My Hackathon Journey: From Zero to Champion

My hackathon journey didn't start with winning. It started with losing. My first hackathon was BlueHacks 2025 . We spent almost all of our time building and very little time understanding the business side of our project. When it came time to pitch, we struggled to explain why our solution mattered. That experience taught me an important lesson: A great product means nothing if people don't understand its value. Next came GCash's invite-only hackathon . We didn't win, but I walked away with something more valuable than a trophy. I learned more about product thinking, working with data, and met someone named Neo, who would later become a key part of my hackathon journey. Then came the YSES Hackathon . Once again, we fell short. We believed we had built a strong solution, but we made the same mistake. We focused too much on the technology and too little on market validation, business models, and the value our product created. Everything changed during Based Space Batch 002 . It was my first international blockchain hackathon, and it completely changed how I approached building products. During the program, Sir Eli Becislao, then Country Lead of Base Philippines, emphasized the importance of storytelling, pitching, and business strategy. That was when I realized hackathons aren't just coding competitions. They're startup simulations. Our team eventually pivoted our idea and built NameThat , a Web3 platform on Base where users could earn rewards for creative names and ideas. Although we didn't win, we received the Most Pivoting Project Award , recognizing how much we improved our solution throughout the competition. That experience became a turning point. Next was the Philippine Blockchain Week ICP Hackathon . Simply being selected as one of the Top 50 teams in the Philippines already felt like an achievement. Then we were invited to present FarmChain on the Philippine Blockchain Week stage. When the results came out, we finished Top 6 out of 50 teams . To some, sixth p