Hackathons aren’t just for developers
When some people hear the word “hackathon”, a wave of intimidation spills over them.
“I can’t code,” someone once said to me when I invited them to a hackathon. After attending 60+ hackathons, I’ve learned that people of all skillsets are welcome.
Hackers are simply curious, driven creators that gather for short amounts of time to test and invent skills. You don’t have to be a computer scientist or software developer to build something great and have a good time.
Here are some other types of people that make hackathons successful:
- Designers: Everyone knows that engineers aren’t always the best designers. Designers bring creativity, vision, and user experience to a hack. A hackathon with a lot of designers brings a special sense of style and art to the event.
- Business minds: A small percentage of hackathon projects become actual products, and one reason is that when they are being created, no one thinks of a business plan. Biz dev folks add value to hackathons, almost as the devil’s advocate, to test and challenge an idea.
- Marketing sharks/product ninjas: You need to be realistic about what you’re building, and make sure it would be a usable product. These creative minds will help balance out a successful team at a hackathon.
- Recruiters: Only rockstars attend hackathons. If you can build a lucrative startup in 24 hours with complete strangers, you can work just about anywhere. A good percentage of hackathon attendees don’t have regular weekday jobs. Recruiters also add value because they help break the ice between many personalities.
- Other experts: for example, a music hackathon should include music fans, producers, DJs, artists, record labels. Art hackathons have painters, graphic designers, LEGOmasters, and seamstresses. Education hackathons bring students, faculty, and teachers together.
- You: if you haven’t been to a hackathon, put your skills out there. I participated in StartupBus 2011, a three-day roadtrip from San Francisco to Austin, Tx for South By Southwest. People pitched ideas at the beginning of the trip, teams formed, and we hacked together a product before we got to the festival. There were people of all skillsets on the bus, including people that didn’t even have a Twitter account. We had a team nanny, who refilled our Red Bull and helped us with the video production of our final pitch. Everyone’s skills were utilized.
The hacking mentality also brings value to internal teams as well.
In his letter to investors in February 2012, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explains how his company practices a philosophy called “The Hacker Way”.
“The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo.” ~Mark Zuckerberg, 2012
Every few months, they do internal hackathons that include everybody, not just programmers. The result is a more focused, open, socially valuable working environment.
At Spotify, we did our first internal hack week a few months ago and it was one of the highlights of my professional career. We encouraged everyone in the company from label relations to janitors, to stop their normal work flow, join a team, and build anything they wanted.
When it was all said and done, I had met countless new employees, enjoyed the break in the routine of sprint work, and learned a new tricks in Javascript.
And our product team had a stack of ideas that they could start building.
So branch out, and start hacking, even if you’ve never written a line of code. And there’s always Codecademy or Code School if you want to do the harder parts ;)
