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The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

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Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#21

Post by brianherbert »

dangayle wrote: post #14

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.

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.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#22

Post by a_soncodi »

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.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#24

Post by ShellfishMeme »

jmduke wrote: post #5

The Hackathon in question is apparently BattleHack Miami, hosted by PayPal: 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 ) and have issued a press release from Miami ( http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yello…

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.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#25

Post by calbear81 »

ssafejava wrote: post #19
jacalata wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 resen…

You're right, and I wish we had. Instead we were just sort of stunned by the underwhelming ending and the crowd filtered out very quickly (there was no "drinkathon", we were all too tired). It was Angelhack - I suppose, by the name, we should have known that investability comes first, hacking second. Our team was tired out after all-night coding and really didn't possess the mental finesse at the time to walk the fin…

Is it not normal to have a team made before the hackathon? We're registered for a few hackathons and a lot of them ask us to join a team ahead of time or join one when we get there but they do ask that teams put down their idea. The rule we adhered to was no prior coding or design work before the hackathon so build everything there but feel free to discuss the idea we want to go in with.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#26

Post by sek »

ShellfishMeme wrote: post #24
jmduke wrote: post #5

The Hackathon in question is apparently BattleHack Miami, hosted by PayPal: 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 ) and have issued a press release from Miami ( http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yello…

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 p…

Have been there too, had the exact same feeling.

It is a running business, he pitched his company, that he has thousands of customers already. I heard the guy did the same at other hackathons in Berlin.

The Technical guy was a professional who knew from the beginning what he had to do, we spent half the time developing a concept.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#27

Post by ww520 »

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.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#28

Post by brandall10 »

"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-...

Aside from that, have there been others?

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