Looking at going to battlehack (from paypal) this weekend. Wondering how it fits in to the "3 types" from the article - doesn't seem to fit in to any of those 3 specifically.
Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
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Re: Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
#12I've done Startup Weekend once before and it felt like how the "The Business-A-Thon" was described. My friends and I did not know this would be the case going in and spent all of our time pumping out an MVP (which worked!) while the teams that won largely didn't have ANY code to show for their time. It was all slides and marketing talk. The winner DID have code but it was a It was a pretty big letdown and I haven't been back to SW or any hackathons since. I love banging out an MVP in a weekend with friends but not if we are going to be judged on our presentation and not our work. I know, I know that's how the real world works as well but I just expected better from the experience. I also understand that maybe SW is not aimed at being a hackathon but I just wish they could have given more weight to something that worked and was accessible today (also we spend the whole weekend minus about 8hrs total for sleep between 2 nights) vs a lot of marketing/sales talk (who left the venue early and showed up late).
Quick edit: Just wanted to say that I see this more as my failing to understand what SW was instead of me blaming SW for not meeting my incorrect expectations. SW is fine but it's just probably not for me.
Re: Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
#13Running a Hackathon costs money. We can have a hackathon where: - The costs are split up by the number of participants. - A bunch of teams participate. - Everyone builds whatever they want, and they own it. - There can be multiple show-and-tells, to allow teams to ask / answer questions, get to know each-other, and iterate. - Everyone walks away having made some wonderful new friends, having learned a thing or two, a…
A Hackathon cost less money than you'd think. Typically for a day long event you can rent the place, get 3 meals, drinks and snacks including time spent for 40-50 people for about $2k. Which for a business isn't really all that much.
Disclaimer I help organize the described at the bottom of the article.
Re: Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
#14I recently went to a hackathon where participants owned code they wrote, but no mention was made of who ideas belonged to. What category does that fall into?
Since the general HN consensus on such things is "execution > idea" is it all right if a hackathon says "We might use your idea in our products"?
PS. Obviously, it's never OK if they say "We own your idea and you can't use it anymore".
Re: Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
#15Last Startup Weekend I went to had 7 devs out of 110 people. Definitely an issue. EDIT: All but one of the 11 teams were tech/programming required startups guys. I'm not talking about "Startup Weekend" as a whole, I'm talking about my experience at the event I went to.
Does Start Up weekend specifies that the start up has to do with tech? Unless you're saying that 103 people were the "idea person" I don't see what's wrong with that
I've done SW before (see comment above) and not all the ideas were tech-related but most were. There was one group working on vertical farms/fisheries(?) I forget the word they used but it was some sort of AquaPond or something like that. Also IMHO SW does not care about actually producing a working example it only cares about the business idea which was disappointing.
Re: Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't speak for all Startup Weekend events, but at the one I went too, every single project was a tech startup. On the team I was on, the vibe from the "idea person" was definitely "How can I get a developer to help me for free?"
from the blog post: >Restrict to those who are there to code, design, or build something, not to write a business plan - this gives participants the freedom to work on projects that don't need to have profit potential. That makes sense, but you know, don't restrict it to tech start ups. And from what I read at the SW website, it DOESN'T have to be tech. How were the projects from that SW you mention?
I went to one in 2012, and a majority of the projects, as well as 2 of the 3 winners were tech.
Re: Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
#17I've done Startup Weekend once before and it felt like how the "The Business-A-Thon" was described. My friends and I did not know this would be the case going in and spent all of our time pumping out an MVP (which worked!) while the teams that won largely didn't have ANY code to show for their time. It was all slides and marketing talk. The winner DID have code but it was a It was a pretty big letdown and I haven't b…
I agree it'd be better if different hackathons were clearer about what gets rewarded, but it's possible the real reason the other team won was because they presented (even if they didn't build) something that people wanted.
"Whoah, I want that!" > "Yes, that is functional."
Re: Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
#18I've done Startup Weekend once before and it felt like how the "The Business-A-Thon" was described. My friends and I did not know this would be the case going in and spent all of our time pumping out an MVP (which worked!) while the teams that won largely didn't have ANY code to show for their time. It was all slides and marketing talk. The winner DID have code but it was a It was a pretty big letdown and I haven't b…
I haven't been to a SW in about 3 years. But the last ones I went to were all people who brought their existing fledgling business they were trying to get started. Did who knows what for the weekend. Then just pitched it on demo day. That was maybe 60% of the groups that participated. Really a big let down.
Re: Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
#19I've done Startup Weekend once before and it felt like how the "The Business-A-Thon" was described. My friends and I did not know this would be the case going in and spent all of our time pumping out an MVP (which worked!) while the teams that won largely didn't have ANY code to show for their time. It was all slides and marketing talk. The winner DID have code but it was a It was a pretty big letdown and I haven't b…
I haven't been to a SW in about 3 years. But the last ones I went to were all people who brought their existing fledgling business they were trying to get started. Did who knows what for the weekend. Then just pitched it on demo day. That was maybe 60% of the groups that participated. Really a big let down.
The group that did that at our SW got eliminated during judging.
Re: Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
#20I've done Startup Weekend once before and it felt like how the "The Business-A-Thon" was described. My friends and I did not know this would be the case going in and spent all of our time pumping out an MVP (which worked!) while the teams that won largely didn't have ANY code to show for their time. It was all slides and marketing talk. The winner DID have code but it was a It was a pretty big letdown and I haven't b…
> I've done Startup Weekend once before and it felt like how the "The Business-A-Thon" was described.
To be fair, SW is meant to be a "Business-A-Thon" and not a hackathon in the traditional sense. This is spelled out in many places, and they make it clear up front that the business plan is key.
> I also understand that maybe SW is not aimed at being a hackathon but I just wish they could have given more weight to something that worked and was accessible today
But that's not what they want to be. I'm not saying you have to like it, but rather that your perceptions going into SW was for it to be something it didn't want to be.