7 ms·

The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

77 points by tomordonez 13y ago

Udo 13y ago
Where and how did that happen? What was the name of the startup? Who organized the event?
pizza 13y ago
don't go to hackathons if you just want to win
- ZirconCode 13y ago
  That's not the point. I'm sure OP would've been fine loosing, as long as it was in fair competition.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    The darkest cynic in me says, competing fairly is for losers. Literally, not figuratively.
jmduke 13y ago
The Hackathon in question is apparently BattleHack Miami, hosted by PayPal: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/the-starting-gate/2013/08/battlehack-miami-and-the-winners-are.html http://miamiherald.typepad.com/the-starting-gate/2013/08/bat... The winner in question was YellowPepper, who at the very least share their name with a startup also involved in mobile banking (http://www.yellowpepper.com/#/homeId/homeCB/page/home.html http://www.yellowpepper.com/#/homeId/homeCB/page/home.html) and have issued a press release from Miami (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yellowpepper-and-fundamo-partner-to-bring-greater-access-to-mobile-money-services-in-latin-america-84463442.html http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yellowpepper-and-fun...). (I'm not involved, I just saw this through Tom's Twitter.)
- ssafejava 13y ago
  They not only share their name with the existing startup, they are that startup: The winning app makes it easy for consumers to find places to withdraw small amounts of cash at a low cost, using businesses in their own neighborhood and a PayPal technology that is very secure, said Alexander Sjögren, who developed the app with Jose Pimienta and Osniel Gonzalez. Sjögren is with the Miami company YellowPepper, which offers mobile banking and payment solutions in Latin America. Pimienta and Gonzalez co-founded Vinylfy, a startup catering to vinyl-record enthusiasts. [1] YellowPepper is: About YellowPepper YellowPepper Mobile Financial Solutions provides products and services that enable mobile financial transactions between financial institutions (banks), businesses, and consumers in Latin America. With 1.5 million users, YellowPepper operates in Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru, and Panama as a service provider for more than 50 financial and non-financial institutions. For more information, log on to www.yellowpepper.com. [2] 1. http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/25/3585797/hackers-emerge-from-wynwood-app.html http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/25/3585797/hackers-emerge... 2. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yellowpepper-and-fundamo-partner-to-bring-greater-access-to-mobile-money-services-in-latin-america-84463442.html http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yellowpepper-and-fun...
- ShellfishMeme 13y ago
  I was at the BattleHack in Berlin. The event itself was absolutely fantastic. It was definitely the best organized hackathon I've ever been part of. Still, the final results felt similarly weird. The winner was a (non-technical) dude who had been pitching his startup for months already and found himself an amazingly talented developer at the hackathon. They made use of most of the sponsor APIs and added PayPal as a payment option for the already existing service. To me it felt like the guy was just going to random hackathons so he could get work done on his website for free. Even though the developer seemed to be exceptionally good, it seemed like he was just being taken advantage of by a guy who couldn't get his startup to have more traction. There were definitely much more impressive hacks out there. (Mine honestly wasn't one of them, so it's not just jealousy talking). In addition, the theme of the hackathon was 'solving local problems'. Now if not having a platform to get product X in city Y is a local problem, it might fit. For me though, the interpretation was more 'making the world a better place' and not 'building a purely profit-oriented application to sell stuff using PayPal'. I think they simply chose the most monetizable product that was in the competition. Made the whole event, which, I repeat, was about the best organized and executed hackathon I've ever seen, suddenly feel cheap.
ssafejava 13y ago
I've seen this before. I was involved in one where the winning team had been working for months beforehand (their website was registered > 6mo before the event), had prepared presentation materials far before the event including design mockups, and presented with nothing more than a pre-cooked video that was looked manipulated to show "working" code. None of us knew for sure, but it looked like they had just built static HTML pages and transitioned between them. For those of us who had built working products, it felt more than a bit cheap. We saw some great code and very little of it was recognized. I believe the issue is one of expectations and marketing for these events. They are pitched as "hackathons" and try very hard to attract engineers, as you simply can't have the event without coders. Therefore, engineers reasonably expect an event where the best code wins. After all, it's called a "hackathon", not a "meet & greet with investors" or even a "startup weekend". In the end, it just felt like the judges were putting themselves into the mindset of investors, and in that case, obviously the team that has prepared for months beforehand will win. But to the coders, we felt cheated, and that they had completely missed the point.
- jacalata 13y ago
  So, did anyone complain at the event? Or even after the event? How did the judges and organisers respond to the complaints?
  - ssafejava 13y ago
    There wasn't much that could be done. According to the rules, all's fair so long as the code wasn't written until the hackathon itself, which is pretty much impossible to prove or disprove anyway. You can prepare as long as you want. There is a section about a "code review" but I doubt that was really done; IIRC we didn't even submit our code, we just did a demo & video. The strongest complaint we could make was that it was strongly against the spirit of a hackathon, which is a difficult argument to win.
    - jacalata 13y ago
      The strongest complaint you can make is presumably "I wouldn't have come if I knew a team like this could enter and even win, and I won't come to your next one, and I will be sure to let others know that I won't come and why". Saying it publicly with all the other entrants around lets others join in if this is something that is widely regarded as unpopular and lets the organisers know that there is some serious resentment. Not complaining at all is certainly one way to make sure nothing will be done. I mean, nobody here can even say "wow, I won't go to their next one!" because you haven't even named them.
nsenifty 13y ago
Off-topic: The blog title is a perfect example to demonstrate why to never use line-height in the place of margin.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- tomordonez 13y ago
  thanks for the feedback. I didn't have time to put effort on design but more on content. I will fix it when I have the chance. Thanks
dangayle 13y ago
I'm active in our area's Startup Weekend community, and we try to stamp out the pre-fab work ahead of time. We've never had a funded project come through before, but I know we wouldn't allow it. I'm also the organizer of a local civic hackathon, where we have one caveat: Feel free to continue work on the project you started at our last hackathon. I'm curious how many will, or how many will start from scratch.
- brianherbert 13y ago
  Hackathons are events where ideas are born and are quickly laid to rest. I'm glad there's some encouragement to work on existing projects, especially on projects that have a civic focus.
  - dangayle 13y ago
    It's a shame too. We get all sorts of sponsors and spend a lot of time promoting an event that supposedly benefits the community, but did we really accomplish anything if we just let it drop? Maybe the idea wasn't the most greatest in the world, but now that you've had a few months to think about what you could have done better... pivot.
caphill 13y ago
I went to my first hackathon a few weeks ago and it was very skeevy with all the idea people floating around looking for folks to build their idea for free while they watch. Hackathons would be fun if it was all about everyone building what ever and having a good time instead a lot of them seem building a business focused.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- minimaxir 13y ago
  Whenever there's a significant monetary incentive to win any competition, there will always be participants who will do anything to win.
wudf 13y ago
Happened to me at two Microsoft events in Boston for Windows 8 and another one for Windows Phone 8.
andyidsinga 13y ago
hackers shouldn't go to a hackathons .. they should go to hack club. the first rule of hack club is, you do not spea ...oh crap.
- hexasquid 13y ago
  If it's your first time at hack club, you have to hack.
  - andyidsinga 13y ago
    only two hackers in pair programming
- hexasquid 13y ago
  If it's your first time at hack club, you have to hack.
a_soncodi 13y ago
The term hack and its derivatives are trite. People use them because they perk ears. In Dallas, I've attended events where first place won with a 'business plan' consisting of buzzword-laden management-speak and a clever whiteboard diagram. This is a product of the community; the culture here is business-oriented. A solution is to set expectations on having a good time and socializing, or not to attend. Instead, you may more satisfaction from working on real projects that survive the weekend. At a hackathon, or any event in general, you serve the host's purpose. Their game, their rules.
- codygman 13y ago
  The culture in Dallas is very sadly business oriented :/
ww520 13y ago
I've been to these hackathons. They are a hack. It's more of investors looking for investment ideas than engineers hacking codes and building products. One event a team won by doing a Powerpoint presentation because the judges (all investors) thought the idea could monetize the most, while the losing teams had built more complete and more impressive prototypes.
brandall10 13y ago
"Or startup weekends" Having been to a couple startup weekends, I feel like this behavior would be pretty atypical? I am aware of how Zaarly was started - Ashton Kutcher was a 'surprise' judge, happened to be a good friend of a co-founder, and subsequent investor. Both founders were Startup Weekend board members. It seemed like a staged event for a company launch. http://startupweekend.org/2011/03/09/from-zero-to-1mil-in-3-weeks-zaarly-goes-warp-speed/ http://startupweekend.org/2011/03/09/from-zero-to-1mil-in-3-... Aside from that, have there been others?
- tomordonez 13y ago
  Startup weekends have been suspicious too. Not all of them but some. I have met a lot of awesome people at those events. Some are close friends now. But the whole thing at the end feels like finding out my girlfriend was cheating on me with my best friend.
  - jlees 13y ago
    You can get a sense of that from the first night though. Some I've been to have been full of random ideas, others have been "Hi, I'm the cofounder of X and we're going to add Y feature to the site this weekend!". Sets the tone immediately.
- jasonlotito 13y ago
  Sorry, but if you are going to a SW to try and win, you are missing the point of SW. I appreciate that for some winning and losing might be the point, but it's been impressed upon me by everyone involved with SW that I've met that if you look at winning as the goal, you're going to have a bad time. Hackathons and Startup Weekends are all about meeting new people, trying new things, and possibly making new friends. It's about trying to accomplish something and sharing it. At SW, it's about getting help in moving that idea forward, in qualifying the idea. If you treat it like a win/lose scenario, you are going to lose regardless of the outcome.
  - jerf 13y ago
    If winning is not the point, then why is a win state defined?
jdn 13y ago
It seems there is a lot of "startup weekend" events masquerading as Hackathons. A Hackathon shouldn't be about business, or funding; no one should be leaving that room with investors interested in funding their 24 hour hackathon idea. It's for fun, collaboration and learning. When one of the judges took to stage at Hacked.io in London and banned business pitches, there was a small cheer.
lhnz 13y ago
Well duh, didn't you get the memo: the Hackathon is a marketing hack to attract talented developers who will then work on your startup projects for free! Amazing. May the best marketer win!
jarofgreen 13y ago
I just wanted to sound a note of caution not to tar all Hackathons with the same brush. "Hackathons" is a lose word which can mean many different things to many different people. A lot of the time I see Hackathons criticised, I read the argument and the person has set up one definition of a Hackathon then demolished it - a Straw Man, basically. And often it's deserved - there is some really shit behavior at some hackathons and it's right that it is called out. This post fits that mould pretty perfectly. But there are also some really great Hackathons. Try and find the style of Hackathon you like, go and have fun!
- tomordonez 13y ago
  I agree and emphasize on "some" hackathons. I went to hackathons where the winner is well-deserved and there is code of honor. Fair game on judging. It makes me feel that the most over-produced over-sponsored over the top hackathons are the ones that have suspicious behavior.
  - jarofgreen 13y ago
    I'm glad to hear you agree, but to be honest when I read you article I didn't pick up the emphasis's on "some" at all. You seemed pretty harsh on all Hackathons.
busterc 13y ago
I would suggest, for anybody considering attending a hackathon to not let this totally discourage you. Not all hackathons are equal. My first was at Launch Fest 2013. It was a great experience and I think the judging was as fair as could be expected. There were a lot of talented people who honestly hacked awesome projects together in such a short time. You can see the 5 finalist starting at 23:30 in http://youtu.be/HPSnsxN4lEs http://youtu.be/HPSnsxN4lEs Also, consider http://openhack.github.io http://openhack.github.io
tomordonez 13y ago
Hackathons are a lot of fun if your goal is not only about winning. You meet a lot of people. Sometimes future employees/founders/CTOs or sometimes friends. You learn a lot if you really put yourself to the challenge and pair program with others. I usually go to hackathons to have fun. Most of the times I cannot stay all day so I go to meet people and make friends. I even help other teams brainstorming, refine their idea, testing. But when you see suspicious crap it is unmotivated for everybody. Besides having fun all teams have a goal of winning. When they realize nobody had a chance, it is disheartening.
imaffett 13y ago
I worked at quite a few hackathon's at my previous job. Judging always had some ulterior motive. We'd see people walk into 48 hr hackathons at the very end and pitch their pre-built app they always took around. They could walk off with a macbook pro no problem...not bad for a few hours of work. It's sad, but most of them seem to run this way.
- tomordonez 13y ago
  No problem if the walk off with a new macbook. Yes problem if the walk off with a chance to win $100K at a national event with investors.
xradionut 13y ago
"Instead you spend your technical efforts going to meetups and helping others." Do this indeed. One of the best ways to get better and encounter interesting people is to go to meet ups, user groups and "fun" hack events. You will encounter peers, newbies, gurus, recruiters, investors and all sorts of interesting people with ideas, needs and possibly money.
csmatt 13y ago
One of the judges at Startup Weekend crapped on every team. The weekend had been a lot of fun, but that ruined it for me. Other judges at least had constructive criticism. I have to admit this pulled the steam out of my sails and I'm not all that interested in the startup scene anymore. I felt slightly cheated at another event where the winners had obviously been 'playing the circuit' with their startup, but I still came away from it pretty positive.
ggopman 13y ago
Hi, I'm the founder of AngelHack, we organize large hackathons around the world and I can tell you this article doesn't hold true for us (though I can't speak for other events). We operate independently of companies and choose winners based on hour things-- Completeness, Impactfulness, Technical difficulty, and viability. We had some issues in our early days with pre-done code, so now all winning teams are subject to code reviews after winning (and in the case where the review shows previous work has been done, we contact the second place winner and invite them to our finals event instead. We do this discretely as to not shame the initial winner who sometimes may not have understood the rules). I'd say this happens 5% of the time, so this is very much the exception and not the rule. I started AngelHack so that people could have a shot of getting exposure for their ideas and support in taking them to the next level. We welcome everyone to our events, startups who want a good environment to team build and work on new things to indie-devs looking for an outlet from their typically work week. Normally, great coders win and great ideas come out of it. Our mission from there to provide support and mentorship, so top teams have a fighting chance at turning their hack into a startup. Many companies raise funding after they win our events and we're proud of that. They literally start at our events and now they are in YC, TechStars, AngelPad, and you name it. That's cool. With 35 cities happening concurrently, sometimes the quality of what judges pick can vary, where even I myself have had WTF moments on who won, but the majority of our judges pick solid winners and if I see something was really awesome, I'll still invite that team into our finals, regardless of what the judges choose. My take on corporate hackathons -- most award winners based on who has spent the most time digging into the API and asking good questions to the company -- these would be teams who helped them improve their product and teams that they'd like to believe will finish their product so they can showcase it on their app-store// dev-site. Again, I can't speak for everyone, but that's the trend I see. And for Startup Weekend, they don't throw hackathons. They do a business plan event, where they don't really care what comes in or comes out. It's about uniting the community and doing customer development on ideas. They judge based on who they feel has improved and who makes the the crowd happy. It's not really a competition. All this said, I'm curious what people think hackathons should be judged on. Imagine you were giving away $10,000 -- how would you decide? Would you do it on what's cool, based solely on the tech, based on what could make revenue, based on the teams passion for what they are doing? Solve that, and AngelHack would gladly integrate it in with our events worldwide. Again, currently we judge based on Completeness, Impactfulness, Technical difficulty, and viability.

77 points by tomordonez 13y ago

Udo 13y ago

Where and how did that happen? What was the name of the startup? Who organized the event?

pizza 13y ago

don't go to hackathons if you just want to win

ZirconCode 13y ago
That's not the point. I'm sure OP would've been fine loosing, as long as it was in fair competition.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  The darkest cynic in me says, competing fairly is for losers. Literally, not figuratively.

jmduke 13y ago

The Hackathon in question is apparently BattleHack Miami, hosted by PayPal: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/the-starting-gate/2013/08/battlehack-miami-and-the-winners-are.html http://miamiherald.typepad.com/the-starting-gate/2013/08/bat... The winner in question was YellowPepper, who at the very least share their name with a startup also involved in mobile banking (http://www.yellowpepper.com/#/homeId/homeCB/page/home.html http://www.yellowpepper.com/#/homeId/homeCB/page/home.html) and have issued a press release from Miami (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yellowpepper-and-fundamo-partner-to-bring-greater-access-to-mobile-money-services-in-latin-america-84463442.html http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yellowpepper-and-fun...). (I'm not involved, I just saw this through Tom's Twitter.)

ssafejava 13y ago
They not only share their name with the existing startup, they are that startup: The winning app makes it easy for consumers to find places to withdraw small amounts of cash at a low cost, using businesses in their own neighborhood and a PayPal technology that is very secure, said Alexander Sjögren, who developed the app with Jose Pimienta and Osniel Gonzalez. Sjögren is with the Miami company YellowPepper, which offers mobile banking and payment solutions in Latin America. Pimienta and Gonzalez co-founded Vinylfy, a startup catering to vinyl-record enthusiasts. [1] YellowPepper is: About YellowPepper YellowPepper Mobile Financial Solutions provides products and services that enable mobile financial transactions between financial institutions (banks), businesses, and consumers in Latin America. With 1.5 million users, YellowPepper operates in Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru, and Panama as a service provider for more than 50 financial and non-financial institutions. For more information, log on to www.yellowpepper.com. [2] 1. http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/25/3585797/hackers-emerge-from-wynwood-app.html http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/25/3585797/hackers-emerge... 2. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yellowpepper-and-fundamo-partner-to-bring-greater-access-to-mobile-money-services-in-latin-america-84463442.html http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yellowpepper-and-fun...
ShellfishMeme 13y ago
I was at the BattleHack in Berlin. The event itself was absolutely fantastic. It was definitely the best organized hackathon I've ever been part of. Still, the final results felt similarly weird. The winner was a (non-technical) dude who had been pitching his startup for months already and found himself an amazingly talented developer at the hackathon. They made use of most of the sponsor APIs and added PayPal as a payment option for the already existing service. To me it felt like the guy was just going to random hackathons so he could get work done on his website for free. Even though the developer seemed to be exceptionally good, it seemed like he was just being taken advantage of by a guy who couldn't get his startup to have more traction. There were definitely much more impressive hacks out there. (Mine honestly wasn't one of them, so it's not just jealousy talking). In addition, the theme of the hackathon was 'solving local problems'. Now if not having a platform to get product X in city Y is a local problem, it might fit. For me though, the interpretation was more 'making the world a better place' and not 'building a purely profit-oriented application to sell stuff using PayPal'. I think they simply chose the most monetizable product that was in the competition. Made the whole event, which, I repeat, was about the best organized and executed hackathon I've ever seen, suddenly feel cheap.

ssafejava 13y ago

I've seen this before. I was involved in one where the winning team had been working for months beforehand (their website was registered > 6mo before the event), had prepared presentation materials far before the event including design mockups, and presented with nothing more than a pre-cooked video that was looked manipulated to show "working" code. None of us knew for sure, but it looked like they had just built static HTML pages and transitioned between them. For those of us who had built working products, it felt more than a bit cheap. We saw some great code and very little of it was recognized. I believe the issue is one of expectations and marketing for these events. They are pitched as "hackathons" and try very hard to attract engineers, as you simply can't have the event without coders. Therefore, engineers reasonably expect an event where the best code wins. After all, it's called a "hackathon", not a "meet & greet with investors" or even a "startup weekend". In the end, it just felt like the judges were putting themselves into the mindset of investors, and in that case, obviously the team that has prepared for months beforehand will win. But to the coders, we felt cheated, and that they had completely missed the point.

jacalata 13y ago
So, did anyone complain at the event? Or even after the event? How did the judges and organisers respond to the complaints?
- ssafejava 13y ago
  There wasn't much that could be done. According to the rules, all's fair so long as the code wasn't written until the hackathon itself, which is pretty much impossible to prove or disprove anyway. You can prepare as long as you want. There is a section about a "code review" but I doubt that was really done; IIRC we didn't even submit our code, we just did a demo & video. The strongest complaint we could make was that it was strongly against the spirit of a hackathon, which is a difficult argument to win.
  - jacalata 13y ago
    The strongest complaint you can make is presumably "I wouldn't have come if I knew a team like this could enter and even win, and I won't come to your next one, and I will be sure to let others know that I won't come and why". Saying it publicly with all the other entrants around lets others join in if this is something that is widely regarded as unpopular and lets the organisers know that there is some serious resentment. Not complaining at all is certainly one way to make sure nothing will be done. I mean, nobody here can even say "wow, I won't go to their next one!" because you haven't even named them.

nsenifty 13y ago

Off-topic: The blog title is a perfect example to demonstrate why to never use line-height in the place of margin.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
tomordonez 13y ago
thanks for the feedback. I didn't have time to put effort on design but more on content. I will fix it when I have the chance. Thanks

dangayle 13y ago

I'm active in our area's Startup Weekend community, and we try to stamp out the pre-fab work ahead of time. We've never had a funded project come through before, but I know we wouldn't allow it. I'm also the organizer of a local civic hackathon, where we have one caveat: Feel free to continue work on the project you started at our last hackathon. I'm curious how many will, or how many will start from scratch.

brianherbert 13y ago
Hackathons are events where ideas are born and are quickly laid to rest. I'm glad there's some encouragement to work on existing projects, especially on projects that have a civic focus.
- dangayle 13y ago
  It's a shame too. We get all sorts of sponsors and spend a lot of time promoting an event that supposedly benefits the community, but did we really accomplish anything if we just let it drop? Maybe the idea wasn't the most greatest in the world, but now that you've had a few months to think about what you could have done better... pivot.

caphill 13y ago

I went to my first hackathon a few weeks ago and it was very skeevy with all the idea people floating around looking for folks to build their idea for free while they watch. Hackathons would be fun if it was all about everyone building what ever and having a good time instead a lot of them seem building a business focused.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

minimaxir 13y ago
Whenever there's a significant monetary incentive to win any competition, there will always be participants who will do anything to win.

wudf 13y ago

Happened to me at two Microsoft events in Boston for Windows 8 and another one for Windows Phone 8.

andyidsinga 13y ago

hackers shouldn't go to a hackathons .. they should go to hack club. the first rule of hack club is, you do not spea ...oh crap.

hexasquid 13y ago
If it's your first time at hack club, you have to hack.
- andyidsinga 13y ago
  only two hackers in pair programming
hexasquid 13y ago
If it's your first time at hack club, you have to hack.

a_soncodi 13y ago

The term hack and its derivatives are trite. People use them because they perk ears. In Dallas, I've attended events where first place won with a 'business plan' consisting of buzzword-laden management-speak and a clever whiteboard diagram. This is a product of the community; the culture here is business-oriented. A solution is to set expectations on having a good time and socializing, or not to attend. Instead, you may more satisfaction from working on real projects that survive the weekend. At a hackathon, or any event in general, you serve the host's purpose. Their game, their rules.

codygman 13y ago
The culture in Dallas is very sadly business oriented :/

ww520 13y ago

I've been to these hackathons. They are a hack. It's more of investors looking for investment ideas than engineers hacking codes and building products. One event a team won by doing a Powerpoint presentation because the judges (all investors) thought the idea could monetize the most, while the losing teams had built more complete and more impressive prototypes.

brandall10 13y ago

"Or startup weekends" Having been to a couple startup weekends, I feel like this behavior would be pretty atypical? I am aware of how Zaarly was started - Ashton Kutcher was a 'surprise' judge, happened to be a good friend of a co-founder, and subsequent investor. Both founders were Startup Weekend board members. It seemed like a staged event for a company launch. http://startupweekend.org/2011/03/09/from-zero-to-1mil-in-3-weeks-zaarly-goes-warp-speed/ http://startupweekend.org/2011/03/09/from-zero-to-1mil-in-3-... Aside from that, have there been others?

tomordonez 13y ago
Startup weekends have been suspicious too. Not all of them but some. I have met a lot of awesome people at those events. Some are close friends now. But the whole thing at the end feels like finding out my girlfriend was cheating on me with my best friend.
- jlees 13y ago
  You can get a sense of that from the first night though. Some I've been to have been full of random ideas, others have been "Hi, I'm the cofounder of X and we're going to add Y feature to the site this weekend!". Sets the tone immediately.
jasonlotito 13y ago
Sorry, but if you are going to a SW to try and win, you are missing the point of SW. I appreciate that for some winning and losing might be the point, but it's been impressed upon me by everyone involved with SW that I've met that if you look at winning as the goal, you're going to have a bad time. Hackathons and Startup Weekends are all about meeting new people, trying new things, and possibly making new friends. It's about trying to accomplish something and sharing it. At SW, it's about getting help in moving that idea forward, in qualifying the idea. If you treat it like a win/lose scenario, you are going to lose regardless of the outcome.
- jerf 13y ago
  If winning is not the point, then why is a win state defined?

jdn 13y ago

It seems there is a lot of "startup weekend" events masquerading as Hackathons. A Hackathon shouldn't be about business, or funding; no one should be leaving that room with investors interested in funding their 24 hour hackathon idea. It's for fun, collaboration and learning. When one of the judges took to stage at Hacked.io in London and banned business pitches, there was a small cheer.

lhnz 13y ago

Well duh, didn't you get the memo: the Hackathon is a marketing hack to attract talented developers who will then work on your startup projects for free! Amazing. May the best marketer win!

jarofgreen 13y ago

I just wanted to sound a note of caution not to tar all Hackathons with the same brush. "Hackathons" is a lose word which can mean many different things to many different people. A lot of the time I see Hackathons criticised, I read the argument and the person has set up one definition of a Hackathon then demolished it - a Straw Man, basically. And often it's deserved - there is some really shit behavior at some hackathons and it's right that it is called out. This post fits that mould pretty perfectly. But there are also some really great Hackathons. Try and find the style of Hackathon you like, go and have fun!

tomordonez 13y ago
I agree and emphasize on "some" hackathons. I went to hackathons where the winner is well-deserved and there is code of honor. Fair game on judging. It makes me feel that the most over-produced over-sponsored over the top hackathons are the ones that have suspicious behavior.
- jarofgreen 13y ago
  I'm glad to hear you agree, but to be honest when I read you article I didn't pick up the emphasis's on "some" at all. You seemed pretty harsh on all Hackathons.

busterc 13y ago

I would suggest, for anybody considering attending a hackathon to not let this totally discourage you. Not all hackathons are equal. My first was at Launch Fest 2013. It was a great experience and I think the judging was as fair as could be expected. There were a lot of talented people who honestly hacked awesome projects together in such a short time. You can see the 5 finalist starting at 23:30 in http://youtu.be/HPSnsxN4lEs http://youtu.be/HPSnsxN4lEs Also, consider http://openhack.github.io http://openhack.github.io

tomordonez 13y ago

Hackathons are a lot of fun if your goal is not only about winning. You meet a lot of people. Sometimes future employees/founders/CTOs or sometimes friends. You learn a lot if you really put yourself to the challenge and pair program with others. I usually go to hackathons to have fun. Most of the times I cannot stay all day so I go to meet people and make friends. I even help other teams brainstorming, refine their idea, testing. But when you see suspicious crap it is unmotivated for everybody. Besides having fun all teams have a goal of winning. When they realize nobody had a chance, it is disheartening.

imaffett 13y ago

I worked at quite a few hackathon's at my previous job. Judging always had some ulterior motive. We'd see people walk into 48 hr hackathons at the very end and pitch their pre-built app they always took around. They could walk off with a macbook pro no problem...not bad for a few hours of work. It's sad, but most of them seem to run this way.

tomordonez 13y ago
No problem if the walk off with a new macbook. Yes problem if the walk off with a chance to win $100K at a national event with investors.

xradionut 13y ago

"Instead you spend your technical efforts going to meetups and helping others." Do this indeed. One of the best ways to get better and encounter interesting people is to go to meet ups, user groups and "fun" hack events. You will encounter peers, newbies, gurus, recruiters, investors and all sorts of interesting people with ideas, needs and possibly money.

csmatt 13y ago

One of the judges at Startup Weekend crapped on every team. The weekend had been a lot of fun, but that ruined it for me. Other judges at least had constructive criticism. I have to admit this pulled the steam out of my sails and I'm not all that interested in the startup scene anymore. I felt slightly cheated at another event where the winners had obviously been 'playing the circuit' with their startup, but I still came away from it pretty positive.

ggopman 13y ago

Hi, I'm the founder of AngelHack, we organize large hackathons around the world and I can tell you this article doesn't hold true for us (though I can't speak for other events). We operate independently of companies and choose winners based on hour things-- Completeness, Impactfulness, Technical difficulty, and viability. We had some issues in our early days with pre-done code, so now all winning teams are subject to code reviews after winning (and in the case where the review shows previous work has been done, we contact the second place winner and invite them to our finals event instead. We do this discretely as to not shame the initial winner who sometimes may not have understood the rules). I'd say this happens 5% of the time, so this is very much the exception and not the rule. I started AngelHack so that people could have a shot of getting exposure for their ideas and support in taking them to the next level. We welcome everyone to our events, startups who want a good environment to team build and work on new things to indie-devs looking for an outlet from their typically work week. Normally, great coders win and great ideas come out of it. Our mission from there to provide support and mentorship, so top teams have a fighting chance at turning their hack into a startup. Many companies raise funding after they win our events and we're proud of that. They literally start at our events and now they are in YC, TechStars, AngelPad, and you name it. That's cool. With 35 cities happening concurrently, sometimes the quality of what judges pick can vary, where even I myself have had WTF moments on who won, but the majority of our judges pick solid winners and if I see something was really awesome, I'll still invite that team into our finals, regardless of what the judges choose. My take on corporate hackathons -- most award winners based on who has spent the most time digging into the API and asking good questions to the company -- these would be teams who helped them improve their product and teams that they'd like to believe will finish their product so they can showcase it on their app-store// dev-site. Again, I can't speak for everyone, but that's the trend I see. And for Startup Weekend, they don't throw hackathons. They do a business plan event, where they don't really care what comes in or comes out. It's about uniting the community and doing customer development on ideas. They judge based on who they feel has improved and who makes the the crowd happy. It's not really a competition. All this said, I'm curious what people think hackathons should be judged on. Imagine you were giving away $10,000 -- how would you decide? Would you do it on what's cool, based solely on the tech, based on what could make revenue, based on the teams passion for what they are doing? Solve that, and AngelHack would gladly integrate it in with our events worldwide. Again, currently we judge based on Completeness, Impactfulness, Technical difficulty, and viability.