How I Won Over $150k At Hackathons

How I won over $150k at Hackathons | By Brian Clark Since I moved to San Francisco a 12 months and a half in the past I’ve participated in 10+ hackathons. Those groups have gained a mixed: 60k+ in Cash 33k in Investments 70k+ in Prizes (principally API/server credit) When I give up my job in company america and got here to San Francisco to start my very own firm, I wanted a approach to help myself. My cash was beginning to run low and my startup hadn’t taken off yet. On the weekends I began collaborating in a number of hackathons as a result of I like to hack. Turns out I’m decently good at them and ended up profitable a number of prizes, and in flip that has funded my startup journey! I’ve put collectively a process I comply with that makes it more probably for my group and I to pull out a win. I’d like to share these tactics with you all and gain some feedback! The first step to doing nicely in a hackathon is figuring out what the judges are in search of. Hackathons tend to have have primary prizes, associate prizes, or many other varied ways to win. Determining which prizes you purpose to go after and what the judges are using as standards will allow you to focus on executing. If possible, you need to try and speak to the judges for each prize you wish to win, before the occasion if allowed or once you arrive, and figure out what they're utilizing as their judging standards. If it’s a startup offering the prize, e mail the founders. If it’s a bigger company it might be their developer evangelist. Reach out! I discovered this tactic from collaborating in the LAUNCH Hackathon Fall 2013 hosted by Jason Calacanis. We didn’t research nicely at all. The grand prize was a 100k funding break up amongst the highest 3â€"5 teams. We constructed an awesome project the place a teddy bear could learn a e-book to kids and ask them questions alongside the best way. The judges have been looking for an investible enterprise. Toys are a hits based mostly business and they couldn’t see it as a dependable venture funding. We came away with $one hundred fifty gift card and an superior demo. Not horrible but not what we needed. Learning from my previous experiences, I participated within the LAUNCH Hackathon Spring 2014. I specifically constructed my hack round a market and story that could possibly be a venture investable startup. We ended up taking first place and obtained $33k in funding plus $30k in server credit to build out our business. One of the key guidelines of most hackathons is all of the coding must be carried out at the hackathon. Oftentimes although you can do plenty of pre-work days or perhaps weeks prematurely. Talking to your target market, constructing your pitch, creating wireframes, and discovering APIs. This will help you concentrate on largely coding through the lively hours of the hackathon. My first hackathon in SF I constructed an app referred to as InstaGift. It was an iOS app where you can get presents in a single day or same day delivered. It was for these moments if you forgot to get a present for that special somebody. I informed a compelling story of how I forgot to order a present for my (on the time imaginary) girlfriend and crafted a pitch around how InstaGift would have saved my day. For this hackathon I didn’t give you this downside until I was on the occasion, however the course of still applies. Once I recognized the issue, I decided who my audience was. In this case my audience have been eCommerce executives (the judges) in addition to validating it towards different consumers. I first ran the problem past both customers in addition to the eCommerce execs earlier than I constructed it out. It rang properly with each events so I went forward with the hack. I ended up walking out with $5k for an app I built in four hours. Starting with the pitch helps you hone in on what you’re going to build and for who a lot faster, however it has an excellent secondary objective. During the hackathon it’s straightforward to float into constructing features that you just’re by no means going to indicate. Login pages, auth methods, settings pages, fiddling with a nook case in your logic, the record goes on . If you are going to construct these no less than use one thing easy like Auth0 or Parse. In beginning with the pitch, I ensure to determine exactly what feature set I’m actually going to be demoing. I then start constructing out solely those precise options. It helps you concentrate on getting your core options down pat and away from options that can easily distract from your major objective. If you do end up constructing exactly what you’re going to point out off, then you must absolutely go through, add some facet features you skipped, clean up the UI, etc. This may also be a good time to figure when you can build in any aspect options that leverage APIs or different requirements from sponsors and qualify you for his or her prizes as well! Use the newest technologies available. I’ve built some nice hacks, but lost to someone who built a singular implementation of keyboard. It had solely been a few weeks for the reason that iOS keyboard had been launched and no one else bui lt a product utilizing that. It was very impressive. Meet new folks at hackathons, hearken to their ideas (and distill them right down to the core problems), and speak to judges and the sponsors. You never know if the particular person sitting subsequent to you has a killer thought. This is not a guaranteed to win methodology, however it's a confirmed track of how to think about approaching hackathons that has worked to assist me support and fund my startup goals in SF. I’ve executed this flawlessly in sure hackathons and gained, but in different hackathons competing groups have used expertise or a good story in a way that I had by no means considered and so they ended up building one thing higher. With all this being said hackathons aren’t nearly winning money and prizes, that’s just one of many many great perks you get from taking part in them. They are also an amazing approach to meet new associates, build superior initiatives, try out new applied sciences, and show them of f on a stage to tens, lots of, or even thousands of individuals. (The article originally appeared on Medium as written by Brian Clark, co-founder of LinkTexting) Enter your email address: