Re-Inventing the Hackathon

binarymax 12 years ago |

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 12 years ago | |

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) because I couldn't get my laptop connected to the projector.

thatthatis 12 years ago | |

Agreed. I've been at hackathons where 50% of teams just showed slides/mockups, a few had local server urls, and we were the only team demoing on a live URL.

I'm glad they're focusing even more on what you've actually built in a weekend vs what dreams you've spun.

thomasnext 12 years ago | |

Maybe, but don't slide decks give you the chance to sell what you've built? Maybe you need the time explain the bigger idea of what you're doing when during the hackathon you only completed 25% of it?

gkoberger 12 years ago |

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.

wavesounds 12 years ago |

"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

saryant 12 years ago |

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 12 years ago | |

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 12 years ago | | |

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 12 years ago | | |

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 12 years ago | | |

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 12 years ago | | |

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.

gailees 12 years ago |

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.

jlees 12 years ago |

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 12 years ago | |

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

songzme 12 years ago |

Here is their challenge: bmljZSBkZWNvZGluZyB5b3VuZyBwYWRhd2FuIFVzZSB5b3UgbXVzdCBsZWFybmVyIGZyZWUgdGlja2V0IGNvZGU6IEhBQ0taSUxMQQ==

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

kirubakaran 12 years ago | |

Trailing == gives it away.

mu_killnine 12 years ago | | |

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.

brianfryer 12 years ago |

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.

nitinalabur 12 years ago |

No slides! finally!!!!!

solchea 12 years ago |

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.

alexs_mx 12 years ago |

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"

Intimatik 12 years ago |

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

sara_gozalo 12 years ago |

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

iancarroll 12 years ago |

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

blhack 12 years ago | |

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.

mu_killnine 12 years ago | | |

The code they give looks a lot like my Balsamiq serial ;)

krapp 12 years ago | | |

It's just a base64 encoded string.

krapp 12 years ago | | |

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

gkoberger 12 years ago | |

The point is that it's dead simple for a developer, but impossible for an "idea guy".

priley 12 years ago | |

I gave them something much harder to break, but I guess they wanted anything to be able to break it.

jbeard4 12 years ago |

I hope they come to Toronto.

cbhl 12 years ago | |

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 12 years ago | | |

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

omnisci 12 years ago | | |

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

rismay 12 years ago |

I like the old logo better!

Dean-Collins 12 years ago |

sounds like every other hackathon.....