Win USD 100,000
Launchpad by Stan
Winner on Demo Day
Won with Kobe AI as Founding Engineer: 30 teams, selected from about 700 applications.
Result as announced to the teams; written confirmation pending.
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- When
- 4–19 October 2026, Demo Day on 18 October
- Where
- Private camp in the Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania, USA
- Field
- 30 teams, selected from about 700 applications
- Hosts
- Stan co-founders John Hu and Vitalii Dodonov
- Prize
- USD 100,000 in cash, no equity
- My role
- Founding Engineer in the Kobe AI team of three
How the programme ran
- Every morning a 9 a.m. session with the two hosts, then building in a shared hall with fibre internet and no mobile signal.
- Challenges with a live leaderboard: content and building in public, user interviews, revenue, a launch video and a pitch.
- Office hours with designers, content coaches and a video team; mentors and speakers included Gary Vaynerchuk, Daymond John and Sophia Amoruso.
- Two eliminations at the campfire: on 10 October half the teams went home, on 14 October ten teams were left.
What I did
- René brought me into the team at short notice. I cancelled a week away with friends and two university courses to go.
- Kept shipping the product during the two weeks: Kobe V3 and the desktop app, about 470 commits in October.
- Built the pitch deck for Demo Day, two days before the final pitch.
- Worked through the revenue, content and user-interview challenges with the team.
Result
- Through both eliminations to Demo Day, then the final pitch to investors.
- The team won the USD 100,000 prize.
What I took away
- Building from zero to one in days instead of weeks, and cutting scope to what matters on the day.
- Selling and talking to users, not only coding.
- Pitching to investors, with cameras running and the next elimination ahead.
