From Rejection to Recognition: How a "Failed" Hackathon Led to Our Biggest "Win"

The story of building an AI shopping agent, facing disappointment, and finding unexpected success

Who are we?

We are two college students, had this crazy idea. What if we could build an AI agent that would revolutionize online shopping? Not just another chatbot, but a truly intelligent agent that could understand user emotions and budget, recommend, and help users make better purchasing decisions.

So we entered the Bolt Hackathon with high hopes and endless energy.

The Technical Nightmare

Building our AI agent was like trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces. Every day brought new challenges:

The Supabase Struggle

Connecting our AI agent to Supabase became our biggest headache. Just when we thought everything was working smoothly, something would break. The agent would stop responding. Data wouldn't save properly. Edge functions felt impossible to debug.

The API Limitation Crisis

We were using a third-party API to fetch ecommerce products, but it had very limited free queries. During testing, we'd hit the limit constantly. Our solution? We kept creating new accounts with different emails and phone numbers just to get more API calls.

It wasn't elegant, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

The Breakthrough Moment

After countless sleepless nights and debugging sessions, we finally did it. We had a complete, end-to-end working AI agent:

• Frontend fully functional with Bolt
• Backend running smoothly with Supabase
• AI agent performing exactly as promised

We were proud. We were ready.

The Crushing Mistake

Then came the moment that changed everything.

We couldn't submit our project video in time. In a panic, we added a random unlisted YouTubevlink just to complete the submission, thinking we'd replace it the next morning with our real video.

We were too late.

Our submission got rejected because of that one missing video. While other projects with broken frontends, non-working backends, and incomplete demos made it to the top, our fully functional product didn't even get a chance.

It hurts. A lot.

The Unexpected Turn

But sometimes life has different plans.

After the hackathon ended, something amazing happened. Mentors were a lot of interest on our idea during the build sessions and were genuinely impressed.

What we discovered:

• Out of 50+ project showcases, we had stood out in every build session.
• Many mentors were founders themselves, and got impressed about our product.
• Some expressed interest in future investment opportunities.
• We received internship opportunities from their companies.

The Validation We Needed

During Bolt's build sessions, we had worked extensively with mentors to:

• Refine our core idea
• Conduct competitive analysis
• Strengthen our product strategy
• Perfect our pitch

This mentorship proved invaluable. Even without winning, we gained something more important: validation from industry experts.

Rise Your Hack: Our Second Chance

Just when we thought our hackathon journey was over, we heard about Rise Your Hack - the world's largest AI hackathon.

We shared our Bolt Hackathon story with the organizers, and they believed in us enough to let us participate. This time, we reimagined our AI shopping agent specifically for their Llama x Groq track requirements.

The challenge: We were still college students dealing with:

• Maintaining attendance requirements
• Middle of exam season
• Multiple assignments due
• Limited time and resources

But we pushed forward anyway.

The Victory That Changed Everything

After weeks of intense work, balancing college with development, we submitted our project.

The result was surprising:

🏆 We won the Llama x Grok track at Rise Your Hack - World's Largest AI Hackathon!

Our prizes:

• Acceptance into the Grok startup program
• $5,000 USD in Groq credits
• Co-marketing support from the Grok team

The Bigger Picture

Looking back, our "failure" at the Bolt Hackathon wasn't really a failure at all. It was a setup for something bigger:

What we gained from Bolt:

• Technical expertise in building AI agents
• Mentor relationships and industry connections
• Internship opportunities
• Product validation from experienced founders

What we achieved at Rise Your Hack:

• Recognition on a global stage
• Substantial resources to grow our product
• Access to startup acceleration programs
• Proof that our idea has real potential

The Journey Continues

Today, we're not just college students with a cool project. We're entrepreneurs with:

• A validated AI shopping agent
• Industry mentor support
• Internship opportunities
• Startup program acceptance
• Resources to scale our product

Sometimes the path to success isn't linear. Sometimes getting rejected opens doors you never knew existed.

Our AI shopping agent journey is just beginning, and we're more excited than ever about what comes next.

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Building something meaningful while juggling college life isn't easy, but with the right idea, persistence, and a bit of luck, even a "failed" hackathon can become the foundation for something extraordinary.

I document my journey, visit here - https://www.instagram.com/teja.techh/

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