Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to showcase noteworthy tech solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to showcase noteworthy tech solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight Proof of Usefulness Hackathon Proof of Usefulness Hackathon $150k+ Submit your project to get started Submit your project to get started What does Nervu do? And why is now the time for it to exist? What does Nervu do? And why is now the time for it to exist? Nervu is a voice rehearsal tool for hard conversations. You describe your situation, get a strategic game plan, then practice out loud against an AI playing the other person — with live coaching after every exchange. No signup. No data stored. Just practice. Nervu The best conversations are the ones you've already had once. Now is exactly the right time for Nervu to exist. Communication anxiety is a universal human challenge, but until now there was no safe, private, accessible space to practice. Modern AI has finally reached the point where it can simulate realistic human dialogue, respond to emotional nuance, and coach in real time. That combination didn't exist two years ago. It does now — and Nervu is built on top of it. What is your traction to date? How many people does Nervu reach? What is your traction to date? How many people does Nervu reach? Nervu is brand new — but the problem it solves is as old as human relationships. Every person on the planet has a conversation they are afraid of. That is not a niche. That is everyone. We launched on Product Hunt and submitted to HackerNoon's hackathon as our first public steps. The early response has confirmed what we believed — the moment people hear the concept, they immediately think of a conversation they wish they had practiced. That instant recognition is the strongest early signal we have. Who does Nervu serve? What's exciting about your users? Who does Nervu serve? What's exciting about your users? Nervu is for the employee afraid to ask for a raise. The manager who dreads giving honest feedback. The partner avoiding a long overdue talk. The expat navigating workplace culture in a new country. The student facing a difficult professor. The adult setting boundaries with a parent for the first time. What excites me about our users is that they are not a demographic — they are a human experience. Everyone has had a moment where they froze, said the wrong thing, or walked away wishing they had prepared better. Nervu exists for that moment — before it happens. What technologies power Nervu, and why did you choose them? What technologies power Nervu, and why did you choose them? Nervu is built on Next.js 14 with TypeScript, styled with Tailwind CSS, and powered by Anthropic Claude for all AI interactions. Voice input and output run entirely on the Web Speech API — no third-party voice service required. Next.js 14 TypeScript Tailwind CSS Anthropic Claude Web Speech API These choices were intentional. Next.js gives us a fast, production-ready frontend with minimal overhead. Claude was chosen specifically for its ability to maintain context across a conversation, adapt tone to the situation, and generate coaching that feels genuinely human rather than scripted. The Web Speech API keeps everything on-device, which is core to our privacy-first philosophy. The entire session — setup, game plan, rehearsal, coaching, and summary — costs approximately $0.04 in API calls. That matters for scalability. $0.04 in API calls Nervu earned a Proof of Usefulness score of 44. How do you feel about that? Nervu earned a Proof of Usefulness score of 44 Proof of Usefulness score of 44 . How do you feel about that? Honestly, it is a fair reflection of where we are — a very early MVP with a strong concept but without the user data yet to back it up. A score like that does not discourage me. It gives me a clear target. The usefulness is real — the score will follow once real people use it and come back. Our job right now is to close that gap between concept and proven habit. What excites you most about Nervu's potential usefulness? What excites you most about Nervu's potential usefulness? What excites me most is that Nervu solves a problem everyone has but nobody talks about. We invest hours preparing presentations, writing emails, and rehearsing interviews — but we never practice the actual conversation itself. Nervu changes that. For the first time, anyone can walk into a salary negotiation, a difficult feedback session, or a family conflict having already lived through it once. That shift — from anxiety to confidence — is what gets me out of bed and coding at 2AM. The potential to genuinely change how people show up in the moments that matter most to them is something I do not take lightly. What is your most concrete evidence that people need this? What is your most concrete evidence that people need this? The most honest evidence I have right now is the reaction. Every time I explain Nervu — to a developer, a friend, a recruiter — the response is the same. They pause, then say "I wish I had this before [specific conversation]." Nobody has to be convinced the problem is real. That immediate personal recognition, without any prompting, is the strongest signal at this stage. The next step is turning that recognition into return usage — and that is exactly what we are focused on now. How do you measure genuine adoption versus one-time visitors? What is your retention story? How do you measure genuine adoption versus one-time visitors? What is your retention story? This is the honest challenge of building privacy-first. Because Nervu stores nothing server-side, traditional analytics do not apply. We cannot track returning users by default — and we consider that a feature, not a bug. Our retention strategy going forward is behavioral and qualitative. We plan to add an optional anonymous session counter in localStorage so users can see their own progress without us seeing it. We will measure retention through community engagement — repeat comments, shares, direct messages — rather than a dashboard. Trust is our moat. We will not compromise it for metrics. If Nervu is re-scored in 12 months, which criterion will show the biggest improvement? If Nervu is re-scored in 12 months, which criterion will show the biggest improvement? Proven repeat usage without a doubt. Right now, we are at zero because we just launched. In 12 months, the goal is for Nervu to be something people return to before every major conversation — not just try once. We are building toward that by improving the coaching quality with every iteration, adding more conversation types, and making the post-session summary compelling enough that users want to share and come back. What marketing channels are you targeting first to acquire your first active users? What marketing channels are you targeting first to acquire your first active users? We are starting where the builders and early adopters live — Product Hunt, HackerNoon, and Reddit communities like r/jobs, r/personalfinance, and r/expats. These audiences understand the product quickly and share generously when something resonates. Product Hunt HackerNoon Reddit Longer term, the highest potential channel is organic social, specifically short-form video. "I used AI to practice my salary negotiation" is a story that writes itself on TikTok and Instagram Reels. Real people sharing real outcomes will drive growth far better than any ad campaign. How do you plan to monetize a product with no login and no data? How do you plan to monetize a product with no login and no data? The no-login, no-data model is a deliberate trust-building phase. Once we establish habit and community, monetization follows naturally through a few paths — a premium tier with more session depth, advanced coaching modes, and team or corporate packages for managers and HR teams who want to train communication at scale. The privacy architecture stays intact regardless. Payments will be handled externally, keeping the core experience exactly as it is today. How does Claude handle tone, pacing, and emotional nuance in hard conversations? How does Claude handle tone, pacing, and emotional nuance in hard conversations? This was the hardest engineering and prompting challenge we faced. The solution was careful persona design — when a user describes the other person, Claude is given a detailed character brief including communication style, likely emotional state, power dynamic, and probable objections. The result is that Claude does not play a generic "other person." It plays a specific, believable version of whoever the user is actually preparing to face. That specificity is what makes the coaching feel real rather than theatrical. And because Claude processes the full conversation context at each turn, it can adjust — push back harder when the user is doing well, soften when they are struggling, and always coach from the perspective of what will actually help in the real conversation. How did you hear about HackerNoon? How did you hear about HackerNoon? HackerNoon has been part of my reading routine for years — it is one of the few tech publications that takes builders seriously at every stage, not just after they have already succeeded. When I saw the hackathon, submitting Nervu felt like a natural fit. The community here understands what it means to ship something real and imperfect and keep going. That is exactly where we are — and exactly the kind of audience we want to grow with. Nervu is live now. No signup required. Try it before your next hard conversation. Nervu is live now. No signup required. Try it before your next hard conversation. Built by Kitsune Chaos Labs 🦊 · Powered by Anthropic Claude Built by Kitsune Chaos Labs 🦊 · Powered by Anthropic Claude Meet our sponsors Meet our sponsors Meet our sponsors Bright Data: Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com. Bright Data: Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com. 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Nervu Earns a 44 Proof of Usefulness Score by Building a Voice Rehearsal Tool for Hard Conversations

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