After the High

Gary Mellerick — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 20:16:53 +0000

The Bolt Hackathon was supposed to be the beginning of something incredible. Like many new developers, I dove headfirst into the World's Largest Hackathon with dreams of building the next breakthrough application. Armed with enthusiasm and an old dell laptop, I crafted story-sphere.co.uk, a platform designed to revolutionize how we share and discover stories.

For weeks, I poured my heart into every prompt. The late nights, the endless debugging sessions (I still have nightmares), the moment when everything finally clicked into place.It felt like pure magic. Story-sphere.co.uk wasn't just a project; it was a vision of connecting people through Stories, creating communities around shared experiences, and democratizing stories for everyone.

The hackathon energy was intoxicating. Every feature I implemented felt like a step toward My dream. The interface was clean, the functionality was decent, and the potential seemed high. I submitted my project with the confidence that comes from knowing you've given everything you have.

Then came the results.

The silence that followed wasn't just disappointing, honestly it was crushing. No recognition, no feedback, just the hollow echo of effort meeting indifference. Watching other projects gain traction while story-sphere.co.uk faded into obscurity felt like a personal failure and it was. The platform I'd believed would change everything became another forgotten URL in the vast expanse of the internet.

The Days that followed were difficult. That initial high of creation gave way to a profound sense of disillusionment. Why had I spent countless hours building something that seemed to matter to no one? The developer community I'd hoped to impact felt distant and unreachable. Self-doubt crept in, whispering that maybe I wasn't cut out for this, maybe my ideas weren't as revolutionary as I'd thought ( They were not).

I stepped away from my laptop, questioning everything. The passion that had driven me to create felt extinguished, replaced by cynicism and uncertainty. The tools I'd once wielded with excitement just annoyed me to log in too.

But sometimes, the most important discoveries happen in the quiet moments after the storm.

Slowly, I began to understand that the value of creating doesn't depend on external validation. Story-sphere.co.uk might not have won any prizes, but it taught me invaluable lessons about user experience, backend architecture, and the complexities of community building. Every "failed" feature was actually a learning opportunity in disguise.

So i switched to Kiro IDE.

Kiro represented everything I'd been searching for – an environment that enhanced creativity rather than hindering it. Working with Kiro felt like reconnecting with the pure joy of building, the same feeling I'd had during those initial hackathon nights. It reminded me why I fell in love with development in the first place.

Inspired by this renewed passion, I'm now building something new: an affordable, comprehensive Markdown editor focused on beautiful markdown creation. This isn't just another text editor, it's a tool designed to make writing and formatting .md's accessible to everyone, from technical writers documenting complex systems to bloggers crafting their next post.

The editor will feature intuitive formatting options, real-time preview capabilities, and export functionality that maintains the elegance of well-structured markdown. Most importantly, it will be priced accessibly, ensuring that great writing tools aren't luxury items.

I'm building this project in public on X (Twitter) under the handle @tekstak. This transparency feels important and sharing not just the successes, but the struggles, the iterations, and the learning process.
The developer community thrives on openness, and I want to contribute to that spirit. Have the logo for the new project!

The journey from the Bolt Hackathon to this moment has been transformative. The disappointment of story-sphere.co.uk not gaining recognition was painful, but it was also necessary. It taught me that creating value isn't about winning competitions or gaining immediate acclaim, it's about solving real problems for real people.

Every setback is a setup for a comeback, and every failure is a foundation for future success. The high of the hackathon may have faded, but what remains is something more sustainable! The quiet confidence that comes from understanding your craft, knowing your audience, and building with purpose.

The story continues, and this time, I'm writing it with the wisdom that only comes, after the high.

My first hackathon.

Gary Mellerick — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 11:03:20 +0000

This is my submission to the Worlds largest hackathon writing challenge.

I began my journey into coding around 6 months ago, I was never a coder in fact i was a retail worker doing night shifts for a local supermarket. I was doomscrolling X one day ( Everyone does ) and came across a post from Peiter levels (Levelsio) about his new project flypieter.com. As i slowly read through the post it was like a glowing light came from my phone. It was now possible to use AI to build apps, and not just simple ones! I was in immediately.

When i got home from that shift i hopped on the laptop and started researching what was possible and i was amazed, IDE's had now shown up, and i had no idea! I'd say a lot of the population still doesn't know it yet but we are in a new era now, the era where anyone can build anything as long as they are willing to learn!

So, i had the knowledge and will to build, but what do i build? no idea. I didn't know where to begin, i built a few small games with three.js inside cursor but honestly the lack of backend knowledge was really painful. I am still a beginner remember, never touched code before so i was genuinely getting confused.

Then one day on X i heard of Bolt.new, So i gave it a try and i was blown away. I integrated Supabase for auth and database and executed RLS policies in one shot, no problems. It was incredible! I was building and building with no purpose just because i could! Then I saw a post from KP and Eric that they were holding the worlds largest hackathon, and anyone could join. I was all in from the start.

I wanted to think differently and try to do something not many others would attempt (so i thought) that's when i got the idea for Story-sphere, a new way for people to connect! iv'e always enjoyed hearing peoples stories and memories, so why not create a way for the world to share them in a new way? By placing pins on an interactive map with images and the stories too! I used leaflet maps at first, it was good enough for the MVP and easily changeable later on. I wanted to build fast and launch quickly, so any bugs or mistakes would be caught and fixed easily. This proved a valuable decision as out of 120,000 submissions only around 10,000 were submitted in time! Ship fast.

I updated the simple map to a Mapbox alternative that is much better, it's now a spinnable globe with awesome detail as you zoom! As soon as judging is over its getting more massive updates including notifications and local knowledge just to start! Currently we sit at 62 users and 32 pins from around the world form America to India. Hopefully activity will pick up as i market more and more!

Right now we are 9 days from judging. I don't expect to win anything, but iv'e gained valuable knowledge and awesome friends along the way, great people who are always willing to help. I lost my job around a week into the hackathon and i'm still searching, but maybe i wont need one soon! Maybe just maybe Story-Sphere has one more story to tell.

Im open to any questions or contact! I'm UK based but ill jump on a teams call with anyone who wants it :) #worldslargesthackathon

x.com

DEV Community: Gary Mellerick

After the High

My first hackathon.

This is my submission to the Worlds largest hackathon writing challenge.