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.
The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack
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Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack
#32The 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…
Thing is most of us didn't come there for the prize. Personally I already had an idea in the back of my head, just went in to do an MVP(which I did) and in the process maybe meet some new people. But then ... the cleanberlin guy wins. Felt like ikea winning a furniture design and quality competition.
Also... wasn't it a bit weird how the guy had his wife and his kid just "around"? If I came in with his "idea", I wouldn't expect to win so I wouldn't bring in my wife and kid to witness it.
Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack
#33Well 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!
Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack
#34I 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!
Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack
#35I 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
Also, consider http://openhack.github.io
Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack
#36Off-topic: The blog title is a perfect example to demonstrate why to never use line-height in the place of margin.
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
Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack
#37Hackathons 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.
Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack
#38I 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.
Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack
#39The 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…
I agree that the BattleHack is a very well organized event. It even had massage chairs, tons of food, drinks. I have organized some events but never at this level. At the end all of that means nothing when there is not a fair game. I might as well go to a hackathon where I have to pay for my own lunch and there is a real chance of winning.
Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack
#40"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-1mi…
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.