What can you achieve in 48 hours?
Last Wednesday at 11:33 pm, I dropped a slack message to my team, asking who is interested in participating in an international hackathon for 48 hours. I expected my team to call me out crazy, because you know, who wants to lose the good Friday and a weekend?
Overwhelmed with my team’s response, I decided to enter into one of the biggest hackathons in the world, The Global Hack- Fighting a Global Crisis.
COVID-19 has disrupted our lives and businesses in unimaginable ways, and most of the changes we see right now can become permanent.
We wanted to solve one of the biggest problems right now. Professionals such as trainers, fitness consultants, teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc from many fields are stuck at home with limited options to provide services to their clients. We realized that most of these services could be done over a video call, but there is no single platform to solve this. If you use Zoom, Skype, or any other video calling platform, then there is no way to handle payments. You still have to be like “here is my bank account, please transfer and send me a receipt” And this is not scalable. As a trainer/professional, you’ll be spending half of your time fixing these issues rather than talking to your customers.
This is a big problem, and there is no proper solution yet. So naturally, as problem solvers, we decided to create a mobile app to solve this!
This is how Serw.io was born. It is a mobile app that connects experts with customers over video calls. You can book an appointment with an expert from literally any industry that can be served through a video call. Customers can find professionals from diverse sectors using the Serw app, which becomes a significant boost to many COVID-19 affected small businesses and independent professionals.
We worked extremely hard for a straight 48 hours without a single minute of sleep. Our team of 12 engineers, designers, business analysts, and marketing professionals had a functioning app by the end of it.
Here is the 2-minute video pitch we created.
The Global Hack had over 12,000 participants from 100+ countries. Working with world-class mentors and talented teams across borders was one of the best experiences we had.
On Sunday early morning 01:57 am, the jury announced the winners, and here is what they said,
“It was not a very hard choice. We had a consensus, this is a kinda clear choice for us, I saw how the team came with just an idea, and they managed to execute it to almost perfection, and it’s team Serw, (I’m) very happy.”
Great things can happen when a dedicated team with a big dream work hard!
I want to thank my amazing team for working tirelessly. You guys keep reminding me that a group of hustlers with a big goal can achieve almost anything.
Serw.io is invitation only right now. If you’re interested, please request an invitation on our website — Serw.io, and we will be in touch. We will make Serw available to all customers worldwide by next week.
We always wanted to change the world through technology, and we are so excited to do that with Serw.io which can solve one of the biggest problems small businesses and independent professionals face right now during the lockdown and has the potential to change the way people work in the future.
What can you achieve in 48 hours?
Anything. Period.
Originally published on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-can-you-achieve-48-hours-alagan-mahalingam/
