The Cramming Experience

Reflections on some hackathons I have attended

Hackathons are exciting. In fact, they are one of very few things I would do to “have fun” other than being lazy. The thing about hackathons is that it is very much like cramming before an exam. You feel good about how you could do so much in such a short period of time. In the end, you make something, which can be VERY satisfying depending on the result and prizes.

A hackathon is an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects.

Usually I am the designer or the project manager, sometimes a little of front-end software development. But really, hackathons are much more than the assigned titles. Every member must collaboratively form an idea, communicate extensively on every feature of the idea, and support each other throughout the whole execution period (usually 2-3 days). It is about teamwork, perserverance and fun.

In the past year, I have attended a total of 4 hackathons. The first one in my own school (at the University of Southern California), the second and third one state-wide (at San Diego & Los Angeles in California), and the fourth one nation-wide (at five cities; I attended the one in Baltimore). We won third place for the one in Los Angeles and got in as finalists for the one nation-wide. The themes in these hackathons range from the very general one where you can basically hack anything, to health data solutions, and to third-world country problems on sustainable fishing.

Without further adieu, here are my observations and reflections.

Observation 1: Hackathons are just the beginning

The good thing about hackathons is that it is all about ideas, ideas, and ideas (which I love to discuss with). However, ideas are often just the very beginning of anything that is going to have an impact to the world. At most, you can create a fully functional prototype of a product. But without marketing, business development, further design amendments and management, the product goes nowhere. After a hackathon at my school, I went on to develop Dinedo with six other people. It was after six months later with all the efforts said that we decided to let go the idea. The further you go, the more problems you will realize. In the end, it is your vision and passion that matter.

Observation 2: Presentation matters equally

So out of the four hackathons I attended, two are from the same organization (Health 2.0). They are both “health data” hackathons. And the reason we attended twice is that we screwed up the first presentation, awfully. Because we were so confident in our concept, the high expectation and the losing outcome literally made me grumpy for the rest of the day (I kept on saying the winner bribed the judges). Communication of the idea is equally important to the idea. Without good presentations, nobody gets the chance to even appreciate your idea. Thus, no one would give a shit to your cleverly thought-out concept. At hackathons, the more sophisticated your bullshit is, the more likely you are to win, which lead to my next observation.

Observation 3: Sponsors are better judges

Judges can’t really judge, but really, nobody can. I’m not talking about the really bad ones where you can easily spot design flaws, but those when presented show both pros and cons to the solution. Ideas cannot be objectively judged unless implemented. Even investments by really well known VC firms have single-digit percentage on returns (I don’t think good early-stage VCs even judge on the ideas, they look more on the team and culture). Therefore, there is no way judges can accurately judge who the “winner” should be. Naturally, the chances of winning falls mostly on the presentation, the presenter’s charm, and luck. There are, however, sponsor-flooded hackathons where these API sponsors choose what projects to give their prizes on based on how well the implementation of their APIs is. They are also startups who believe in similar visions from the projects, and are usually the ones who change the world.