Startup Weekend 1st Place: Mentorship.Link

1st place at Honolulu Startup Weekend 2015!

News article here: https://www.hawaiibulletin.com/p/student-led-teams-top-startup-weekend

In June of 2015, on a whim, I entered a hackathon in Honolulu while on summer break from university. I didn't really know what to expect, and I didn't know how hardcore startups were at the time. I remember working until midnight with my team, then getting tired and wanting to go home. And then being surprised when my teammates were pushing through the night. I ended up going home because my parents, who also weren't aware of startup life, were worried about me staying out all night. When I showed up again early in the morning, sure enough, my teammates were still there, having pulled an all-nighter.

The project itself was a good idea, and we executed it pretty well. We wanted to connect high school students to meaningful project-based internships, to prepare them for the world in ways that textbooks can't. I definitely resonated with this notion - being a college student at the time, I felt completely unprepared for what my career paths would entail, since there weren't any easy mechanisms for gaining real work experience.

My part in the project was on the technical side. I helped develop the website and implemented some basic features for it. The project unfortunately fizzled out after a few years without gaining much traction. But it was still a great introduction to startup life for me, and prepared me for the all-nighters at the next startup I worked at.