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The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

tomordonez.com

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Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#51

Post by brandall10 »

jasonlotito wrote: post #45
brandall10 wrote: post #28

"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…

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…

What does exploiting a situation to aid a launch have to do with winning/losing? I led a team at one and coached at another and couldn't agree more with your reasons for doing it.

My stance is in this case, by turning it into a publicity stunt it detracted from all the good stuff you mentioned. I'm sure no one cared too much as they got to meet Ashton/Demi and the saw all the glitter of a hot startup being launched.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#52

Post by csmatt »

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.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#53

Post by potatolicious »

calbear81 wrote: post #25
ssafejava wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, forming teams is pretty normal - I think ssafejava is talking about something well in excess of simply forming a team and talking about ideas.

I was at Angelhack NYC last time it was held, and was disappointed in that way also. The winner, and indeed a lot of contestants, had code or designs that were impossible to generate in a 48 period.

There was a "code review" clause in the rules, but I did not see it ever enforced. Some of the high-ranking (the ones that made it into the final round of judging anyways) projects had clearly pre-cooked designs and mockups (this wasn't against Angelhack's rules), and obviously little to no working code. Many presentations were slide decks. Disappointingly few showed the core idea working.

I've always thought that the spirit of a hackathon was to get together with some crazy smart people and see what useful and worthwhile things you can bang out in a limited time. Precooking 95% of your project beforehand seems rather against the spirit of this.

Personally I've resolved to stop going to corporate-sponsored hackathons, or hackathons where investors are waiting at the sidelines. There's a tremendous misalignment of incentives and it encourages a rather ruthless atmosphere. It's no longer about good clean fun and all about attracting investor attention.

Question: anyone in NYC know about low-key hackathons where it actually fits the spirit of a hackathon?

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#54

Post by jarofgreen »

jerf wrote: post #48
jasonlotito wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If winning is not the point, then why is a win state defined?

That's a very good question, and one I wish more hackathons would consider. I've seen one hackathon give prizes at the end totally at random, and some that don't do prizes at all.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#55

Post by jarofgreen »

tomordonez wrote: post #44
jarofgreen wrote: post #34

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 hack…

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.

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.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#56

Post by jlees »

tomordonez wrote: post #40
brandall10 wrote: post #28

"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.

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.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#57

Post by jlees »

ssafejava wrote: post #6

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 st…

I wonder if it's down to the lack of other places for these pre-cooked startups to pitch? They just want the audience. (Though this happens in Silicon Valley, for sure, where one certainly can't argue there aren't any pitch soapboxes.)

Perhaps two judging categories could help. Best technical feat this weekend, and best business concept. Bonus points for the business concept that actually built some kind of MVP this weekend.

There's a grey area between new hacks that use existing APIs/tech from a startup (vs. publicly available tech) and completely new projects. Not sure how that should be handled, perhaps just a case-by-case basis (is this a feature for the startup, or is it a brand new project that happens to leverage existing knowledge?)

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#58

Post by ggopman »

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.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#59

Post by ggopman »

potatolicious wrote: post #53
calbear81 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, forming teams is pretty normal - I think ssafejava is talking about something well in excess of simply forming a team and talking about ideas. I was at Angelhack NYC last time it was held, and was disappointed in that way also. The winner, and indeed a lot of contestants, had code or designs that were impossible to generate in a 48 period. There was a "code review" clause in the rules, but I did not see it ever…

Hey Potato, that's sad you don't want to go to hacks anymore. Code reviews are either done in private before we announce the winner or within 7 days after the event.

The slide deck thing is a persistent problem and one we're not happy with. I think that kills it for everyone and its disappointing when judges are impressed by them. To change this, starting this Fall we'll be the first hackathon to disallow power point presentations and require teams to demo if they'd like to win.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#60

Post by dangayle »

brianherbert wrote: post #21
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.

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.
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