This phase made us stop assuming and start building.

DEVTrails2026 #Hackathon #Learning #BuildInPublic

In Phase 1, everything was mostly about understanding — the problem, the people, and what actually makes sense to build.

Now in Phase 2, it’s different.

We’re not just thinking anymore.
We’re building.

But honestly, building wasn’t as smooth as we expected.

At first, we thought - “okay, now we know what to do, let’s just implement it.”

But once we started, things got confusing again.

Some parts worked.
Some didn’t.
And some things that looked simple on paper became complicated when we tried to build them.

That’s when we realized something again —
understanding the idea is one thing, but making it work in real life is a completely different challenge.

So we slowed down (again).

Instead of rushing to complete everything, we focused on getting the basics right.

We worked on:
– building the core flow
– connecting different parts of the system
– figuring out what actually works and what doesn’t

There were a lot of small problems.

Things breaking.
Logic not behaving the way we expected.
And sometimes just staring at the screen trying to figure out what went wrong.

But slowly, things started coming together.

Not perfectly.
But enough to see that what we imagined is actually possible.

One thing that really stood out in this phase —
building features is not the hard part.

Making everything work together properly is.

Also, we had to make a lot of decisions.

What to keep.
What to remove.
What is actually important right now.

Because again — we can’t build everything.

Now we’re close to the next deadline, and things feel a bit more serious.

There’s still work left — fixing, improving, connecting pieces.

But compared to where we started, this already feels like real progress.

It doesn’t feel like just an idea anymore.

It feels like something we’re actually building.

Still learning.
Still figuring things out.
But definitely moving forward.

Ruchita

Team DevTrio

Guidewire DEVTrails 2026