Hello! My name is Carlos Melegrito, and I’m a designer studying computer science. I blog often about tech, films, software, design, internet culture and everything in between.
There used to be a website called Readmill where I could post reviews of books that I've read. It was fairly popular in its hayday and some likened it to be the Yelp of books. But it shut down not too long ago and— coupled with my hectic transition into Uni— I've slowly lost interest in reading.
But early last year, I decided I would go back into it. I think it's because I've gotten sick of the web's consistently poor (due to the nature of its hurriedly-written) writing quality. Anyhow, here are the books I've read— my thoughts included— during the year that was 2016.
Surely You Must Be Joking Mr. Feynman!
by Richard Feynman
It's a semi-biography of the great physicist, Richard Feynman. The book's a collection of short stories about Feynman's early days, from when he first discovered his love of science (by hacking radio as a kid), all the way up to his later college years.
I enjoyed the fact that it's just a collection of stories that I could read at my own pace. What I didn't like was the fact that the timeline of the book was simply chronological, rather than jumping in and out of similar themes. Overall, this first book I read in 2016 not only rekindled my interest in reading, but also for physics.
Things to Make and Do in The Fourth Dimension
by Matt Parker
I got this book in the spur of the moment while out on vacation somewhere between Melbourne and Adelaide. I've had my eyes on this book for a while— the author's a prominent stand-up mathematician (he's been a recurring guest on Numberphile) and I've been subscribed to his fairly new YouTube channel from day one.
Parker's book is exactly as it sounds: all the best bits of Numberphile jam-packed into an (incredibly) easy-to-read text. The comedy does get a little dry sometimes— but that's okay, because the math inside is very, very amusing.
White Tiger
by Aravind Adiga
This is one of the best novels I've picked up in a while. White Tiger follows the story of one Balram, a poverty-stricken, entrepreneurial Indian boy who (so wittily, yet almost deceitfully) makes his way up the caste ladder. Interestingly, its narrative is told through a series of letters from Balram to reader.
What I loved about this book was that it begins where it ends, and each moment in the story falls right into place as the ending becomes more clear. Plus, I really connected with the storytelling such that whenever I paused from reading, I'd act like Balram from time to time.
Sapiens
by Yuval Harari
If I could track the kind of things I browse on the internet, I'd wager that world history would come up right on top if not right after computer science and design. I'm a sucker for history— I'd spend an afternoon down a Wikipedia rabbit hole full of articles about the Indus Valley Civilisation or the origin of the English language.
That said, I was spoiled by the amount of information this book gave me. Harari's novelisation of human history (from the first human, the spread of religion— all the way up to bionic eyes) is a fantastic insight into the psychology of our behaviour. Ten out of ten, would read this again.
On Web Typography
by Jason Santa Maria
I'm a fan of Jason Santa Maria's work, and I've been waiting for this book ever since it was teased way back in 2011. I decided to get a copy for myself now that I'm spending more time designing interfaces instead of icons.
Although it's a little dated, the book is incredibly practical. I found myself using it more by side for reference while designing than sitting down and reading it. I'd like to think of it as a guidebook to using fonts effectively. (I also learned that font is to type as DVD is to movie, hah!)
Now that it's 2017, I'm going to amp up my reading. I've armed myself with an arsenal of books for this new year, and I can't wait to go through all of them.
An excerpt from Jeremy Keith's new, free online book:
These echoes of the past reverberate in the present even when their usefulness has been outlived. You’ll still sometimes see a user interface that displays an icon of a Compact Disc or vinyl record to represent music. That same interface might use the image of a 3½ inch floppy disk to represent the concept of saving data. The reason why floppy disks wound up being 3½ inches in size is because the disk was designed to fit into a shirt pocket. The icons in our software interfaces are whispering stories to us from the history of clothing and fashion.
Resilient Web Design is about building websites for the past, present and future. HTML was built as a lenient, universal semantic language— and it is vital we use that way. Keith's critically-acclaimed book is one for all web tinkerers, both new and old. Go have a read.
I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
I was there when Joshua Topolsky was the Editor-In-Chief of Engadget. I was also there when he quit and started independently— a news site called This is my next. And then he relaunched that into The Verge, now one of the world's biggest tech blogs. And then he quit that.
Today, he's launching The Outline— and goodness, that #Millenial art direction is perf 👌. It's a news site about culture, art and humans. But not in the way anyone would expect.
Found a new YouTube channel to subscribe to— and the content is fantastic. Wendover Productions doesn't just do factoid videos, but also runs a series dedicated to a Wikiepedia list of random, interesting topics. The video above is an example of that.
Also I'm left-handed, and I highly enjoyed this video.
In the startup world, competition is fierce. That's the biggest thing I've learned this semester. There isn't a niche of the enterprising industry without founders fighting over funding or a slice of the market. It's a jungle out there.
I've started to notice this not only in the brands I follow, but also within my Global Challenges cohort. Ever since we've been tasked to start startups, I've found myself in a constant state of trying to outwit my classmates. Maybe it's just me— or maybe it's because we're naturally just an ultra-competitive bunch. But I'd like to think that we've become more feisty as budding entrepreneurs.
What's great about competition though is that it's there to push us and motivate us to success. Ideas only get stronger if they're battle-tested. But what's not great is that it fosters the practice of hoarding talent and resources just to keep that competitive advantage.
As a student, being able to out-manoeuvre my peers with what I have is a skill I've developed over the years. It makes sense given that we're ranked, tested and compared with one another. But as a teacher, this spirit of competition is something I'm still coming to terms with, because I've learned that there's so much more value in sharing what you know— that is, to help others succeed, too.
In spite of all this, I've decided to share my most valuable startup resources. This list of websites, podcasts, videos and tools are treasures I've collected over the years during my near-decade of work in the tech industry. They've helped me immensely in my career— and I hope it does the same for you.
🌏 Websites
Product Hunt— the best place to keep up with the startup industry. It's a hub for startups of all kinds to promote their work, get feedback from other founders, and more. The site's notorious for having celebrities like the CEO of Uber and even Casey Neistat as active users.
Submit.co— is where I'd go for press coverage. The website is a list of news websites' email addresses and links to submit your press releases.
Startup Pitch Decks— slide decks from Airbnb, YouTube and more back when they were still looking for funding. Perfect if you want to know what a successful set of slides look like.
Autopsy.io— stories from failed startups. Not only does the site list the ideas of these startups, but provide links to articles on why they failed.
Product Pages— want to know what a beautiful startup website looks like? Look here for inspiration.
🎙 Podcasts
StartUp— required listening for all young entrepreneurs. The first season documents what it's like to start a business from scratch. The second season talks about stories from startups.
Open for Business— lessons on entrepreneurship. Listen to the controversial first episode on whether entrepreneurship is genetic or learned. Or an episode on how to price your product.
Freakonomics— this one's about how economics affects the real world. There's also a really good episode on productivity hacking.
99% Invisible— answers the question, "why are things designed the way they are?". Use it to grow your design thinking skills, or how a song managed to get an entire country to switch from driving on the right lane to the left.
🎬 Videos
In the above video, Cabel Sasser, founder of Panic, Inc. talks about how he turned a hobby into a business. I watch this talk at least once a year to motivate me in my career in tech.
Small Empires— A really good web series about what enterprises in the US are like. Gives a pretty good indication of startup culture.
How to Make a Hit App— very relevant for tech startups.
🛠 Tools
Sketch— like Canva, but for grown-ups. It's like the drawing feature of Word or Keynote, but built as its own app. Highly recommended.
Startup Victoria Slack— ok, this isn't a tool, but I use it like one. It's about 1200 members of Victoria's startup community, from founders, CEOs to job recruiters. I used it to score two jobs and an internship. As of writing, they're giving away tickets to pitch competitions to students.
Gumroad— sell stuff with just a link. You can use it for everything, from selling digital goods, subscriptions, or even physical products. It's super easy to use.
GoSquared— use this instead of Google Analytics. It's way easier to set up, and so much easier to understand. And it looks way more beautiful, too.
I'm going to update this list as I find more in the future. Feel free to bookmark this page. Until then, stay tuned!
There are a lot of resources on the web for PowerPoint themes and the like. Although they're there to make a stale slide-deck look more appealing, simply having nice fonts and colors won't make a presentation more engaging.
Although I'm no expert at presentations, I consider myself a slideshow connoisseur. Ever since high school, I've always enjoyed designing, presenting, and even watching slideshows. (If you know me well enough, you know that I'm always up at 3am for Apple Keynotes). I enjoy them because I think slideshows are the perfect medium for more formal, visual storytelling.
Oh, how I miss Steve Jobs and his Keynotes.
Now that I'm an entrepreneur, slideshows (or pitch decks in the startup world) have become more of a utility than an art for me. In order for a business to succeed, the quality of its slides must be able to engage both potential investors and fans alike. And to reach pitch perfect, slideshows require not only to be eye-catching-ly gorgeous, but must also be effective at communicating ideas.
While making the pitch deck for Initiator (of which I'll upload one day!), I pulled up a mood-board of some of the most successful slideshows from Silicon Valley. I watched their presentations, looked at the pitch decks, and read some of the founders' posts on which were successful and which weren't. I even got out Nancy Duarte's HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations to deconstruct what I knew about designing slides.
For posterity, and for the purpose of helping out my colleagues who are also building pitch decks of their own, I decided to collate what I've learned. I know, I know— it's a sin to help your competition out, but in the name of design, here's everything I know about how to create a slideshow that doesn't suck:
One Idea Per Slide
The best way to illustrate this is through action: grab a thick marker and a handful of sticky notes. Before opening up your computer, draw out your entire slideshow on those sticky notes.
It can be difficult— and that's the point. If you're cramming in too much per sticky note, then the same goes for your slides. To make the process easier, limit yourself to drawing out one idea per yellow paper.
The above technique isn't mine— it's Duarte's— but I personally do the same for every slideshow I start. Not only does it help focus which points I'm going to talk about, but also maps out the structure of my presentation.
Less Words, More Graphics
Don't let the slides to the talking. It is your job to talk, and for the slides to help you with your talk. So that means no paragraphs or bullet points. Maybe a sentence, at most. If you can do it in a few words, that's good. But the quickest, most straightforward way of presenting an idea is through a picture.
Say for example, you're pitching the idea for an app. You could put up a slide with a list of all its features, or instead show the mockup of a screen shot for the app. Sure, the latter will take longer to make, but it will let your audience instantly understand what you're trying to say.
As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Notice the word ‘worth’ in there. The right image for an idea is more valuable than any form of prose.
Play with the Eyes
To deliver a presentation isn't just giving a speech and using the slides to show what you're talking about. Slideshows are an audio-visual experience. To present is to tell one story to the ears, another story for the eyes, and have the audience combine them into the idea you're trying to pitch.
A good sound-bite paired with a well-placed slide can trigger a more emotional effect rather than just saying so. For example, you could deliver a joke and just say the punchline. Or you could instead build up the joke, click to a slide that illustrates the punchline, and then have the audience revel in laughter.
Tony Zhou's Every Frame A Painting describes how director Edgar Wright uses visual comedy.
It's no coincidence that it's the same move a lot of film editors use. A movie isn't exciting if it's just two characters exchanging dialogue back and forth. The same goes for a presentation— it's not at all engaging without making the most of your audience's eyes.
The biggest takeaway from these three points is that a great presentation takes advantage of the slides. The slides aren't there as a backdrop— they're there to complement what you want to say.
Pitches are show and tell, after all.
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Designing is a fun, challenging and rewarding process, and I'm surprised I don't write about it that often on my blog. So for this post, I decided to journal my creative process and share with you what I've learned while working on the design for my team's new startup, Initiator.
A little bit about this new startup: Initiator is a crowdfunding website for science research. Yes, it sounds a little bit familiar— but my team and I are aiming to create a more engaged platform-slash-community for science fans of all kinds. That gave me a design challenge: we needed to be different, and removed from all the negative stigma associated with monotony of science research.
Above are the screen shots of our competitors' websites. They've got quite decent designs, but there's a clear pattern here: they all look very academic and formal. This gave us an opportunity to differentiate: we could give our company a distinctly different personality— a unique company voice.
Choose A Company Voice
If you've got a startup, choosing a company voice is going to be one of the biggest decisions your startup will ever make. It is really important to find a personality that best suits your company, because how you present yourself will make a lasting impression on how your customers will think of you.
Now what exactly is a “company voice”? It's the way you behave, the way your words are written on your website, or even the way your TV ads could sound like. Your company voice is the answer to the question, “If my startup were a person, what would their characteristics be?”
During our team's design process, this was the first question we asked. We wanted Initiator to present science in an entirely non-traditional way.
We took cues from popular science communicators like Kurzgesagt, the way Slack talks in social media, and so on.
In case you missed it, we added a new way of catching up on unread channels, and it’s basically the cats pajamas. 🐱🍕🎸https://t.co/0XoOhGqR2D
— Slack (@SlackHQ) September 14, 2016
What really helped us find our company identity though, was we took each of our individual personalities and mixed them together. As a team, we were geeky, fun, casual and quirky. This was the kind of voice we wanted to project.
For some startups, it's fairly obvious to see that a company's personality can come directly from their founders. But it doesn't have to be that way: a great counter-example is Nike, whose personality instead took cues from their target audience (highly determined athletes).
The next step in the design process, is finding out how to build around the voice. So, how does one go about using the voice to design a brand from scratch? Easy: you don't start from scratch.
Inspire Yourself
I've mentioned this so many times before on my blog: nothing is truly original. Like a famous painter once said, "great artists steal".
But I don't mean you should blatantly steal designs from brands. Doing so simply makes your brand forgettable. If you want to create a company brand that's truly unique and timeless, you have to steal from the best, then make it your own.
Once you've decided on your company voice, you can use it to your advantage. Using this specific voice, find brands from entirely different industries that share the same voice as your company's. In fact, make it a team exercise: create a mood-board of things that delight you.
That's exactly what I did for my team. We worked with our “quirky” personality to find visual elements we liked. I hunted for logos from Disney movies, illustrations from designers I looked up to, and a whole bunch more. We ended up with what you see above: a mood-board of inspiration for our company logo.
And Finally, Execute
This is the part a lot of people shy away from, and that's learning how to use software like Photoshop to build the final designs. Here's a pro tip: you don't even need fancy software to design your logo. If you truly want to be creative, you have to think outside the box, and use what you know!
I'll leave the rest as an exercise for you to sharpen your skills. There are a lot of resources available on the web too, if you really want to learn how to do it digitally. Alternatively, if you want to skip the learning and have it done ASAP, you can also hire me!
Below is the final logo and marketing material. I'll let the them do the rest of the talking. In the meantime, subscribe to the mailing list if you want more behind-the-scenes pieces like these!
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I've been working with the fine folks at Itty Bitty Apps on this for a month now, and I'm super excited to share it: an all-new website for Reveal 2.
What is Reveal 2? It's an app that lets you quickly debug the way your iOS App looks once you've coded it. Think inspect element, but for your apps. This latest version is one huge update, bringing a bucket-load of new features, along with a sharp, new UI redesign.
This is the second product launch I've ever experienced first-hand, and it was quite a pleasure to see the team at Itty Bitty polish and refine it during the weeks before its launch. They're a talented, dedicated bunch, and I'm so honored to have collaborated with them.
Another Vox video, but this one's such a great exposition.
I was never a fan of hip-hop and rap music because of the stigma around it: picture the stereotypical delinquent audience it surrounds. It's a cacaphony of expletives, crime and drug references. I never liked it because I wanted to shy away from that crowd.
Until I was introduced to A Tribe Called Quest. Specifically, their album: The Low End Theory. To me, it sounded like a clean rap album at first— I listened passively and the beats were melodic and very memorable. But once I delved into the lyrics, I fell in love with the genre right away. There is so much meaning nestled between the verses: from Excursions and its rant on the state of rap, to Check The Rhime and its story about the early days of hip-hop. Very meta.
I trawled through the catalogs for more rap music like this— I stumbled upon Killer Mike's Reagan, which is really hilarious by the way— and then Kanye West thanks to the video above. West's Ultralight Beam has been on repeat on my iTunes all week.
To say the least, I shouldn't have judged by the covers. Rap music is actually really interesting because there are some great stories hidden beneath.
I'm a huge fan of podcasts— which is also partly why I decided to start one. I have been in a few podcasts before, and I have hosted a few some era ago. But this time, I'm going to do this right: instead of the usual "two dudes talking to each other" format, I'll do it differently. I'm going to make this sound more like a radio show. A story of my life (narrated by yours truly).
In this first episode, I speak a little bit about what I do at Uni. I describe the course I'm studying and what it's like to build a business as a student entrepreneur. Also, I reflect on a pivotal moment that caused my startup to change business plans. So what are you waiting for? Spare yourself 11 minutes, sit back, and listen in.
Here's a link to download the original file if need be. Oh, and below are some images of my podcast setup. If you have any suggestions as to how I should be doing my podcast— tweet @ me on Twitter!
Show Notes
Although I wish I had more time in writing the transcript of this show, I did get a chance to write down these show notes. I mention and cite a couple of things during my recording, so here they are in chronological order:
Alex Blumberg — he's a serial podcaster, and the CEO of Gimlet Media, a startup that aims to change the way people think of podcasts
TED Talks — keynotes by some incredibly amazing people, with topics on science, technology, the arts and everything else in between.
Bachelor of Science Advanced Global Challenges — it's the university degree I'm doing. Note that this blog, website and podcast is not in any way affiliated with nor sponsored by Monash University.
“Universities need to change so students learn to keep up with the world” — an article written by Dr. Rowan Brookes around the same time last year on teaching enterprising skills to students.
And all the sound clips and music tracks used are license-free as they are registered under public domain.
How to Start a Code Workshop Business in 15 Days or Less
It's actually more difficult than it sounds. Why? Before I explain, I'll lay down the context.
💸 The Context
Only a few weeks ago, our lecturer in entrepreneurship set my classmates and I a challenge: given $5, we were to make as much money as we possibly could. The even harder challenge: we had to do it in 15 days.
15 days is quite a lot of time. But not if you're juggling three subjects as a full-time uni student— all while working as a designer for three different companies. On top of that, each of my subjects had at least one assignment due within the week (plus a topic test to study for the week after). In short: 15 days is actually not a lot of time.
Luckily, we didn't have to do it individually (except for one of us). We got to do it in teams. I did it alongside my current startup team— Zac, Seb and Jacqui— who each wrote about their own experience of this challenge. (Go and have a read of their blogs. They're great pieces. It's okay, I'll wait right here).
💡 The Project
Carlos teaches a student
For my project, I really wanted to take advantage of my area of expertise: software. Not just because it's something I really truly enjoy doing, but also because I thought it's the type of enterprise that would generate the most profits with very little cost. And well, I was wrong.
At first, I decided to do it Glacier-style. That is, create a piece of software that my friends in the design and developer industry would buy. The problem with this however, is that creating something as valuable as Glacier would take me months to make. Even if I did it hackathon-style with my recent release of the iOS 10 UI templates, I wouldn't have been able to do any work for days due to lack of sleep.
I then thought that if I couldn't fit in the time to create software, I could perhaps host an event where others would do it and pay for it. That is, I thought of hosting an afternoon-long mini-hackathon, and get past competitors to help me set it up. I even thought about giving away my new Xbox as a prize to lure in competitors. But hosting an event as extravagant as that would have cost me too much unnecessary effort just for the returns I'd get in the end.
That's the biggest thing I learned from this experience: even though software costs next to nothing to sell, it can take up a whole lot of time before selling anything. Time is money, and according to a lot of software developers, writing good software takes time. That's something I'll always take into account from now on when it comes to running a business.
🔥 Almost Out of Ideas
A few days have since passed— my planning was taking too long— and I was running out of ideas and options. That was when I decided to host a code workshop instead. I thought that if I really wanted to sell my expertise as a developer through software, what if I literally did sell my expertise?
Minimalist artwork
I was unsure at first, because I only knew a handful of people that would be interested in attending such an event. I decided to launch a little website for the event anyway, and promote it passively through social media. How it would work was I'd charge $20 to reserve a spot, and I'd teach them the basics in an hour.
What the slides would look like
After a couple of days, to my surprise, a whole lot of strangers were actually interested in attending— and even some of my peers who were adept at code thought it was a great idea. I then asked my friends at Wired Students Society (the people who organised UNIHACK) to help me promote my event to get more people to attend.
🎉 How it Ended
I held two sessions at one of the libraries at Monash University: one on web development and the other on Python. The people who came enjoyed the event, and some wanted more. And I myself enjoyed teaching and mentoring others about code. In the end, I earned $360, all of which I promised to donate to the ASRC. Overall, it was quite a successful experience.
Are you interested in learning how to code? @cjmlgrto is running a series of fantastic workshops at @MonashUni 💥 https://t.co/Fff6qrIHcf
— Josh Parnham (@joshparnham) August 10, 2016
Shameless plug: if you're ever interested in joining a workshop, email me and I'll get you in for free!
Image above courtesy of Jacqui Wakefield
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This semester, I'm studying the Theory of Computation— which is essentially a class about how computers work in the abstract way. It's a good subject to learn because even though technology can change very rapidly, the way they work almost certainly never changes.
While traversing through the web for a quick introduction the topic, I came across Destroy All Software. It's a screen cast site run by Gary Bernhardt, that teaches a little bit more abstract computation topics, in the most straightforward way. It's pretty good— and I highly recommend watching these videos if you're ever interested in learning more computer science.
This is a great show. I'll repeat, for emphasis: this is a great show. If you haven't watched it by now, you should. And if you have, here are some cool things on the internet about this year's best TV show:
Art of the Title: Stranger Things— before I even watched the first episode, I fell in love with the show's intro credits. It's beautifully simple and eerily echoes the nostalgic hand-made opening credits of TV series from the 80s. And the music— matches perfectly.
Stranger Things OST, Vol. One— speaking of the soundtrack, the entire album is killer. From the moment the first track plays, all the way up to that (emotional) ending, the deep synth and electronic sounds kept the beat for the entire show. And it's a good beat.
Phill Farrugia reviews Stranger Things— reflects my thoughts exactly on the TV show. Something to add on top of this review, too: the casting was perfect.
Fonts in Use looks at Stranger Things— besides the amazing set pieces and the gorgeous cinematography, the show's art, design and typography rivals that of most Spielberg classics.
I haven't been this obsessed about a piece of film since the Ghibli days— and that says something about this show. It's definitely worth watching.
Melbourne's premiere university-level tech hackathon was on this weekend. Just like last year, I joined in. With fierce competition, mentors & recruiters from big-name companies, and a panel of critically-acclaimed judges— it was one exhilarating event.
I learned so much in the span of 36 sleepless hours. While fresh in my mind, here's what happened, in the form of major 🔑 lessons from UNIHACK:
♻️ Don't be afraid to try something old
When you're starting out as an entrepreneur, trying to come up with a unique business idea feels like the biggest problem in the world.
When my UNIHACK team and I were deciding what to build, we also ran into the same problem. We spent an ideation session trying to come up with the most original idea we could think of. It was extremely difficult, so our team decided to "play it safe" by working on a more well-designed version of When2Meet.
But, walking into UNIHACK, we were surprised to see so many teams doing the same thing: building some variation of some existing product. That was when I realised that a lot of big-name companies have done the same thing, too! I mean, Uber's essentially the taxi service plus the internet— and Facebook started out as a MySpace clone but for Harvard students! Nothing is truly original.
So my team and I decided to stick to our idea, and just focus on improving what's already out there. We were pretty successful in the end: we won the category for best design, on top of a people's choice award.
💬 Work fast, speak slowly
6 hours before the deadline, my team and I were facing some really bad issues building our app. We couldn't get the core functionality to work. We had a huge backlog of tasks that needed to be finished in just a small amount of time— and lot of that work was dependent on this core feature.
We were stressed, and each team meeting we had was getting more and more aggressive. It had reached the point where we each had to seperate from each other to cool down and figure out what went wrong.
First of all, here's what we were doing right: we had hourly team meetings, and lined up our tasks on Trello. We were on top of everything, and everybody knew what each other had to do. (Not so different from the usual startup team workflow). But here's what wasn't right: we were too concerned about the quantity of team catch-ups, that we completely disregarded the quality of our communication.
Every one of us in our team was too concerned about getting stuff done that we didn't bother to explain what we did and listen to each other. We were too focused on our own tasks, and assumed that everyone in the team would just understand what we did.
30 minutes before the deadline was when we finally resolved all our issues. It was extremely stressful, but one heck of a lesson to learn: you can never assume that other people know as much as you. When you do anything, explain before, explain during, and explain after!
📈 It's all about the pitch
There are so many ways to phrase this. Here's a few that I like:
Your product isn't worth anything if you can't sell it.
What you do doesn't matter if you don't know how to tell others about it.
Your business cannot be successful if you can't show others that it will be.
Even though teams at UNIHACK spent 24 hours non-stop building their product, the quality of the work was measured by their ability to pitch to the judges. Some of the best programmers and software developers I knew didn't win— even if they knew how to write industry-standard code. The winning teams won because they could persuade their product's potential.
Indeed, it's crazy to think that one could work so hard on getting the product right— and have all that effort thrown away because a product is unsellable. (Perhaps a parallel could be drawn to the whole science communication conundrum). But the most important thing to learn here is that what you sell matters as much as how you sell it.
What I love about hackathons is the agile learning environment. It's a playground where you're allowed to make mistakes, learn hard, and learn fast.
Even though my team and I each came home with an Xbox of our own, the most valuable thing we got out of it was the learning experience. As cheesy as it sounds— it is the lessons learned from hardships and challenges after all, that guide one's future decisions and motivations.
Images courtesy of Steven Cooper, licensed under a BY-NC-SA Creative Commons License. Thanks, Steve!
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