Two-week startup competition. With Kobe AI as Founding Engineer I kept shipping the product throughout (about 470 commits) and built the investor pitch deck. The team won after the final investor pitch on Demo Day, among about 30 international startups. USD 100,000 prize, no equity.
Result as announced to the teams; written confirmation pending.
- When
- 4–19 October 2026, Demo Day on 18 October
- Where
- Private camp in the Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania, USA
- Field
- 30 teams, selected from about 700 applications
- Hosts
- Stan co-founders John Hu and Vitalii Dodonov
- Prize
- USD 100,000 in cash, no equity
- My role
- Founding Engineer in the Kobe AI team of three
How the programme ran
- Every morning a 9 a.m. session with the two hosts, then building in a shared hall with fibre internet and no mobile signal.
- Challenges with a live leaderboard: content and building in public, user interviews, revenue, a launch video and a pitch.
- Office hours with designers, content coaches and a video team; mentors and speakers included Gary Vaynerchuk, Daymond John and Sophia Amoruso.
- Two eliminations at the campfire: on 10 October half the teams went home, on 14 October ten teams were left.
What I did
- René brought me into the team at short notice. I cancelled a week away with friends and two university courses to go.
- Kept shipping the product during the two weeks: Kobe V3 and the desktop app, about 470 commits in October.
- Built the pitch deck for Demo Day, two days before the final pitch.
- Worked through the revenue, content and user-interview challenges with the team.
Result
- Through both eliminations to Demo Day, then the final pitch to investors.
- The team won the USD 100,000 prize.
What I took away
- Building from zero to one in days instead of weeks, and cutting scope to what matters on the day.
- Selling and talking to users, not only coding.
- Pitching to investors, with cameras running and the next elimination ahead.
