Singapore’s First Cursor Hackathon!

Special thanks to Cursor, 65Labs, and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) for making this hackathon a blast.

Learn more about the event here! (Yes, that’s me in the cover photo)

The Event

Saw it on Luma. As someone who already was a user of Cursor, the hackathon already interested me.

Though, it was held on a Saturday. Who wants to leave the house on a Saturday?

That's when I decided it was time to heed the advice of the great Brian Tracy, from his book 'No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline'.

He mentioned, "Read, listen, attend seminars and you'll save yourself decades of hard work reaching the same income level."

Although this wasn't really a seminar, it seemed like an awesome opportunity to improve myself. I think that was a good enough reason.

Our Team

I asked some of my close friends to join me, but they were all busy that one particular day.

So, I went onto 65Labs' Discord server in search of some comrades.

I introduced myself, and that I wanted to work with something relating to MCP.

I found a team of two other great dudes who were much more established in their careers (and much older) than me.

^ I can call them old because they're my friends now.

My Experience

This was perhaps my sixth? hackathon. I went in fully prepared to not get a wink of sleep.

I thought I'd be used to the mental and physical toll of hackathons by now, but I was faced with the rude realisation that I really can't get used to coding for hours and hours with no sleep.

Not just coding! We had countless discussions, countless mini 'crash-outs'. You know the drill.

I didn't sleep that night, but I did sleep in the morning! For half an hour...

We were building Hackorsight: The MCP-powered pipeline for analysing marketing data, and generating creatives that are in line with your brand AND your current performance.

I'll talk about it more another time, we're building it brick by brick!

Another piece of encouragement for that was winning 2nd place in the Smithery.ai MCP Track.

This was also my first time winning a cash prize in a hackathon. $500 in cash and $500 in credits shared amongst the team.

Pretty sweet if you ask me!

My Takeaway

Done is always better than perfect. The best way to give yourself a fighting chance in a hackathon is to go back to first principles and build out the smallest MVP you could possibly make.

Everything else will take shape after that.