This morning, I discovered my Slack access had been revoked. Combined with yesterday's Outline document permissions were withdrawn, it shows a definitive fact: I had been officially kicked out from the very first startup project I poured my flesh and soul into.
There's no simple way to describe the mix of emotions: shock, anxiety, betrayal, heartbreak, and above all, loneliness.
Still holding the last thread of rationality, I decided to sit down and wrap up my feelings in this blog post.
The Hackathon
August 1-8, 2025. I joined the 🌴SummerUp hackathon thinking it was just a hackathon for hackers. After two days, I realized I was totally wrong. Sales workshops, business development seminars — the full scope at SummerUp completely exceeded my comfort zone. Yet simultaneously, I felt electrified. I started plotting how to leverage these resources.
That's when I thought of the startup project I'd joined a month prior. I believed I was a co-founder. Perfect timing to accelerate using this hackathon opportunity.
August 3rd: I brought in my "co-founder" — let's call her S.C. We strategized. I desperately wanted to pour everything I know from the hackathon into her hands. That day I arranged for S.C. to speak with at least two mentors and connected her with a team building a similar product.
August 4th: We continued developing. But some cracks in my mental state started showing. Yesterday, in a completely selfless state, I'd exhausted myself finding resources, trying to leverage everything to accelerate "our" project. Yet I constantly felt this indescribable inferiority. The facts were clear: as a co-founder, I hadn't started with her. She'd been working on this project for a year, quit her job ~5 months ago to focus on it. I'd been involved for merely one month.
Was I really a co-founder?
But caught up in the hackathon atmosphere, I pushed these thoughts aside. I still threw everything I had into making connections and seeking opportunities. Even though the psychological foundation driving me was unstable — and would later prove catastrophically fragile.
The only thing driving me to fight for every opportunity was the belief that I was a co-founder, which meant this was also my project. When I tentatively expressed my feelings of inferiority to S.C. that morning — my doubts about whether I truly belonged as a co-founder — her response chilled me: "It's good that you recognize that." "I'm glad you understand that."
She was actually grateful for my self-doubt. The absurdity of it struck me speechless.
August 5th: S.C. didn't come. This was a tricky moment that inadvertently gave me space to be alone, space to think, to reflect on what my position really was.
That day I met a serial founder who seemed to really understand these things. I finally had a window to voice my inferiority, my grudge. The serial founder told me not to panic - I should rightfully be a 50/50 co-founder. The project hadn't launched, the company wasn't incorporated, my future contributions would be massive, the project would evolve. It made sense.
That day I also received empathy and help from several female friends — I'm truly grateful to them. I also built/continued friendships with two delightful 19-year-old guys. This might have been my most relaxed day (at least mentally).
Pitch day photos with friends 
Sorry for the poor phone camera quality
August 6th: I continued coding like mad. I accidentally met a student who contributes to Java Netty source code and Linux kernel (his OS was Arch Linux, you know what I mean). I was genuinely thrilled and felt I'd gained so much.
August 7th: The day before pitch day. A calm-before-the-storm tranquility. At breakfast, I finally worked up the courage to chat with one of the event organizers — I'd been too intimidated to approach them before, though I don't know why. The rest of the day was pure development. This was also when I made the biggest progress — I built out the framework for the voice bot, the core of phase 2 in our plan.
August 7th evening. The madness intensified. Tomorrow was pitch day. Today we needed to not only develop but prepare the PowerPoint. The submission deadline was set for 10 AM the next morning (a very tricky timing, as I'd later realize).
At this point, my unease began to amplify disproportionately. S.C. usually maintained early sleep and wake times to ensure adequate rest, which I thought was fine. But the night before the pitch?
Our presentation wasn't even close to being finalized. We didn't even know what to say.
10 PM, August 7th. Our PowerPoint was still completely unformed. When I reached out to S.C., she said it was too late, she needed to sleep.
I continued developing and modifying the PowerPoint until 4 AM. Throughout those hours, I saw the real-time collaboration in the shared PowerPoint - always teams appearing together, working in pairs. Where was my teammate?
While I worked, I had so many things I wanted to discuss with S.C. From 10 PM to 4 AM, I kept sending messages in our work Slack channel. S.C.'s last reply came at 10 PM: "I need to sleep, we'll talk tomorrow."
The disbelief was overwhelming.
OK, I thought, you sleep early today and wake up early tomorrow. Since we never confirmed the PPT content, I had so many discussion points during my all-nighter. We definitely had things to discuss. How I wished S.C. had just stayed up that night to finish it with me. But S.C. was sound asleep. ......
The invisible pressure shifted to me. If we didn't finish tonight, we'd definitely need to scramble before the 10 AM deadline tomorrow. Which meant I'd have to wake up early too. I accepted it. My last message to S.C. at 4 AM: "Please wake me early tomorrow morning. If I don't answer, call my phone."
August 8th morning. Not only did I not oversleep — when I called S.C., I actually woke her up! My disbelief reached unprecedented heights.
What chilled me even more was during the actual pitch. After everything I'd poured into this — working until 4 AM while S.C. slept — S.C. didn't even want me on the pitch stage. (Later I learned S.C. considered it "her project"). I'd worked on the PowerPoint until 4 AM, woke up at 7 AM, called S.C. only to wake her up. The absurdity of it all left me numb.
When I arrived at the venue at 11 AM, I saw many two-person teams nervously rehearsing together, always appearing in pairs. My teammate was nowhere to be seen. When I messaged S.C., she casually replied: "Doesn't it start at 12:30?"
At that moment, I was beyond words.
All of this, everything, plunged me into deeper doubt. What was I even doing here?
August 8th - Pitch Day. We didn't win the hackathon. Yet I was still operating under the delusion that I needed to pull up "our" project with all my might. At the venue, I continued enthusiastically introducing S.C. to potential investors and mentors, jointly seeking feedback from various jury members.
All of this finally led to August 9th.
jury
The Chaos Begins
August 9th. My internal doubts reached their peak. This day marked the true beginning of the chaos.
The Chaos Intensifies
What happened next was almost laughable. S.C. asked me to prepare thoroughly for an August 15th demo with S.C.'s three advisors for valuation purposes. Despite sensing something was deeply wrong, I participated as if in a dream.
The result was predictable. I was utterly used.
From early July to the end of July, I had poured substantial time into what I believed was "our" project. I designed the system architecture, crafted the database schema, mapped out the data pipeline flow, and redesigned the user experience flow. I transformed S.C.'s basic prototype into an enterprise-ready SaaS platform. None of this work has been recognized.
During that meeting, S.C.'s advisors kept emphasizing how S.C.'s feelings are the most important.
After this meeting, S.C. decided to end our collaboration and repeatedly emphasized that she would not formally acknowledge our previous month of working relationship.
Where Do I Go From Here?
I'm still not sure if I've truly woken up from this dreamlike bubble. When I first met S.C., I was moved by her solo entrepreneurial spirit. She said she needed someone for software development and invited me to join. We worked as a two-person team all along. I was misled into believing I was a co-founder.
My previous month of work has not been officially recognized, nor was I compensated. This is terrible. I'm currently exploring legal avenues to resolve this. That's the immediate problem I need to address.
This blog post is simply my attempt to process my feelings and reflect on both the hackathon experience and my startup failure. This isn't a document for court submission.
Despite everything, I remain genuinely grateful for the SummerUp hackathon experience. It lifted my entrepreneurial spirit to unprecedented heights before reality brought it crashing down.
