When I saw the Bolt.new hackathon announcement, I was a full-time junk hauler, running my own art business on the side, and juggling being a husband and father—all while dreaming about building something that could actually change how people learn complex software.
I’m not a developer. Most of my design work is done in Canva, and I’ve never written code professionally. But one frustrating Photoshop session—where five YouTube tutorials couldn’t help me do a simple task—sparked the idea that led to OmniVeo.
The Idea That Ignited It All
OmniVeo started as Forge, a gamified platform for creators to learn, compete, and collaborate. But as the build progressed and complexity grew, we realized the heart of the product was the live AI mentor—a tutor that could see your screen, understand your context, and guide you step by step like a real expert sitting beside you.
That vision eventually became OmniVeo, from the Latin “to know” and “to see.”
Building a Global Team
On day 17 of the competition, I knew I needed help. I posted in the Bolt Discord—and within 24 hours, had a team:
• Swara (Backend, India)
• Maruf (Backend, Bangladesh)
• Tobi (UI/UX, Nigeria)
We were literally across four continents, five time zones, and all working around wildly different life schedules.
I was waking up at 5 a.m., working full shifts at my job with 1-800-Got-Junk?, coming home to spend time with my wife and kids, then staying up through the night to build. It wasn’t easy—there were nights I’d crash for an hour and be right back on a call before work.
One of the biggest lessons I learned was this: Don’t rely on Discord chat alone. If we had jumped on daily calls from the beginning, we would’ve stayed more aligned and avoided a lot of double work and late-game scrambling. That single shift would’ve saved us days of confusion and helped us finish earlier and more polished.
Teamwork That Pushed Boundaries
What we built technically was a challenge in itself—integrating Gemini Vision, ElevenLabs, and a real-time screenshot loop via n8n, all powered by a custom RAG database trained on complex creative software documentation.
But beyond the code, it was the resilience and team communication that pulled us through. Swara struggled for hours trying to merge backend workflows into the Bolt production project. Maruf eventually cracked the final integration—while I was literally on a junk-hauling shift. I saw the update in Discord, pulled out my laptop on break, tested it, and sure enough: it worked.
The agent could see my screen. It could answer context-aware questions. It was real.
The Final Sprint
We were still piecing things together hours before the deadline. My computer crashed mid-demo render. Our GitHub collab wasn’t working. We hacked together a shared Bolt account so each team member could push changes in shifts. I pulled an all-nighter while the team, in different time zones, did the same. We screen-shared, called, and built side-by-side—despite being across the globe.
We submitted with 8 minutes to spare.
Beyond the Code
We didn’t just build an app—we built trust. We built habits. We built a working relationship across four countries. And somehow, we pulled off something no one thought we could: a real-time, AI-powered mentor that can teach you Photoshop, Premiere, Maya, Ableton, and more—just by seeing your screen.
This experience taught me more than any course or job ever could. I now believe that with the right people and the right platform, even a junk hauler with no tech background can lead a team and ship a groundbreaking product in less than 30 days.
Shoutouts
•Huge thanks to the Bolt.new team for enabling non-technical builders like me to experiment freely.
•Shoutout to my teammates @swara, @maruf, and @tobi—you are the real MVPs.
•Special thanks to the Discord community for support, encouragement, and advice during crunch time.
Built with: Bolt.new, ElevenLabs, Gemini Vision, Supabase, n8n, and caffeine. Developed from California, India, Bangladesh, and Nigeria.
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