Inside Zer0th Protocol’s Push to Make Builder Work Matter After Demo Day

In Web3, there is no shortage of big problems to solve, but we often overlook the systemic waste hidden in plain sight. Hackathons are a perfect example. 

Imagine, for 72 hours, a team of developers operated at peak velocity, shipping a working product that solves a genuine problem. But post hackathon, their GitHub repository went untouched, as the team moved to the next hackathon. 

This is the hackathon graveyard, a phenomenon that Saran Kumar, Founder and CEO of Zer0th Protocol, identifies as one of the Web3 ecosystem’s most expensive inefficiencies. We spoke to Saran to understand this problem on a deeper level and what role Zer0th Protocol is playing.

Fixing Web3’s Broken Discovery Layer

Saran’s perspective comes from years of being close to the hackathon ecosystem. In his view, the problem was never talent. Hackathons regularly produce working products under extreme time pressure. The real failure, he argues, lies in how the ecosystem treats that output once the event ends.

“Discovery today is binary: you either win, or you vanish,” Saran says.

This, he believes, is where the system breaks down. Builders create useful code, integrations, and even early user traction, yet there is no simple way to carry that work beyond the stage. 

Zer0th Protocol acts as the corrective layer, ensuring that a builder’s progress doesn’t reset to zero the moment an event ends. By transforming raw output, such as code, agents, and early integrations, into durable, on-chain artifacts, the protocol allows past efforts to build value over time. 

At the center of Zer0th’s design is what Saran calls proof of build. “Code quality is table stakes. Proof of build is about intent and follow-through,” he explains. Instead of rewarding polished demos, the platform focuses on whether teams continue building, respond to feedback, improve their product, and show consistent progress over time.

What surprised Saran most was what builders actually wanted. Many told him they care less about hype and more about fairness. “They’ve told us they’d rather be evaluated on consistency, iteration, and effort than on presentation skills,” says Saran. 

Building a Better Signal Layer

As Zer0th began shaping how projects are evaluated, Saran drew a clear line between what looks impressive and what is actually worth backing. For him, demos are about possibility, while investable work is about direction and consistency over time. The protocol looks beyond surface polish and focuses on whether builders continue committing code after events, refine scope based on feedback, and show visible progress between early and later versions. 

“A good demo shows possibility. Investable work shows trajectory,” Saran says.

In practice, this means tracking patterns of execution rather than one standout moment. As he puts it, “Investors don’t fund polish; they fund patterns,” and Zer0th is built to surface those patterns early in a project’s life cycle.

To make that possible at scale, the team designed a scoring system that blends AI evaluation, community signals, and human curation. However, Saran also believes that no single lens is reliable on its own. AI can identify patterns and consistency, but it may miss context; community feedback captures relevance and interest, but can be influenced by hype; and human judgment adds nuance, yet does not scale easily. So, bringing these three together creates a balance that is harder to manipulate and easier to trust. This reduces the chances of low-quality projects rising purely on attention.

Turning credibility into a visible score also came with risks. Saran was careful to avoid reducing builders to static numbers or discouraging early experimentation. Zer0th’s scores are designed to be explainable and progressive, showing movement rather than fixed labels. Builders see how their actions affect their standing over time, reinforcing the idea that credibility grows through continued work.

That same philosophy guides how Zer0th approaches rankings and discovery. Progress is emphasized over comparison, and relevance is protected through filters and thresholds that prevent the platform from becoming crowded with low-relevance projects. 

“Zer0th isn’t trying to predict the future. We’re trying to make real work harder to ignore.”

The Future of Builder-Investor Relationships

For investors, the biggest shift Zer0th is trying to introduce is a better signal. While pitch decks capture ambition and demo days lock projects into a single moment, Zer0th is built around time. It lets investors track how teams perform across weeks and months, how they handle setbacks, and whether momentum is sustained. This long-term view is hard to fake and especially valuable at early stages, where uncertainty is high and reliable data is scarce.

That same time-based lens also changes how builders and investors interact. Instead of compressing trust into short meetings and rehearsed presentations, Zer0th encourages observation over persuasion. Investors can follow real progress, while builders can focus on shipping instead of constantly selling. Over time, this shifts early-stage conversations from proving credibility to building alignment around actual work.

Saran is equally cautious about how Zer0th scales. The protocol is designed to prioritize accuracy over volume, with revenue coming from institutions and ecosystem players that benefit from high-quality discovery, not from builders themselves. For Saran, this matters because trust is not an add-on, but the foundation. If builders start feeling like the product, the system loses credibility.

Looking ahead, Saran defines success in practical terms.“Success would be when it’s normal for investors to say, ‘We discovered this team through their Zer0th trail,’ and for builders to say, ‘My work didn’t disappear, it compounded.’” In that future, fewer promising projects fade after hackathons, capital moves with greater confidence, and real work finally gets the visibility it deserves.