The average person speaks at a little over 110 words per minute. The typical hackathon kick off pitch is 60 seconds or less. It’s a first impression, an introduction to your hack, that should seem anything but that. It can also be a last impression too. Your 100 words had better count, or as Dhirubhai Ambani so plainly put it:

“If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.”

Only in this case you won’t be hired and likely won’t be getting paid if your pitch doesn’t connect.

In some cases there will be immediate pay. Not just in experience or memories, but cash money prizes too. Now is a chance to learn from the former, the experience of getting a team to believe, so that you might win the latter, a couple hundred thousand… yen, or if you’re lucky dollars! Most importantly, it’s about making the most of your moment and getting your hack momentum.

Do… throw out your name and then actually throw it out.

Can your great name. Come with a memorably bad one. No one goes to a hackathon to be a cog in a dear leader’s well oiled machine. Most are looking for a Lewis or Clark that is willing to take the first step into uncharted and unplanned territory, and is ready to ask for help when they’re unsure. Show everyone you’re flexible, not rigid, and ready for a team. Sharing that your Twitter translation service is called…

“…Twanslate, but hopefully you can help fix that!”

Who doesn’t get excited at the chance of naming something? Who doesn’t want to name a baby, a newly discovered animal, or rename The Facebook? Your potential new teammates will be excited to get to put their mark on the weekend’s work. This excitement will also be a great warm up sprint to get the team inertia to begin the weekend marathon.

Do… start your story now.

During the 30 second pitch though there’s no time for fancy filler transition sentences or even words. You’ve only got 100 of them! Keep it smooth with a single story line. Preview one part of your hack’s story. The focus will make it compelling.

A simple story could be to walk (or run) them through a day in the life of your hack’s #1 fan or embellish the moment you shouted “I’ve got IT!” if you might be that #1 fan. Make this preview, and make it compelling by not calling your customer a customer or your user a user, bring them to life with a name. Tell them how Josie wakes up every day and take them to that moment when she realizes she needs you, or your hack. Leave them wanting to know more, wanting to know if you and Josie make it.

Do… close with a conversation starter.

Not with a pushy call-to-action, but with a simple conversation starter. After formal pitches potential teammates will need to start a conversation, make it easy for them. Give them the conversation starter. It’s not easy for most to approach someone new and expressing interest in them. The easier you make this greater your hacks’ leads will become.

Take your last 10 words and plant the seed of an idea they’ll want to share with you. Much like the memorably bad name idea, share the gaps in your vision and ask how they might fill them. Leave them with the need to get the idea out, feeling like they’re in class and they know the answer. Leaving your idea free formed and ready to be molded, leaves room for people to make a hold for themselves and take ownership.

Don’t… introduce yourself.

Introduce your idea, not you. You don’t want to be Steph. You want to be more, you want to be that Twitter Twanslate Girl. With 100 words you’ve got to create a memory, one tag. Don’t get labeled with the wrong tag. When people are making their decision they’ll think…

“Do I want to hack on OurSpace, FlatChat, or Twitter Twanslate?”

But if you’ve placed your name, they might be thinking…

“Do I want to hack on OurSpace, FlatChat, or Steph?”

They’re different meta data and will be stored in different columns. If there were actually only three names it might not matter, but when there’s 10, 20, or 50+ pitches it does. The second just doesn’t flow as naturally grammatically or cognitively. Make your future team’s decision as easy as possible.

Don’t… go crazy with My and I.

The previous point shouldn’t have been “Introduce your idea,” but “Introduce the idea.” All the previous statements should have been written not with your, but the: the idea, the bad name, the team. This makes it as easy as adding an i & r to make the idea their idea.

Promise yourself not to use first person and possessive words like I and my for the next 100 words. If possible skip the me’s for the follow up conversations too. While these are some of the most common words in almost all language when talking about an idea, business, or accomplishment they often imply negative self-centered characteristics. No one wants to spend a weekend with an ego, so get rid of yours and the words tied to it.

Don’t… talk about the money.

Most wouldn’t make the mistake to be so direct. But many would be excited to show their preparedness talking market size, profit margins, and potential CPM’s. That’s too much too early and can lead to you being labeled a dreamer, and not in the good sense of the word. You can be suggestive about the potential to pique interest. Just don’t come right out and say it. A hackathon is like the business equivalent of a singles weekend getaway, and the successful people don’t talk about the best potential outcome bluntly.

Moreover, talking money is a waste of precious words. For the majority of ideas at the hackathon that would be like showing up to the game without a hockey stick. Don’t waste time assuring of what should be a given.

If you can… bring a prop.

If you’ve already found the time to practice your pitch and trimmed the excess then it’s time to get excessive. Give your hack support with a prop.

The prop can be one, or a couple, simple slides. Just don’t show those slides on an iPad. It’s got to be large scale enough that people can see and read it. This doesn’t mean grabbing one a whiteboard, because you don’t have time to play Win, Lose, or Draw. Instead prepare your prop by printing a few large A3 size prints at Kinko’s of slides created on your iPad in Haiku.

Some hackathons can be strict and enforce rules not allowing props. Luckily you don’t have to follow the rules to be a good hack, and showing you’re ready to bend them can be a good sign to teammates. Go outside the lines and make your clothes the prop. Grab a simple white t-shirt, a sharpie, and the bad name and write it out in helvetica. They can’t/won’t make you take off your clothes… hopefully.

The props act as a positive counter balance to your bad name, showing that your flexibleness isn’t due to a lack of vision or excitement.

Where do you go from here?

Go to your hackathon! Whether your hackathon is one that you’ve already signed up for or will be registering for on Meetup, Startup Weekend, or any number of hackathon directories.

Don’t want to work on the weekend because of a day job? Negotiate to get Monday off, by pitching your job on getting better integrated in the local dev community. Remind them that it would be a great future recruiting resource.

Just go and have a great weekend. Get practice pitching, building, and getting ready to go beyond the hackathon. A good pitch can improve or even save your idea, because as Pixar’s Ed Catmull puts it in Creativity Inc:

“If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better.”