What to Expect at Your First Hackathon: 6 Essentials Steps

5 min readFeb 5, 2023

Joining a hackathon for the first time as a designer can be anxiety-inducing. You may have many questions, such as “What will I work on?”, “Who will I work with?”, or “Can I fit in some sleep while striving to complete the prototype?” While these questions can be overwhelming, the experience can also be a lot of fun and leave you with great memories.

If you’ve decided to sign up for a hackathon based on the previous post that explains why you should join a local hackathon if you haven’t yet, congratulations! You’ve taken a bold and courageous step out of your comfort zone.

You don’t have to worry about the unknown. In fact, depending on the organizers’ arrangements, most hackathons should have similar agendas, as listed down below.

Before the Hackathon

1. Find a team

Finding a team of 3–5 people is essential if you don’t want to wear multiple hats. This way, each person can share the burden and work together effectively, leveraging each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Team formation can occur before the hackathon begins, if you know each other as friends or colleagues. It is also perfectly acceptable to join a hackathon and then form a team. Organizers often facilitate team formation by creating a Slack channel or Facebook group where participants can introduce themselves and search for team members. Don’t be afraid to reach out to organizers if you need help finding a team.

During the Hackathon

2. Problem statement alignment

If organizers have already provided the topic or themes in advance, it is ideal for teams to start discussing a specific problem statement to focus on solving. This way, when the official hackathon day arrives, the team can begin brainstorming solutions and building the prototype. It is also completely fine if the team is formed on the hackathon day itself, as some participants may be travelling from out of state or joining remotely from another country.

Alignment on a problem statement is crucial, as each problem statement can be compelling and team members may have divergent ideas on different topics. However, if no agreement is reached on which problem statement to address after a prolonged period of time, it can become a distraction. As the designer on the team, you can help facilitate by walking through each problem statement, gathering thoughts, and forming the “How Might We…” statement around the problem.

3. Brainstorming ideas

Brainstorming ideas with your teammates can be exciting as it can be a melting pot for innovation. As a designer, you can leverage your strengths by facilitating a brainstorming session on Figjam or any other whiteboarding collaboration tools. Generate as many ideas as you can, as there is no right or wrong answer, and try to organize them if they fall into a similar theme.

Try the “Crazy 8's” method from Design Sprint to get everyone thinking creatively without overthinking. Set a time limit of eight minutes and encourage your teammates to draw simple boxes and shapes. This will help speed up the wireframing stage, as the scribbles will help everyone visualize and align on the same page, and serve as a foundation for the wireframes. At the end of the “Crazy 8's”, everyone can share their ideas and teammates can debate the pros and cons. Then, they can vote on their favorite ideas, ensuring that everyone has a say in which solutions are favored the most and should be built.

Once the brainstorming is complete, discuss with your teammates if the ideas formed accurately address the pain points of the problem statement, serve the people or market, are innovative and have a competitive advantage over current solutions, and are feasible to be built within 24 hours.

4. Wireframing & Iterations

It’s time for designers to roll up their sleeves and get to work! While your programming teammates may be busy setting up the backend and infrastructure, and the business person doing competitive analysis or collecting data to validate ideas, this is your moment to shine.

Take all the great ideas generated earlier and start with simple sketches. Merge them into a new sketch and prioritize to sketch out the core user flows. Get feedback from your teammates on the first draft of user flows. As time is limited, identify the remaining screens that need to be designed and showcased in the prototype and deck. Prioritize them well compared to the screens that may not be showcased in the demo or pitch deck.

5. Pitch, pitch, pitch

It’s essential to work with your team to decide what to include in the pitch deck and practice it, as presentations typically have a time limit of 5 minutes per team. If you’re uncertain about your solution, it’s wise to seek advice from a mentor. Mentors are often industry veterans who can provide valuable insight into whether you’re on the right track.

Pitching is about telling a compelling story of the size of the problem, the solutions you offer, and how effective and sustainable they are as a business. You can showcase the key features and how they will set you apart from current solutions and competitors. Show the audience and judges the difference and impact your product will make before vs after in the user journey.

Creating an effective pitch deck that tells a captivating story is an important part of any business plan. In my next post, I’ll discuss the elements that go into making one. Keep an eye out for it!

After the Hackathon

6. Demo, celebrate & crash

Witnessing the creative demos of other teams can be both refreshing and inspiring. It’s amazing to see the unexpected solutions they come up with, and it broadens our understanding of how problems can be solved. The amount of talent and experience on display is incredible and humbling.

It’s important to take the time to celebrate with your teammates, regardless of whether you win or not. Everyone has pushed themselves out of their comfort zone to create an amazing prototype in a very short amount of time — that deserves to be celebrated!

After all the demonstrations and awards were announced, the excitement still lingered. It was time to get some rest, especially if you hadn’t slept in the past 48 hours.