How to win a NEAR Hackathon? 7 Tips from Co-Founder of Roketo

Roketo a real-time token streaming service built for the NEAR ecosystem was a grand prize for MetaBuidl hackathon. Judges were amazed by the way the project has re-invented pay-roll by allowing tokens to be streamed to users’ wallets instantly with just one click. Taras Dovgal, co-founder of Roketo is sharing his tips that helped his team to win.

The most Important Rule: Think First, Do Next

Don’t rush into something before thinking. If you want to build a project, not only the hackathon, think before you start to actually work on it. Is it useful? Will this add value to others’ lives? — find answers to these questions first.

Once you’re clear with the fundamentals, let’s discuss 7 rules you need to keep in mind if you are participating in any hackathon.

1. Stay Focused

First, pick an idea you want to work on.

Once you’ve figured it out, ask yourself what matters the most in your idea. You have limited time in the hackathon, so focus on the core of your idea. Work on the code and the front-end part. For Roketo, we showed everyone that streaming was possible with a user-friendly interface, but it was only a little part of what we intended to do. There are many things that can be done with Roketo, but for the hackathon, we had to select the essentials to work on. For us, it was streaming through contracts with a user-friendly interface.

2. Go Step by Step

Move step by step when you’ve figured out what you want to create, and don’t make huge plans. You have limited time to show what you have built. So, work on your main product first and then add extra features if you have time. It can be overwhelming if you have a plan to work on 10 different features along with the main product. Go small, realise the main idea first!

In our case, we had two weeks left when we finished our main product. Only then we thought of additional features and started working on them.

3. Code is Not Everything

Along with code, user experience matters a lot. The code is just one part of your product, while it’s also important to work on design, color scheme, documentation, etc. Carrying out these aspects are as important as writing code.

Work on your product with like-minded people. Delegate work to professionals and make sure you create something a normal person can easily understand.

4. Solve a Problem

While it is indeed essential to come up with a new concept, it is even more important to solve a problem, or simplify a thing that is already there. People tend to adapt to the product that is solving a problem or making their life easier. Fulfill people’s needs and give them convenient user experience. This is the most important thing you can do.

5. Give Yourself Less Time Than You Actually Have

Yes, you heard it right! If the actual deadline is in a month, give yourself 15 days. For the rest of the time, work on perfecting your product, adding details, and making it as good as possible. You never know what errors can occur after you have created your product. That is why you should always give yourself enough time to work on them. If you stick to an actual deadline, you risk ending up with a product that has bugs, missing details, bad front-end, or any other thing that will result in a bad product.

6. Skip Unpredictable Things

Once you have your product ready, it is time to add extra features & details that can make your product extraordinary. If you get stuck on a detail that is taking too long, just skip it. You better end up with 10 features rather than only 2 because you couldn’t manage the time required to do it. You can always come back to it after the hackathon is over.

7. Make Sure the Team is Synced

Think of hackathon as a battle. To be efficient and successful, your team should be connected. Assign all roles and responsibilities clearly, make sure everyone is aware of what others are doing. Otherwise, you will end up creating an imperfect product. To make sure everyone is synced, try to do daily team updates to keep each other informed.

Below you can check out the METABUIDL Awards Ceremony and Roketo pitch.

This is how our story with Rocket has begun, and we hope that the lessons we learned on our journey will be useful for you. It’s a beautiful path you’re stepping on, full of challenges, great times and discoveries around every corner.

So, good luck!

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