Mozilla Hackathon group meeting with my team — by Cathy

I want to share the story that I participated 2021 Mozilla Hackathon ‘Love the internet’ and won the grand prize and the sub prize for the Decentralization part. For all participants who are coming to the competition, the goal is getting an award. But we need to distinguish the goal with purpose. My first purpose of the hackathon was to validate how my UX strategy affects the project through experimentation. And, my second purpose was getting acknowledged by professionals about the digital product that our team made within a short time with computer and idea only.

Mozilla Hackathon 2021

Hackathon is the stage with opportunity for the talented students, incubating start-up team, and entrepreneur who has an idea. This opportunity taught me why the UX designer’s role is significant for the start-up team building a digital product. I want to share the 5 tips that I learned to win in the hackathon.

1. Demonstrate the most with the least resources.

Hackathon is a competition that start-up teams get the opportunity by pitching an idea to get funds from the company. Normally, 1 person or 2–5 people become one team and build a prototype or MVP product that can deliver the whole idea within 2–3 days. It is better to build a prototype that can show the value and identity of the product rather than build the actual product or MVP. That is one of the reasons why you should have a UX designer in your team.

I reached out to 3 engineers and made the team. We worked in the lean start-up UX environment. We minimized research and framework since it’s a 2-day project.

Submitted work / The peer-to-peer platform of StalkSubmitted work / Developed website(Introduction site) of Stalk

Below is the work process we’ve gone through.

• Market Researching (Define problem)
• Brainstorming (Suggest possible solutions, prioritizing)
• Requirments
• Design & Coding
• Iteration
• Creating Pitching Video
• Submit

Submitted work / Interactive prototype of Stalk — by Cathy

Below is what I conducted as a UX designer.

• User Persona
• User journey map
• Branding
• User flow
• Wireframe & UI Design
• Prototyping
• Creating Pitching Video

2. Read the market trends that keep changing.

Gamestop stock by Cnet

The topic of the given challenge was fairly broad. “Let’s be social better” That could be anything that can help user’s social activity.

In the same month, February, I have been kept my eyes on the growth of individual investors and the change of relationship between business and consumers in the fintech industry. A few weeks ago from that time, there was a big issue related to the Gamestop stock. Individual investors have shown tremendous power by putting short-selling financial investment companies on the brink of bankruptcy. Also, when Robin Hood stopped trading stocks, we could see how the No.1 stock trading app loses users. I wanted to find an opportunity in the needs of consumers who are exiting the No.1 company in crisis.

To find out users’ needs, we need to discover insight beyond the surface of the phenomenon. How do individual investors’ power affect the fintech industry, and why are they fighting Wall Street? How can the social app help them?

Problem Define

• Currently, social apps are centralized, so they ask for personal information and use it for marketing/advertising, which risks large amounts of personal information being hacked. (e.g. Facebook personal informatiion scandal)
• Existing stock trading apps have a vertical relationship between companies and users. The company can unilaterally block stock trading and damage the rights of consumers. (e.g. Robin Hood GameStop stock trading halt)
• Wall Street financial investment firms profit from short selling and inflict huge losses on individual investors.

Market trend / Insights

• Users are looking for a peer-to-peer social platform that they don’t need to agree to share their personal information. (e.g. Clubhouse, House party)
• Individual investors have been united through the Internet, and their power has grown to the point where they can bankrupt large financial investment firms.
• The advent of blockchain excludes companies as intermediaries and enables individuals to conduct financial transactions with individuals. This is also a form of decentralization.

Our team realized there is no social app for these individual investors. They were snooping around Reddit, Discord to talk about stock.

3. Make products that are user-centric, not company-centric.

User Journey Map of Stalk by Cathy

Our team decided to create a decentralized social trading app through ideation, and divided tasks according to each position. At this stage, the product didn’t have its detailed shape. I concreated the features of the app through User Journey Map so that I can listing out what activities users will go through and what they need in each stage. The image above is part of the User Journey Map. I made the user persona as a person who doesn’t have professional knowledge about investment but is interested in it. Because these types of users keep increasing through the recent stock boom, also, they will be willing to use social apps to get information.

Features/Functions of Stalk by CathyUser flow of Stalk by Cathy

After the user journey map, I listed out main features of the app. Each of the features is added to solve users’ problems. And, I created the User flow.

4. Deliver the product value and identity with branding.

Logo design of Stalk (Mozilla Hackathon project) by Cathy

After we decide on the product identity, I made the skeleton of the app through User Flow. We found intuitive and attractive word combinations for our brand names. We named the app Stalk, a combination of Stock and Talk. We put our wish that users can communicate freely about investment with our app. I suggested 4types of Logo design and color, fonts as a simple brand guide, and we chose the logo visualized stock trading chart bar. It was the most exciting moment to blow away our sleepiness at 3 am. To compare, it was like facing the face of our baby, who we’ve been imagining and drawing in the fog for 12 hours.

5. Believe in the team, believe in our product, believe in me.

The collaboration with the team was fantastic. Of course, it is challenging to work together with those who I meet for the first time to work smoothly in one day. But we knew how to split our time and get things going according to plan. We took care of each other so that we could sleep for at least 2–3 hours. We completed the project wisely by preparing for some unexpected situations that occurred in the last submission phase.

It’s not easy to believe the product’s value before it gets its shape, even though for someone who creates that. That is the reason we need to communicate deeply and figure out the cross point of other opinions. You should be able to insert unplanned iterations as needed. The process may be chaotic, but it is perfectly communicated in front of the consumer. These are the features of lean and agile methodologies.

Photo by Startaê Team on Unsplash

We always have doubts. Is this way right way? Is my decision reasonable? Why I’m staying up all night with a project that cannot make money? It is actually so natural. However, even though we have doubts, we keep believing each other and finally finish up. That is teamwork. To be honest, I doubted if we designed well what we intended at the beginning of this project. But we won the Grand prize and sub prize for the decentralization part altogether. It was a moment to be proven the conviction that I felt while defining problems and solutions.

Photo by Diggity Marketing on Unsplash

Hackathons are an extremely start-up company environment. It is challenging to build and pitch a product in a short time with limited resources, but there is an exhilarating pleasure that comes from it. I hope this article helps someone achieve their goals as well as their purpose at the hackathon.

You can see the pitching video and prototyping of Stalk, the future of social investment, below.

👇 Click to watch Stalk pitching video (2 minutes)

👇 Click to see Stalk interactive prototype (Figma link)

👇 Stalk app whole pages

Submitted work / Whole pages of Stalk App— by Cathy