Over the past 4 years, Iโve competed in and won 40 Web3 hackathons, earning over $70,000 in prizes, building 15 projects across 30 protocols, and working with 8 remote companies based in London and San Francisco, all while completing my engineering degree.
There's no specific way or set roadmap, you have to commit to the process of self improving, even if you don't have exposure to the right people, you can become that person for the next.
At one point, I even went winning 5/5 in hackathons within a single month. More recently, Iโve shifted from the hackathon grind to operating like a CEO, hiring developers from Turkey, India, Nigeria, and across Africa to code, and handling operations, marketing and growth. My focus has been building systems that create value whether Iโm actively involved or not.
if you're getting into hackathons, here are a few things worth figuring out early:
> skip looking for teammates if you're just starting out, work solo like a founder
> start trying before you feel ready (there are always 10-20 active hackathons, just look around)
> when feeling out of ideas, look into idea directories (alliance, y-combinator, ecosystem project directories, etc.)
> stalk past hackathons from the current host and see who won to learn judges' preferences.
also, if you're interested to work with me or someone here just getting started - you can always hit me a dm.