, I recruited, pitched, and networked with as many potential judges and mentors who would listen and report it back to the team.
For each critique, challenge, or question I received, I tailored slides to address them in our presentation. I also used that feedback to tweak the direction of the product with their advice. We were overprepared with content.
My sole goal was to enable my team to exclusively focus on building the product and I would do whatever else they needed to drive the ship home. Soon I heard our name start going around the HQ as the “Burnout Buddies”, I knew the evangelization I was doing worked. *Sigh of exhaustion*
By the end of day 1, the team started coding away and I started researching the problem and market, writing a speech script, testing the product, and instrumenting UI adjustments for our dashboard.
We spent the rest of the time heads down working while having laughs, getting to know each other, and silly moments in between. We stayed as late as we could and went home, promising to stay overnight if necessary the next day. I kept working- pouring over burnout research, medical journals, and statistics.
The Last Working Day
It was game time now! The clock was ticking until demo time and the pressure was on! The stress was at an all-time high now that I knew we had a shot at winning.
From day to evening we worked tirelessly. As I walked down the hallways I saw teams around me hustling too.
It was a beautiful sight to see minds coming together to tackle a problem for a good cause too! I was grateful our team was unified, adopted a common vision, and made it their own, adding new fuel of ideas to make the existing fire burn brighter.
The pieces started coming together hour by hour. The halls I once saw empty were filled with a few passed-out participants and late-night snacks. We were one of the last, if not only teams who kept working around the clock. In between then, we took a yoga break.
The Conflict
We set out to not get burnout building our product on burnout, but the team was still tied up in finalizing changes on the product. We, however, never got time to practice our presentation timing together.
Soon the sun was up, we were due to present and I was not used to operating on sleep deprivation. I had not at all prepared to pitch and was relying heavily on my script as my brain power was 0. To make matters worse a mentor came in at the last minute to help us and told me I had to present without the script. My heart sank.
With encouragement from my team, I remembered I knew this better than anyone and had pitched to practically everyone yesterday. I still feared letting the team down, especially since I thought $25k was on the line.
At the first presentation, I froze up a bit but recovered at the end and tackled the judges’ questions like a pro. I feared I blew it entirely. Later we found out we made it to the final round and I was relieved.
With the few minutes I had, I prepared for the final presentation. This time, I let go of perfection, tried to forget the script, and did my best to deliver the hours of research I did in 2 minutes.
I had the best team who encouraged me and helped me in my moment of weakness and vulnerability. We all had each other’s back and during questions, if one of us slipped up we quickly were there to finish each other’s thoughts.
The Outcome
In the end, we won second place overall, but 1st in the “Best Demo” in the hackathon along with the $4k prize. Although I still feel with a little presentation practice, a fresh pair of clothes haha, etc., we could have taken it to the next level, I am content knowing We were the ONLY team in the finals to build a fully working prototype in the hackathon.
To my surprise, various people from other teams came up to us saying they were blown away with the demo and thought we would win first. One judge also said they would invest in our product for their nonprofit.
For those who are curious, we won second place to other cool work (which I believe was) : a group tackling asthma that was seeking government approval for their already established product/ idea and a group that was gamifying good habit creation (related to dental health), similar to the app Habatica.
Takeaway
I am incredibly proud of our team for building something novel in the market, that is tackling a multi-billion-dollar problem untapped by the wellness industry and causing real damage in the world with millions of deaths from burnout, spent on healthcare expenses, and trillion of revenue lost in productivity.
I am also extremely grateful for the opportunity and proud of all of the participants for getting out of our comfort zone together.
I ended the Hackathon sleep deprived but rich in experiences ranging from: the best team I ever worked with, staying in one of the most beautiful working locations in NYC, high-quality food by a Michelin chef, and networked with extremely accomplished individuals making an impact in the world.
I highly recommend anyone who may be fearful of a hackathon (especially if non-technical) to surprise themselves and try it out anyway. You will walk away with much more than you started.
I also reminded myself that there is a myriad of ways you can add value to a team besides just adding code and my team inspired my interest in AI/Data Science.
There is always a prize waiting for you on the other side of your fears, this time I just so happened to win something in the process.
Huge thank you to the team at #NextJump for hosting and Ami Stuart from Cornell for creating the event!
