Hackathon Submission

Track choice → scannable description → <3-min demo script → checklist. Optimize for a judge who has 90 seconds, not a reader who has 10 minutes.

Context handoff

At start, read .claude/context/idea.md and .claude/context/build.md if present — pull the pitch, wedge, and what actually works from them instead of asking again.

Workflow

1. Pick the least-crowded track

Winning a thin track beats placing in a fat one. Per candidate track: estimate entry volume, fit with what's actually built, and judge appetite (sponsor tracks often have the fewest serious entries).

• Winner patterns + track history: hackathon-winners.md — every Colosseum grand champion and track winner, with what they built
• Live crowdedness check: ext/colosseum — query 5,400+ past submissions for cluster density and gaps (requires COLOSSEUM_COPILOT_PAT)

2. Write a scannable description

Judges read 100+ submissions. Yours gets one skim deciding whether it gets a real read:

• Tagline: what it does, one sentence, no jargon
• First paragraph: problem + who has it
• Bold the one thing that's novel
• "What works today" list — demo-able claims only, never roadmap dressed as product
• Why Solana (one concrete reason: speed, fees, composability with X)

Full structure (200–500 words, paragraph-by-paragraph): hackathon-submission-guide.md. Score the draft against judging-criteria.md before submitting.

3. Demo script (<3 minutes)

Time	Beat
0:00–0:20	Problem — one user, one pain, no market-size slides
0:20–0:40	What you built, one sentence + UI first appears
0:40–2:10	The demo — one happy path, real data, on-chain proof (explorer tx)
2:10–2:40	The novel part — the thing competitors don't have
2:40–3:00	Traction/team one-liner + the ask

Shot-by-shot template and recording tips: demo-video-script.md. Rule: if the demo can fail live, record it.

4. Submission checklist

• Track chosen by crowdedness, not vanity
• Tagline passes the "non-crypto friend" test
• Description scannable in 90 seconds (bold claims, short paragraphs)
• Demo video <3 min, real transaction shown
• Repo public, README quickstart actually works from clone
• Deployed link (devnet OK) + program ID listed
• Team and contact info complete
• Pitch deck attached if track requires one — use pitch-deck

After the hackathon: grants

Losing the track doesn't mean losing the funding. Same artifacts (description, demo, deck) feed grant applications:

• Superteam Earn (earn.superteam.fun) — bounties + grants up to ~$10k USDC equivalent, fast cycles, regional Superteams
• Solana Foundation grants — milestone-based, public-good angle; reuse the scannable description with an ecosystem-benefit paragraph
• Grant-shaped ideas dataset: superteam-ideas.json

Note: upstream apply-grant ships no inert reference files (SKILL.md only — excluded from routing), so grant guidance lives here.