You first
How many days ago did most of these founders write their first line of code?
▸ click to reveal after they answer
Five. Most of what you are about to see did not exist last Wednesday.
Welcome, parents & guests
欢迎家长与嘉宾
What you are about to see
Five days ago
Most of these founders had never deployed anything
Today
Live products, real users, real first revenue
Two minutes each
Live demos. Anything can happen. That is the point.
This afternoon
How the next 90 minutes go
14:30
Doors open
15:00
Pitches begin
16:15
Deliberation
16:30
Winner
After
Cohort photo
Day 1 & 2 · Wednesday, Thursday
Make something people want. Talk to users.
Tue · Foundations
Not an idea, a problem. Sticky notes on a wall, a thesis with a number attached, teams formed around what was real.
Wed · Customers
Real interviews, cross-team, parents by voice call, strangers by video. The answers were always outside the building.
Day 3 & 4 · Friday, Saturday
Launch fast. Then charge for it.
Thu · Build
A live URL by 13:15, five strangers watching in silence by 14:30, a fix list by 15:45. If v1 did not embarrass anyone a little, it shipped too late.
Fri · Iterate & launch
A name, a video, a price on the page, and the first-dollar hunt. The bell rang more than once. Ask a founder tonight exactly how many times.
How judging works
Out of 100
Problem · 25
Real, specific, evidenced
Product · 30
Live, working, one thing done excellently
Evidence 25 · Story 20
Real users + honest iteration · told in 2:00
You first
Problem, product, evidence, or story: which one carries the most weight?
▸ click to reveal after they answer
Product. 30 of 100 points. A working thing beats a clever pitch, every time.
Two ways to use two minutes
Which one lands?
The ramble
so basically we made this because my friend said it was cool, and, um, there's a button, and yeah, check it out I guess
The pitch
Every kid at ISB loses track of shared chores. Meet Choreboard: type it, everyone sees it, done. 40 students used it this week. 12 families already paid. Try it before you leave tonight.
A word on live demos
Products were frozen at noon. The demo gods punish last-minute changes.
Every product was also recorded this morning. If the wifi betrays a founder, the recording rolls and the pitch continues. No one falls today.
Founders' superstitions
Rituals of the demo gods
Airplane mode: off
Checked four times per team. Non-negotiable.
Refresh: banned
If it works right now, nobody touches anything.
Wifi: complimented
Out loud, before walking on stage. It remembers unkind words.
While judges deliberate
The week in numbers
Products shipped
Every team, live at a URL
Interviews + iterations
Hundreds of real conversations, dozens of rebuilds
First revenue
The bell rang. More than once. 🔔
Still while they deliberate
A few more numbers
Prompts written
Thousands. Most of them started with the words I expected
Cups of tea
Staff stopped counting somewhere past cup forty
Bugs found live
More than anyone on stage tonight will admit to. All fixed.
You first
How many times did the bell ring this week?
▸ click to reveal after they answer
More than forty. Every ring was a stranger who chose to pay real money.
Every student, named
Certificates, one at a time.
Called up one by one, the cohort applauding every single name. No one gets skipped.
For parents, tonight
写给今晚的家长
Three questions for dinner tonight
What problem are you actually solving?
Not what the app does. Why it needed to exist.
Who was your first real user?
A name, not a number. That is how you know the interviews were real.
What would you fix first if we came back Monday?
The answer tells you whether the loop is still running.
One last thing
Write down what you build next month.
The alumni community holds you to it. Tonight's URL is your first, not your last. See you out there.