Shipping a Hackathon App That Still Works on Monday

Published 2025-09-28 by Faraz Rahimi

Demo-night code dies on Monday unless you named the secrets, the deploy, and the one job you will keep alive.

Tags: Hackathon, Product, React, Shipping, unlisted

I pick a job small enough to finish. I deploy before I decorate. I write env vars in a list, not in a teammate's head.

Monday I delete the cute and keep the path that worked. If nobody can log in without a laptop that was at the venue, we did not ship. We performed.

Data will be messy

Hackathon seed data is a toy. A real user will type nonsense. I add one validation pass before I show anyone outside the team.

Sleep is a feature

A Monday app needs a person who is not ruined. I would rather ship less with a pulse.

Original post: https://farazrahimi.com/posts/shipping-a-hackathon-app-that-still-works-on-monday