From Glitches to Glory: Crafting Give with Bolt

Somtochukwu umeh Daniel — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 13:12:52 +0000

This is a submission for the World's Largest Hackathon Writing Challenge: Building with Bolt.

Hey there, I'm Somtochukwu, and this is my raw, unfiltered take on the rollercoaster that was the World's Largest Hackathon. Specifically, how I built Give with Bolt.new. Buckle up, because this story's got sweat, setbacks, and a sprinkle of stubborn hope.

The Heart of Give

Give was my passion project: a platform where AI matches donors to causes, and blockchain (well, a mock version) keeps it all transparent on Algorand. Picture this: a sleek interface that has an Instagram Story style spotlight with stories personalized to your profile, powered by OpenAI, pulling users into the mission. I poured late nights into it, fueled by a personal sting from a shady donation that made me crave trust in giving. Bolt.new was my lifeline here; it let me spin up a React app with Tailwind CSS in record time, and the live preview feature was a game changer for testing on the fly.

The Grind and the Glitches

Building wasn't all smooth sailing. I hit a wall with Algorand's API; 403 errors forced me to mock donations, a compromise that still stings. Bolt's speed saved me, though; its instant feedback loop let me tweak the UI until it popped. I'm convinced Give had the most beautiful UI in the bunch: clean and subtle micro-interactions that turned heads. Yet, I didn't win the Most Beautiful UI category 😭, which felt disappointing after all that effort.
Then came the tech curveballs. Days before the winners were announced, I tried logging in and creating an account on Give; it wouldn't work, with the Explore page not returning causes from the database and when I tried refreshing the page, I got a "Page not Found" error returned by Netlify. I have no idea when this issue might have started because everything worked perfectly fine a week after the submission. Anyways, I suspect that this glitch might have tanked my submission. Was it just me, or did others experience this too?

Bolt's Magic (and a Plea)

Bolt's standout for me was the Attempt Fix Feature, this feature was spot on for debugging errors that were encountered during vibe development. The Sponsor tech with direct integration to bolt.new: Netlify was seamless, Supabase hooked up like a charm until those login woes. But here's a burning question: with nearly 130,000 applications, how did the Bolt.new team sift through them all? I'd love to Know their secret sauce; did they lean on AI tools or a Herculean manual effort? Spill the tea, Bolt crew!

The Aftermath

Not winning hit hard; I gave my all, and the silence after the announcement felt personal. But this hack taught me grit. I learned to pivot under pressure, mastering Algorand's SDK and Supabase's SDK despite the odds. So, this isn't a loss, it's just fuel for the next win.

Thanks for staying till the end. I would appreciate if you drop a comment sharing your thoughts about the whole experience.

DEV Community: Somtochukwu umeh Daniel

From Glitches to Glory: Crafting Give with Bolt

The Heart of Give

The Grind and the Glitches

Bolt's Magic (and a Plea)

The Aftermath