My Experience at YC Hacks
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My Experience at YC Hacks
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Re: My Experience at YC Hacks
#2What happened after the deadline? Did you pitch it in front of everyone? Or did all the teams just get to experience the joy of building something with tight deadlines?
Re: My Experience at YC Hacks
#3What happened after the deadline? Did you pitch it in front of everyone? Or did all the teams just get to experience the joy of building something with tight deadlines?
In the traditional sense of hackathons i think YC hacks had each team present a 1-3 minute pitch.
Re: My Experience at YC Hacks
#4What happened after the deadline? Did you pitch it in front of everyone? Or did all the teams just get to experience the joy of building something with tight deadlines?
Each team demoed for 1.5 hours in a science fair-style expo. A panel chose the top 7 teams, and each of those teams pitched in front of the whole group. 6 judges asked questions and awarded prizes to the top 3 teams.
Re: My Experience at YC Hacks
#5What happened after the deadline? Did you pitch it in front of everyone? Or did all the teams just get to experience the joy of building something with tight deadlines?
It was a "science fair" style expo, where all of the completed hacks were on display with one person from each team demoing--essentially over and over again for hours.
Judges came around to review and score everyone (every team had multiple judges stop by), and a shortlist of hacks made it to the final round where it was more of a traditional pitch-off, with different judges.
Re: My Experience at YC Hacks
#6You can significantly accelerate this types of hacks with Unbounce. Just build a landing page in advance for "Lorem Ipsum" hack. Then, on an actual hackathon, you can launch a nice looking site for your idea in 30-60 minutes. Starting with Unbounce gives you time to find the first users and to work on the actual app experience.
Looking forward to try your app!
Re: My Experience at YC Hacks
#7What happened after the deadline? Did you pitch it in front of everyone? Or did all the teams just get to experience the joy of building something with tight deadlines?
It was a "science fair" style expo, where all of the completed hacks were on display with one person from each team demoing--essentially over and over again for hours. Judges came around to review and score everyone (every team had multiple judges stop by), and a shortlist of hacks made it to the final round where it was more of a traditional pitch-off, with different judges. http://ychacks.challengepost.com/
The expo was pretty awful, as a presenter. After being up for >30 hours working on the project, having to stand up and pitch it for two hours was rough. It also meant not getting to go around and see everybody else's projects.
If they do this again, they should shorten the expo significantly and do it in stages, so that nobody has to stand and talk for two hours.
Re: My Experience at YC Hacks
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was a "science fair" style expo, where all of the completed hacks were on display with one person from each team demoing--essentially over and over again for hours. Judges came around to review and score everyone (every team had multiple judges stop by), and a shortlist of hacks made it to the final round where it was more of a traditional pitch-off, with different judges. http://ychacks.challengepost.com/
The expo was pretty awful, as a presenter. After being up for >30 hours working on the project, having to stand up and pitch it for two hours was rough. It also meant not getting to go around and see everybody else's projects. If they do this again, they should shorten the expo significantly and do it in stages, so that nobody has to stand and talk for two hours.
I've been to a dozen large hackathons and they essentially all operate in this manner. I've been trying to come up with another way - the expo style has many shortcomings including those you listed. It's very hard to stand out in this format especially if your demo is not conducive to 10 seconds standing up at a table with 100db ambient volume. Makes the importance of designing a hackathon-friendly hack paramount.
Re: My Experience at YC Hacks
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was a "science fair" style expo, where all of the completed hacks were on display with one person from each team demoing--essentially over and over again for hours. Judges came around to review and score everyone (every team had multiple judges stop by), and a shortlist of hacks made it to the final round where it was more of a traditional pitch-off, with different judges. http://ychacks.challengepost.com/
The expo was pretty awful, as a presenter. After being up for >30 hours working on the project, having to stand up and pitch it for two hours was rough. It also meant not getting to go around and see everybody else's projects. If they do this again, they should shorten the expo significantly and do it in stages, so that nobody has to stand and talk for two hours.
I thought the expo format was alright but it would've been better if there was a larger space so some teams didn't have to be outside and people didn't have to shout over each other while trying to discuss their projects. It was a better format for larger teams though, as everyone could take turns presenting and looking at other projects.
Re: My Experience at YC Hacks
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was a "science fair" style expo, where all of the completed hacks were on display with one person from each team demoing--essentially over and over again for hours. Judges came around to review and score everyone (every team had multiple judges stop by), and a shortlist of hacks made it to the final round where it was more of a traditional pitch-off, with different judges. http://ychacks.challengepost.com/
The expo was pretty awful, as a presenter. After being up for >30 hours working on the project, having to stand up and pitch it for two hours was rough. It also meant not getting to go around and see everybody else's projects. If they do this again, they should shorten the expo significantly and do it in stages, so that nobody has to stand and talk for two hours.
I agree with you, esp since it seems you were a solo presenter. It is good to have at least one teammate if you can find, because again, the statistics do not favor lone founders.