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+
+# building an all-in-one product
+
+*(common gotcha)*
+
+## what happened
+
+teams try to build a full platform with auth, dashboards, analytics, social features, notifications — in 24 hours. they end up with nothing working.
+
+## why it's a gotcha
+
+you're not here to build a billion-dollar startup in 48 hours. you're here to show your ability to identify a problem and solve it with a creative, functional prototype. scope kills more hackathon projects than bad code does.
+
+## the fix
+
+pick one core feature and make it work beautifully. everything else is a slide that says "future work." judges respect a focused, working prototype over an ambitious, broken one.
+
+## see also
+
+- [[optimizing-for-scale-too-early]] — same over-engineering energy
+- [[perfectionism-over-hackathon-fit]] — scope and polish are both time sinks
+- [[just-one-more-feature-loop]] — the feature creep that causes this
+- [[over-planning-trap]] — planning a platform when you should build a prototype
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