optimizing for scale before you have users

(common gotcha)

what happened

teams spend hours setting up kubernetes, microservices, CI/CD pipelines, and database sharding for a hackathon project that will have exactly 3 users: the judges.

why it's a gotcha

over-engineering is a way to feel productive without making progress on what matters. nobody at a hackathon cares about your infrastructure. they care about whether it works and whether it solves the problem. at the feature level, this looks like building an all-in-one product; at the planning level, it looks like the over-planning-trap.

the fix

use the simplest possible stack. sqlite, a single server, hardcoded config. get the demo working first. you can architect properly later if the project survives past the weekend. don't build infrastructure for a problem you haven't even validated yet.