Top 10 Tips To Win a Hackathon

Are you a winner? Do you crave for success and back your skill for it? If yes, then you are ready to participate in the hackathon. An ultimate test of endurance and skill powered with a time constraint, it is a highly exciting environment to build rapid prototypes and present to the world.

In the hackathon, the participant, usually in a team of few people or as an individual, has to build a minimum viable product (MVP) and prepare a short presentation explaining it. Within a short period, you have to develop and present. The hackathon showcases your skill and determination behind developing a product.

There are a few essential tips while preparing for hackathons that will help you in shaping the product effectively and manage your resources optimally.

Here is a list of few excellent tips that help you win the next hackathon

Team Unity

Mostly all hackathons are team-based. The basic premise is to replicate organizational behavior where peers work in micro-teams to achieve milestones. To win the hackathon, you have to form your dream team. The first thing to do when you get to a hackathon is to develop a team. You will be building a team with random people, and ideally, a 3~5 person team is excellent.

Often, you will find that people there are equipped with different expertise. Different skills will complement each other, and the end product will be much more diverse. It would help if you had people that have at least three skillsets as follows

A Presenter who can present and communicate the approach and idea behind the product you create during the hackathon. If you are very confident in building a great product, good to hear that. Though you can’t sell it to the audience, I’m sorry to tell you that no matter how great your idea is, you will most likely fail.

An End-User Designer who can design a user interface for your product will ultimately sell the idea.

A Coder who can build the brains behind your product. Someone who can quickly use existing technologies and platforms to create a working prototype in a given timeframe.

The cohesion of the three skillsets is essential for winning the hackathon.

Effective Communication

After assembling the perfect team, you have to make sure of excellent communication. Continuously, talk amongst yourselves and figure what works and what does not. Brainstorm with your team and try to come up with a list of ideas. Any random idea is fine; write it out and see which one makes the most sense.

Knowing each member’s strengths and weaknesses beforehand gives you an advantage in preparation and execution. ‘Getting the right people and the right chemistry is more important than getting the right idea.’ — Ed Catmull, previously CEO of Pixar’

Ask Important Questions

Think like a product owner and try to build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Focus on the central problem statement: Who is the end-user? What is your hypothesis? What problem are you solving for them? Figure out what companies are looking for. After you have formed your team, calm down, and observe. Look around and make sure you know who are the event sponsors.

Consider the time involved in executing the ideas. Pick only those features that you can build in 24-72 hours. With a clear product vision, you can create a rough design of a prototype on paper. Share this with your team so that everyone knows the key components and who is building what.

Confirmation of Ideas

Don’t jump to conclusions about concepts without researching. Be clear on what you are building and why.  Share the dependencies and priorities with the team. Talk to potential end-users or customers of the product. Understand their pain points. Consider these insights in your presentation and validate the concept before prototyping and after building the product.

Know your Audience

What are the backgrounds of your judges? Are they investors? Are they business development folks? Are they CTOs or do they have an Engineering background? Are they API Evangelists representing their company?

Choose your idea and tailor your presentation based on your makeup of the judging panel. Here are the 4 main types that I’ve identified, and the tactics to consider for each. Identifying these unknowns will help to create a solution that is better understood by judges and thereby increasing chances of winning.

Perfection is the enemy of progress

Don’t try to build a perfect product, instead try to build a minimum viable product that shows promise of being a perfect product. For a given timeframe, a perfect product is almost impossible. A working Proof Of Concept(POC) is that aligns with your idea is the expected deliverable.

A POC doesn’t have to be bug-free and it can actually have zero functionality. In fact, most of the time, more than 80% of the functions are hard-coded. It is just for visualization purposes, helping the audience understand how your product/idea works.

Although a POC doesn’t have to have all the functions, one important thing is that it must look good. Try to make it look really nice so that the judges can be impressed when they see your team coming up with such a beautifully designed product in a limited amount of time.

Design Approach Confirmation

One of the biggest takeaways with writing code and building proof of concepts is that never over prioritize the backend. Learn in advance on how to create and plugin a quick backend to a frontend. If there is a relaxation of time, you can go for a API design approach. Though a front-end developer approach is ideal, If you have no front-end developers in your team, you and your team might want to switch strategy and focus solely on design.

Adopt Use of Quick Designing Tools 

Use templates and utilize the color schemes that past designers have already perfected. Copy from the great product developers and fuse your own hack concept. Use resources such as https://tympanus.net/codrops/, https://pttrns.com, https://mobile-pttrns.com, and https://useronboard.com

Use a design prototyping strategy, particularly if your concept is more about a new User Experience rather than backend functionality. Design prototyping strategy provides a great way for creative people who cannot code:

1. Cut and paste together designs from Pttrns.com onto Adobe Illustrator.
2. Combine features and design layouts together.
3. Make 4–5-page layouts.
4. Use Invision.com or Flinto.com to wrap it.

Pitch

A great pitch can elevate your idea and lead you to win the hackathon. You can’t sell if you don’t speak. You have to speak, explain, and sell the ide in a very limited time. So make sure that you take out some time working on your pitch.

The presenter may be the team member that adds the least obvious value, but winning an event like this is all about the pitch. Nobody cares how good the code or product is if you can’t present it well. Our pitch had to be a strict three minutes long. Most teams had a single presenter, but we actually had three team members involved in the pitch. Both options work.

Avoid Common Mistakes 

Not having a Proof-Of-Concept (POC) that could be showcased during the presentation. Simple idea, just put yourself in the judges’ shoes. If you were the judge, would you prefer someone who could show you something, say a website or mobile app, or someone who could only verbally tell you what their idea was? Which one would you think is more convincing?

Another mistake that many people make, especially those who first join a hackathon — focussing too much on building a functional or bug-free application. It is undeniable that this is right while building a proper product, but unfortunately, it does not work for the hackathon. Hardcoding is allowed here!

And the last one, also the one that I think people neglect — not spending enough time preparing for the presentation. The presentation is the only chance where you can sell your idea to the judges, the only time you can tell them: “my(give) idea(me) is(the) brilliant(prize)!”. So, you should always spend more time preparing for your presentation.

After hours of coding, taking a break is a good idea. A short break is not only refreshing but also provides the opportunity to check-in as a team and update each other on the progress of the project.

The Global AI Hackathon #BuildwithAI 24th July 2020

The Global AI hackathon (#BuildwithAI) is an opportunity for builders to create AI solutions that drive social impact, with the aim of tackling some of the challenges related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The theme is “emergence” to help society emerge stronger in a post COVID-19 world.

We’re encouraging the builders around the world to use AI and other technologies of your choice across a range of suggested themes and challenge areas. The hackathon welcomes locally and globally focused solutions and is open to all developers.

Collaborate, Sponsor, Mentor or participate here : www.BuildwithAI.com