

The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack - tomordonez
http://www.tomordonez.com/blog/2013/08/25/the-hackathon-experience-is-a-hack/

======
jmduke
The Hackathon in question is apparently BattleHack Miami, hosted by PayPal:

[http://miamiherald.typepad.com/the-starting-
gate/2013/08/bat...](http://miamiherald.typepad.com/the-starting-
gate/2013/08/battlehack-miami-and-the-winners-are.html)

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](http://www.yellowpepper.com/#/homeId/homeCB/page/home.html))
and have issued a press release from Miami ([http://www.prnewswire.com/news-
releases/yellowpepper-and-fun...](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-
releases/yellowpepper-and-fundamo-partner-to-bring-greater-access-to-mobile-
money-services-in-latin-america-84463442.html)).

(I'm not involved, I just saw this through Tom's Twitter.)

~~~
ShellfishMeme
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 payment option for the already
existing service. To me it felt like the guy was just going to random
hackathons so he could get work done on his website for free. Even though the
developer seemed to be exceptionally good, it seemed like he was just being
taken advantage of by a guy who couldn't get his startup to have more
traction.

There were definitely much more impressive hacks out there. (Mine honestly
wasn't one of them, so it's not just jealousy talking). In addition, the theme
of the hackathon was 'solving local problems'. Now if not having a platform to
get product X in city Y is a local problem, it might fit. For me though, the
interpretation was more 'making the world a better place' and not 'building a
purely profit-oriented application to sell stuff using PayPal'.

I think they simply chose the most monetizable product that was in the
competition. Made the whole event, which, I repeat, was about the best
organized and executed hackathon I've ever seen, suddenly feel cheap.

~~~
tomordonez
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.

~~~
wavefunction
Hell yeah, nothing says hardcore hacking like massage chairs.

------
ssafejava
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 static HTML pages and transitioned between
them.

For those of us who had built working products, it felt more than a bit cheap.
We saw some great code and very little of it was recognized.

I believe the issue is one of expectations and marketing for these events.
They are pitched as "hackathons" and try very hard to attract engineers, as
you simply can't have the event without coders. Therefore, engineers
reasonably expect an event where the best code wins. After all, it's called a
"hackathon", not a "meet & greet with investors" or even a "startup weekend".
In the end, it just felt like the judges were putting themselves into the
mindset of investors, and in that case, obviously the team that has prepared
for months beforehand will win. But to the coders, we felt cheated, and that
they had completely missed the point.

~~~
jacalata
So, did anyone complain at the event? Or even after the event? How did the
judges and organisers respond to the complaints?

~~~
ssafejava
There wasn't much that could be done. According to the rules, all's fair so
long as the code wasn't written until the hackathon itself, which is pretty
much impossible to prove or disprove anyway. You can prepare as long as you
want. There is a section about a "code review" but I doubt that was really
done; IIRC we didn't even submit our code, we just did a demo & video.

The strongest complaint we could make was that it was strongly against the
spirit of a hackathon, which is a difficult argument to win.

~~~
jacalata
The strongest complaint you can make is presumably "I wouldn't have come if I
knew a team like this could enter and even win, and I won't come to your next
one, and I will be sure to let others know that I won't come and why". Saying
it publicly with all the other entrants around lets others join in if this is
something that is widely regarded as unpopular and lets the organisers know
that there is some serious resentment. Not complaining at all is certainly one
way to make sure nothing will be done.

I mean, nobody here can even say "wow, I won't go to their next one!" because
you haven't even named them.

~~~
ssafejava
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 fine line between arguing "the results
don't fit the spirit of the event" and "we are sore losers".

~~~
calbear81
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.

~~~
potatolicious
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?

~~~
ggopman
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.

------
jdn
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.

------
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.

------
a_soncodi
The term hack and its derivatives are trite. People use them because they perk
ears. In Dallas, I've attended events where first place won with a 'business
plan' consisting of buzzword-laden management-speak and a clever whiteboard
diagram. This is a product of the community; the culture here is business-
oriented.

A solution is to set expectations on having a good time and socializing, or
not to attend. Instead, you may more satisfaction from working on real
projects that survive the weekend. At a hackathon, or any event in general,
you serve the host's purpose. Their game, their rules.

~~~
codygman
The culture in Dallas is _very sadly_ business oriented :/

------
caphill
I went to my first hackathon a few weeks ago and it was very skeevy with all
the idea people floating around looking for folks to build their idea for free
while they watch.

Hackathons would be fun if it was all about everyone building what ever and
having a good time instead a lot of them seem building a business focused.

------
brandall10
"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-1mil-
in-3-...](http://startupweekend.org/2011/03/09/from-zero-to-1mil-in-3-weeks-
zaarly-goes-warp-speed/)

Aside from that, have there been others?

~~~
jasonlotito
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's about trying to accomplish
something and sharing it. At SW, it's about getting help in moving that idea
forward, in qualifying the idea.

If you treat it like a win/lose scenario, you are going to lose regardless of
the outcome.

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

~~~
DanInTokyo
Same reason you give trophies to Little League participants - to provide
context for the competition. To add something fun that hopefully underscores
what is effectively a networking/show-off event.

------
nsenifty
Off-topic: The blog title is a perfect example to demonstrate why to never use
line-height in the place of margin.

~~~
tomordonez
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

------
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.

------
dangayle
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.

~~~
brianherbert
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.

~~~
dangayle
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.

------
jarofgreen
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_ 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!

~~~
tomordonez
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.

~~~
jarofgreen
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.

------
tomordonez
Hackathons 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.

------
busterc
I 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](http://youtu.be/HPSnsxN4lEs)

Also, consider [http://openhack.github.io](http://openhack.github.io)

------
lhnz
Well 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!

------
xradionut
"Instead you spend your technical efforts going to meetups and helping
others."

Do this indeed. One of the best ways to get better and encounter interesting
people is to go to meet ups, user groups and "fun" hack events. You will
encounter peers, newbies, gurus, recruiters, investors and all sorts of
interesting people with ideas, needs and possibly money.

------
ww520
I've been to these hackathons. They are a hack. It's more of investors looking
for investment ideas than engineers hacking codes and building products. One
event a team won by doing a Powerpoint presentation because the judges (all
investors) thought the idea could monetize the most, while the losing teams
had built more complete and more impressive prototypes.

------
imaffett
I 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.

~~~
tomordonez
No problem if the walk off with a new macbook. Yes problem if the walk off
with a chance to win $100K at a national event with investors.

------
Udo
Where and how did that happen? What was the name of the startup? Who organized
the event?

------
wudf
Happened to me at two Microsoft events in Boston for Windows 8 and another one
for Windows Phone 8.

------
andyidsinga
hackers shouldn't go to a hackathons .. they should go to _hack club_.

the first rule of hack club is, you do not spea ...oh crap.

~~~
hexasquid
If it's your first time at hack club, you have to hack.

~~~
andyidsinga
only two hackers in pair programming

------
pizza
don't go to hackathons if you just want to win

~~~
ZirconCode
That's not the point. I'm sure OP would've been fine loosing, as long as it
was in fair competition.

~~~
sliverstorm
The darkest cynic in me says, competing fairly is for losers. Literally, not
figuratively.

