Tonight,
@SuperteamMY co-hosted a session with
@ryantjhin_ and had
@mattytay in da house 🏛️
@colosseum co-founder, spilling how to actually win Colosseum
here's what the G said 👇
(if you're in Colosseum and skip this… I don't know why you're still participating. no point, you will lose)
1/ it's not a hackathon. it's a startup competition.
no bounties. no weekend side projects. they want the top 0.1% of builders willing to quit their jobs.
bring an existing project, pivot mid-way, or start fresh. evolving an idea across hackathons = encouraged. resubmitting the same thing unchanged = not.
2/ the pitch video gets watched FIRST
2 min hard limit. judges want to know who you are before anything else.
cover:
→ who you are + why you're building this
→ the insight you found
→ product, user, early demand
→ what you built + why those features
→ the big vision
technical deep-dive goes in the demo video. get on camera. AI narration is fine if English isn't your first language.
3/ what judges actually look for
→ deep domain knowledge + a non-obvious insight
→ a novel angle (don't just clone Polymarket)
→ ideas that failed before but work NOW
→ obsession + commitment
→ real retention > incentive-farmed users
the big filter: can this be venture-scale?
a great restaurant is a good business. it's not a startup.
4/ the #1 thing founders forget: your first users
"we'll tweet about it" is not a plan.
best products have growth built in, like Axiom's referrals or FOMO's social features.
5/ after you submit, KEEP BUILDING
first interview question is often "what have you done since the hackathon?"
thousands of submissions → a few hundred deep reviews → ~150–200 interviews → stack-ranked for winners + investment
6/ quick facts
→ open to all chains, but the accelerator stays mostly Solana
→ $250K standard deal, ~10 teams per cohort
→ solo founders OK, co-founders preferred (there's a matching tool)
→ non-technical OK if you're good with AI coding tools
→ tokens aren't a dealbreaker, but they're a one-way door
→ university + public goods awards open to all chains
save this. read it before you submit.
12 Oct is coming fast ⏳
LFG 🇲🇾🔥
Having this while still coworking with
@semiii @vesper792 in
@SuperteamMY office is crazyy