
Re-Inventing the Hackathon - priley
http://blog.angelhack.com/day/2013/09/16
======
binarymax
_Mandatory demos. Banning of slide decks._

Thank you!

I had the pleasure of attending AngelHack london in April, and it was amazing.
Keep up the great work!

~~~
maffydub
Agreed. I'm definitely in favor of more demo (and hopefully less business
plan).

I was at AngelHack London in April and ended up just doing a demo (of
[https://github.com/matt-williams/argolf](https://github.com/matt-
williams/argolf)) because I couldn't get my laptop connected to the projector.

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gkoberger
I've been to a number of hackathons, and AngelHack is by far the best run. The
team does a great job, the locations+judges+sponsors are good, and they're
usually cheap/free developers and designers. Can't wait to see what AppHACK is
like.

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wavesounds
"Making money from the idea will not be a factor. Winners will be audited
before winning to ensure hacks were created during the weekend."

This is great! The last angelhack I went to was the exact opposite and it was
pretty demoralizing getting a bunch of negative feedback from VC-ish judges
even though it was 100% working and 100% built from scratch by myself in 24hrs
(which was blatantly obvious most weren't via simple Google search) and it
looked good and was using pretty advanced real time web technology[1]. It
actually kinda bummed me out on hackathons for a while.

[1] Heres the app if you're interested
[http://whereyouat.meteor.com](http://whereyouat.meteor.com)

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saryant
I went to AngelHack Austin earlier this year and I thought there were a number
of things that could be improved upon. The group I went with (all devs) had a
terrible time. Sounds like they've realized this too.

At the ATX event, there were no demos. Not even a public presentation to the
rest of the participants, we were just grilled in a closed-room session by
their panel on a bunch of business questions.

The only way to get a T-Shirt was to listen to a sales pitch by one of their
sponsors.

Everyone was absolutely crammed in their space. I really hope they find a new
venue for Austin.

Maybe this event just went poorly but everyone I went with was really soured
on AngelHack after that.

~~~
scc
I keep hearing stories like yours, I'm not sure why people who have bad
experienes at AngelHack don't share their stories more.

~~~
saryant
Their Austin event was pretty bad. We thought it would be developer oriented
but then it was just a 48 hour long sales pitch. Based on the other comments
I'm seeing here, maybe they just dropped the ball in Austin.

~~~
ggopman
Yea... we had some problems with ATX last time. We're switching things up with
a completely new organizing team and venue this time around. It's not easy to
throw these big hacks, so I have to be a little forgiving with our first time
organizers from past. That said, we will get it right and things in Austin
will be awesome like they are in most other cities.

~~~
saryant
I understand. I ran a hackathon in San Antonio this summer and problems crop
up where you least expect them. Definitely not an easy task.

~~~
mgirdley
After attending, I don't see how AngelHack can ever be successful in its
current format. It's clearly not about the hacks. It's for the sponsors who
want to recruit devs and investors/judges who want to find the next big idea.

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gailees
Not going to lie, I've been to almost two dozen hackathons, and this right
here is where they are headed. Greg Gopman and co. are doing it right.

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jlees
Love the focus on demos and code reviews; many 'hackathons' are becoming
anything but. Wish the through-the-night part would change, though, I feel
that aspect makes these events less accessible.

The bootcamp aspect is an interesting one. Would you accept apps that were
built in HTML/JS and PhoneGapped? I've seen that approach used more and more
at hackathons, due to speed. Android/iOS is definitely doable (I've built both
at hackathons/startup weekends), but for someone completely new to the
platform, it'll be slower. So allowing skeleton apps, templates and frameworks
could even the playing field a little.

~~~
ggopman
Yea... we should definitely be considering teaching people how to utilize
frameworks for languages they already know (PhoneGap, Blackberry OS,
Appcelerator). We started with Android and iOS because at scale it's easier to
find teachers for those than the others. It would be great if we could garner
more support from PhoneGap, Appcelerator, Blackberry, etc

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songzme
Here is their challenge:
bmljZSBkZWNvZGluZyB5b3VuZyBwYWRhd2FuIFVzZSB5b3UgbXVzdCBsZWFybmVyIGZyZWUgdGlja2V0IGNvZGU6IEhBQ0taSUxMQQ==

Reward, a coupon code that you can apply for a free ticket to an angelhack
hackathon.

~~~
kirubakaran
Trailing == gives it away.

~~~
mu_killnine
I saw the == and it looked so suspicious but I didn't know what it was from.
That'll be burned in my brain from now on, though.

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brianfryer
I've volunteered at Lean Startup Weekend a number of times, am currently a
Hackstar at Techstars first Austin-based program, and have been working in-
and-out of Capital Factory with a number of its startups since before it
opened.

As such, I'm super excited to see how this event differs in practice and have
already signed up to volunteer.

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nitinalabur
No slides! finally!!!!!

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solchea
This is definitely taking hackathons in the right direction - and as someone
who has attended AngelHack before, I like the focus on building something cool
vs. focusing on slides/market potential.

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alexs_mx
I think 24 Hrs hack beats 48 hrs of which 20 are just recovering from bad
sleep and 1 making keynote keynote of a no_demo "bussiness"

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Intimatik
I'm waiting AppHack in Moscow! AngelHack hackathon was really awesome!

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sara_gozalo
I was in AngelHack last year and it was great! Thanks a lot!!

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iancarroll
Their free ticket thing was really easy. I mean, come on.

~~~
blhack
Really? I have no idea what they're even asking. Is it because I don't play
video games? The context about mario and banging all night is greek to me.

~~~
krapp
It's just a base64 encoded string.

~~~
krapp
Sorry... did I give it away? My bad.

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jbeard4
I hope they come to Toronto.

~~~
cbhl
AngelHack has been to Toronto in the past; I'm not sure there was enough of a
turnout to offset the costs of running it though.

~~~
jbeard4
That's disappointing. I'm relocating there next month. I guess I'll have to
travel to NYC to participate.

~~~
omnisci
The NYC hackathon was a good time, I'd recommend it:)

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rismay
I like the old logo better!

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Dean-Collins
sounds like every other hackathon.....

