Transitioning from a fast-paced hackathon project to a sustainable, polished product is one of the biggest challenges developers face. Here’s a strategic framework inspired by Tejas Shroff’s insights on building meaningful XR products.
“The goal isn’t to ship more features. The goal is to build an experience users genuinely value and return to.”
Hackathons are incredible environments for innovation. Teams move fast, experiment freely, and build ambitious ideas in a very short amount of time. But once the event ends, a difficult question appears:
How do you transform a rough prototype into a product people actually want to use long-term?
According to Tejas Shroff, the answer lies in clarity, focus, and intentional product design — especially in XR (Extended Reality), where user attention and retention are much harder to maintain.
1. Identify Your “Golden Nugget”
After a hackathon, most projects contain too many experimental features. The first step is to identify the single strongest element of your product — what Tejas calls the “golden nugget.”
Value
Does the product help users learn, create, solve a problem, or gain a meaningful experience?
Attention
Which specific feature naturally captures user curiosity and engagement?
Competitive Advantage
What makes your experience unique or difficult for competitors to replicate?
Example: Inky
Tejas shared that the real innovation in the project Inky wasn’t the music notation system. The true “golden nugget” was the AI-powered ability to extract sounds from real-world objects.
2. Defining “Polish”
Product polish is not just about visual beauty. True polish strengthens the core user experience and removes friction.
Multi-Sensory Feedback
Improve immersion using haptics, sound effects, animation, and visual feedback.
Design Consistency
Create a cohesive visual identity and interaction language across the entire app.
Removing the Fluff
Eliminate unnecessary features that distract from your core experience. This is often the hardest but most important step.
3. The “Less is More” Product Mindset
Many developers assume a stronger product means adding more features. In reality, excessive complexity often weakens the experience.
Adding unnecessary features leads to:
- Longer development cycles
- Higher maintenance costs
- More debugging challenges
- Diluted user value
- Confusing product direction
Example: Creda
In the pottery-learning project Creda, the team removed social mechanics entirely to focus purely on teaching pottery techniques. The result was a much clearer and more effective user experience.
4. Measuring Success the Right Way
One of Tejas’s most important insights is that engagement alone does not equal value.
Users may spend time inside an app because of addictive loops or attention tricks, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the product is improving their lives.
Instead, he recommends measuring success through three meaningful outcomes:
Learning
Can users do something they couldn’t do before?
Creation
Can users produce something meaningful or original?
Awareness
Are users more conscious or informed about a concept than before?
Conclusion
Turning a hackathon prototype into a successful product requires discipline and focus.
The teams that succeed are not necessarily the ones building the most features. They are the ones who identify the core value of their product, remove distractions, and create a clear, polished experience users genuinely care about.
Focus on the golden nugget. Remove the fluff. Build for meaningful value.