YC Hacks Fall 2018 — Hello Silicon Valley!
By: Ankit Bansal
Tags: Hackathons, Silicon Valley, Berkeleyischool, Ycombinator, Entrepreneurship

Hackathons are fun. They have always been an awesome experience for me. The thrill of coming up with a problem space and a potential solution when hard pressed on time is something that has always excited me. I’ve been a part of multiple hackathons in India but this one was bound to be special since it was my first one in the Bay Area.

BACKGROUND

I’ve been a student at the UC Berkeley School of Information since August. Things have been moving at a startling pace. Faster than I could initially keep up with. I have been in multiple countries but the infectious energy in Berkeley gets to you pretty quickly. I-School graduates have been consistent performers at hackathons. I wanted to be a part of this culture for the very same reason.

To top that, I hadn’t visited the Bay Area (San Jose, Mountain View etc) because I had no time. This hackathon turned out to be the perfect excuse to get into the heart of the world’s most innovative region, Silicon Valley.

When I got to know about the upcoming hackathon, I immediately applied. A few weeks later, I received a mail confirming that I had been selected. My roommate had been accepted too.

Now, came the hard part and the fun part. Finding a team. Thinking of an idea. My roommate and I discussed plans, problem spaces and ideas were thrown back and forth until we finally got to one.

THE DAY ARRIVES

Between classes and assignments, time passed quickly and sure enough the day came. October 5th. They already had a bus prepared to take us to Mountain View from SF.

Y-Combinator. We had heard the stories, read about the startups and only imagined the culture. Today, we were going to be there. Everybody on the bus looked super excited. I just stared outside the window. I just wanted to absorb the views. I felt like a tourist, just exploring whatever is around him.

After about an hour, we reached our destination. The huge “Y” could be seen. We knew we were there. Me and my teammate both felt that this would be the start of a super exciting journey. This was the reason we had applied to grad school. This was the reason we chose to be at Berkeley. It was finally time to make the most of the location.

Y-COMBINATOR HQ

As I entered the office of the world’s most revered startup accelerator, I could feel a different surge of energy. So many people, so many teams, so many dreams. All wanting to challenge the Status Quo and build something that matters. There was a huge room prepared for the hackathon with chairs and tables. Unlimited food and drinks. YC swag. Free AWS credits. The message was clear.

“Build stuff. We’ll take care of the rest.”

After some initial formalities and meeting a few people, we finally had a team. The hackathon began at 6.30pm. Three of the four people in this team were from my school. The fourth one was a part of the Startup school at YC. We met and shared the idea with her. That is where things began to get interesting. We had a clearly identified problem space, but no clear solution.

As luck would have it, she was a developer turned product manager. Guess what we did next? Whiteboard! It was time to figure things out. We thought of the users, needs, problems and potential solutions. After much discussion, we finally figured out what we would be making for the hackathon. It was 11 p.m. by then. We were left with 18 hours.

LET THE HACKING BEGIN!

After a clearly defined problem space, and a potential solution, we began searching for the tools we would need. After much exploration, we figured the tools we would be using, and started working. Our amazing designer joined us at around 10 am the next day. While we figured out the technology stack and the backend, she worked on making the system usable, and worthy of being demoed.

We had kept a deadline to finish a couple of components around 2, and if not, then abandon them completely. We faced issues with the technology stack we used and had to move to a completely new platform in the crunch of time. Eventually, we ended up creating a scaled-down version of what we had planned to make. But we were happy with the output. It did what we needed it to, and it looked good!

Around 3.30pm, we started working on our pitch deck and were all set to present what we had come up with. All teams were winding up their projects, and we spoke to those around us to know what they had come up with. We met a lot of Cal alums from varying backgrounds.

THE PITCH

Jungo: Create meaningful connections at events

Finally, it was our turn to pitch. We walked into the room ready with our product and presentation. In front of us were the judges who listened to us patiently, and kept smiling reassuringly. We explained how the problem stemmed from our own experiences, and how it is something millions of people needed to cope up with on a daily basis. They were curious about the solution, and asked us a few questions before our time was up. It was exciting to show off something that we had come up with in the space of 24 hours.

After the pitch, we walked out and relaxed. After a sleepless night, we felt that we had earned the right to chill. The only thing left to do was to wait for the results. In the evening, the results were announced. Jungo did not make it to the finals but we spoke to the judges for feedback after the event. They said that they loved the idea, and encouraged us to pursue it further.

CONCLUSION

Overall, the YC Hacks experience was amazing. It made clear to me what silicon valley was all about. Innovation, passion and commitment. The breadth of ideas that people came up with really inspiring.

Before coming to Berkeley, one very senior mentor had told me to not limit myself to the campus, and make use of being in this area. With this hackathon, I understood what he was pointing towards, and I’ll surely be attending lots more. Awesome people, amazing culture and incomparable energy!

The Team: Yezhisai Murugesan, Yunjie Yao , Chintan Vyas, Ankit Bansal(me)

Update: Just yesterday, we got accepted to the Berkeley Lean Launchpad course with the same idea and shall be pursuing it further. Excited to see where this takes us! Maybe back to YC? ;)