Building Startups in Hours — Figma Make-a-thon Abeokuta 2025 Recap
- John
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I’m John Kent-Adebayo, Community Advocate and Team Lead at Friends of Figma, Abeokuta, and I’m thrilled to share highlights from our just-concluded Figma Make-a-thon, themed “Your Startup in X Hours.”
This year’s Make-a-thon was more than just a design sprint; it was an experiment in collaboration, creativity, and speed — and our community truly showed up!
The Vision
Our goal was simple: to create a space where designers, developers, and creatives could ideate, design, and prototype functional startup ideas — all within hours.
And they did exactly that.
We had over 100 registered participants, with 86 checking in to build, learn, and connect.
Every participant brought energy, ideas, and the Figma spirit of collaboration.
🛠️ Behind the Scenes — Building Our Own Event Platform
To manage the fast-paced flow of the Make-a-thon, our internal team built a robust event management platform — from scratch.
It powered:
- Participant check-in and automatic team assignment
- Real-time chatting for collaboration
- Voting interfaces for judges
- Live updates for organizers
- A built-in Kahoot-style quiz for engagement
The platform featured dedicated dashboards for admins, judges, and participants, helping us coordinate seamlessly throughout the day.
👉 Explore the platform here
And yes — our analytics showed over 100,000 server calls on event day alone! 😅
🎡 Making It Fun — The Spin Challenge
To make things even more exciting, we built a Spin-the-Wheel challenge app, allowing teams to spin and randomly receive a project idea and industry to work on.
This simple feature turned out to be a crowd favorite — sparking laughter, anticipation, and instant collaboration as teams shouted when their idea appeared!
🎡 Try the spin challenge here
💡 The Team Setup
We organized participants into five themed teams — F, I, G, M, and A — forming “FIGMA.”
Each section of the venue was decorated with color-coded Figma balloons, and participants sat according to their assigned team.
It was a vibrant setup that immediately brought a sense of belonging, fun, and healthy competition.
🕒 The Challenge
The goal: Build a startup in one hour.
Using our custom Make-a-thon Timer Tool, teams designed, prototyped, and pitched their ideas before judges — all within the time limit.
⏱️ See the timer tool here
The creativity that emerged within that hour was truly inspiring — and every pitch had a spark worth celebrating.
🌟 The Startups
Here are the five startups built during the Make-a-thon by Team FIGMA:
Each project represented the power of collaboration and how far creativity can go when people build together.
💬 Final Reflections
This Make-a-thon reminded us of what’s possible when designers, developers, and thinkers unite under a shared goal.
It wasn’t just about building products — it was about building people, confidence, and community.
The feedback has been overwhelming, and as a team, we’re proud of the systems, tools, and culture we’ve created through Friends of Figma Abeokuta.
We’re just getting started. 💜