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What do you think makes a successful and enjoyable hackathon? Is it the prizes? Is it the theme? Would you prefer it on a weekend or a weekday? Anything else, big or little, that makes for a good hackathon?
- People that say they have skill in XYZ, when in fact they have little to no experience in XYZ. It would be nice if I could have some reasonable confidence in a stranger's ability to be experienced in a skill they claim to have.
- "Entrepreneurs" interested in getting free dev labor for their unicorn app idea. I sign up for a hackathon to have some fun and write some code with hopefully cool people, usually for some cool or good cause. I don't come there to make a beta for some greedy MBA student.
How to make an awful hackathon:
1. Familiarize yourself with the "hacker league" but don't affiliate with them; better yet, check their schedule so you can pick a date that conflicts with a better hackathon in the area.
2. Require that all submissions be new work, but limit the winners to people who have demonstrably worked on their entry for weeks.
3. This one I picked up from TechCrunch Disrupt SF- determine how much square footage your hackathon used in previous years, then try to cram the next year's into a space half that size.
4. Also from TechCrunch- get some A-list VC's to speak, then put no effort into soundchecks to ensure people can actually hear them.
5. Put no one in charge of making sure the event is lively and safe. If participants get the laptop stolen out of the backpack they're using for a pillow, or get drenched by a super soaker, that's their own dumb fault for bringing a computer to a hackathon.
6. Make all of your prizes in-kind donations of services that hackers either already have in spades or would never use, like discounted Rackspace hosting, entry-level coding classes, or unpaid internships with your own firm. Never offer cash, as the best hackers treat cash offerings as an insult to their professionalism. If you have to offer cash, make the cash a nominal amount, like $10. Better yet, make it a starbucks gift card for $15 - whatever your favorite drink was when you bought it. During the awards ceremony, announce the recipient of the card but never see they get it.
7. Start advertising for your event three months out, then stop the advertising two and a half months out when you run out of time or money. Make sure no one carries any updates about your event so it can happen quickly and quietly. Only the best hackers will show up because they hate competition, have long memories and mark their calendars. Advertising really is a waste of money and most people spend way too much on it.
8. Make the presentation process as frustrating as possible for presenter and participant alike. Give people less than 5 minutes to present their idea, and ensure that everyone spends at least 3 of that trying to figure out how to make your AV system work. Ensure you're violating the fire code by making the space small, and make the speakers and projector (not projectors) undersized. Make sure your projector connection is Thunderbolt (for windows-themed hackathons) or HD15 VGA (for Mac-themed hackathons).
9. Charge for admission to make clear how you're underwriting the event. If you offer $5000 in prizes and expect 100 hackers to show up, charge $100 per entry. Better yet, offer a dual-tier charging structure so prospective investors and members of the public pay nothing. Don't bother checking if the free tier submits entries. Also encourage the free tier to mingle with the hackers while they work. Hackers need suggestions.
10. Cater the event by the lowest bidder. Costco pizza and Coca Cola products are looked upon fondly by hackers because they don't care about their health. Offer lunch leftovers for dinner, dinner leftovers for breakfast, and so on. You should only really need to place one order of food. Offer an unappetizing vegetarian option and don't label it. Leverage your frugal use of space by doubling hacker workspace as the line for the food.
11. Ensure your event has too few bathrooms and too few garbage cans. People can crap and throw their trash away at home.
12. When winners are announced, do it on the down low. Don't put that information on your blog, so when 2019 rolls around and someone wants to find out who won or attended, they can't.
13. If your projections show you'll be able to sell 1000 tickets to hackers at $50 each, use an easily-gamed system that makes 2 batches of 250 available for $25 each at random unannounced times. Selling out your event ensures the highest quality of hacker.
14. Buy (6) 3' power strips from Costco and leave them unopened in a corner of the space. For Wifi, use whatever the building already has available. Make the wifi password more trouble to ask for than it's worth.
Just make sure that there is enough Apple equipment in the room and that the hackathon itself produces a lot of useless stuff that no one will ever need. Perfect hackathon.
1. Internet and Working space
If you're expecting a high turn-out. Make sure the facility has a comfortable work environment and enough tables and chairs for everyone to work in. Ensure that the internet will not overload due to too many connections. This is a very common problem
2. Judging
Different hackathons have different purposes, and make sure the judging aligns with it. Some hackathons focus on business-viable projects, while others aim to build something "cool". Make it clear what the criteria is. If you're looking for cool projects, make sure the judges don't elect a winner because their project made the most business sense, especially if it's just a front-end hack, where the back-end doesn't even work (very common).
Have a way to check that projects weren't built ahead of time. Fraud is a major problem in hackathons.
Good luck
The MLH guide is student focused but you should still be able to get a ton of great advice out of it!
If you're planning on being more business oriented startup weekend has a similar guide.
1. Set over the course of a weekend. Allows greater breadth of attendees. Not 24 hours (which is somewhat manic) but rather a more leisurely schedule of Friday: beers/pitching/team-forming; Saturday: hacking; Sunday: polish, pitching-practice, pitches, award ceremony.
2. Strong focus/process/timetable. Ensure everyone knows the schedule and judging criteria they're hacking towards. Set out the support infrastructure and resources at the top of the weekend so people can get up to speed in the methodology of the weekend. Startup Weekend tells attendees to create a plausible startup, then links them to Lean Startup resources and hands out lots of post-its for their business-model canvases. Major League Hacking tell people to make something "cool", then feed them boxes of Red Bull and loaner-hardware. Horses for courses.
3. Experienced organisers and mentors. Have at least one person for whom this isn't their first time running a hackathon, and knows how to sort out and prepare for all the little things that can (and will) go wrong. Mentors are invaluable for setting the tone of the hackathon and guiding everyone through the event and criteria (see point 2).
4. Pizzas/generic junk food are fine (and expected!) once in a weekend. ONCE. Similarly, lots of caffeine and beer (at the beginning and end) is great for getting a buzz on, but put out plenty of water and maybe some juice/herbal teas as well. There'll be plenty of natural highs by wrap-up time, and reasonable adults won't attend if they think they're gonna feel terrible the day after (see point 1).
Other thoughts:
- Thematic hackathons provide an opportunity for hackers to learn about a new domain, and for domain specialists and otherwise interested-persons to get involved where they might not at an event specifically organised for them, but OTOH it can dissuade some hackers from attending who don't think they'd be interested. In order to resist any gimmickiness, there should already be a dialogue or narrative - either an existing community which has already expressed interest in the domain (e.g. an open data community regarding city-infrastructure), or more general hype and interest (think Startup Weekends).
And remember, it's people in a room to have fun together in a slightly unconventional way. Make sure that you build up the community and teamwork of it all the way through, look after everyone, go have beers after, and start planning the next one if people are asking for it!
- Be clear on what you want people to build. Some hackathons want a cool hack or feature while others want a prototype/MVP that could be an actual startup.
- Have real prizes (cash and/or useful things). I was at a healthcare hackathon recently and the prices were ... engraved plaques.
- Have some real, experienced VCs help with the judging. They are generally good at knowing what's actually useful and spotting BS. Plus they're a good draw because people love to network with them and hear them speak.
- Get other companies and services involved by offering sponsor or API prizes. A big, "winner-take-all" hackathon isn't fun. If you don't win the grand prize, it's nice to know you might still win a gift card or iPad from a sponsoring company. It should be easy to get such companies involved (cheap exposure for them).
- I don't like "science fair judging" (i.e. judges walk around to each group/table and do a private demo). Make everyone present with a time limit and a projector. Part of hackathons IMO is being able to present your product and do a live demo under pressure. If it's a big hackathon, you might need 2 rounds of judging ... but it's the best way.
- Require entries to be new, working software or hardware. Unless you're explicit, people will try and enter anything from mockups, powerpoint slides, to a "feature" bolted on to an already existing product/service.
- I think 36-48 hours is the sweet spot for time. But I personally don't work through the night.
- I've seen some hackathons require teams (i.e. no solo people). I don't see the point. A max size of 5 or 6 is a good idea but there's no good reason to not let people enter alone. You can even have a category "solo" winners.
- Despite the above, people will still cheat. Don't sweat it.
- Good wifi
- T-shirts ... lots of t-shirts
Hope that helps. The best hackathons I've been to were AngelHack, Twilio, and On Deck Cup.