How to Succeed and Thrive at a Hackathon

Published June 20, 2019

The first time I lied about my age in college wasn't to get into a bar. It was to get into a hackathon.

February, freshman year, two friends and I drove through an Iowa blizzard to a random industrial building in Ames. At the door, I held my ID up with my finger covering the year. Over the next 36 hours, I learned that shipping was way more fun than class and I wanted to get good enough at shipping to do it as a career. I did a dozen more hackathons in college, won a few prizes, got a few jobs, and still have an MLH sticker on my laptop.

Six years removed from college, I'm more often a sponsor or judge. Having been on both sides of the table, I've learned a few things that work for making a hackathon a high-ROI weekend.

Before you go:

  1. Have a goal. Are you there to win? Get a job? Launch a startup? Learn something new? You only have limited time, so make sure you know what you want.
  2. Go with committed friends. A team of two who actually wants to work hard will get 10x more done than a lazy team of 4.
  3. Clear your schedule. Get your homework done, swap your shifts, and go all in. It's more fun when you try hard.

What to build:

  1. The bar is ridiculously high today. Projects that would have taken first place at the hackathons I went to in college are one-shot prompts. Build something unique and ambitious.
  2. Hardware is a moat. Build something tangible that judges can interact with.
  3. The WiFi will break during your demo. Figure out a way around it, but be honest about what is real and what is a mockup.

How to get a job:

  1. Talk to sponsors when they are not surrounded by hordes of hackers trying to grab merch. And you can be honest about looking for a job.
  2. Do not ask for a referral after a 3 minute conversation. Earn a referral through your portfolio or, if you don't have one, what you build at the event.
  3. Do the sponsor tracks. Building something genuinely impressive that goes beyond surface level usage of a sponsored tool is the fastest way to get an interview. Focus on smaller sponsors who actually hire based on project demos, not large companies who are just there to shill their jobs portal.
  4. Be an organizer. The organizers who are actually on top of things get more sponsor face time and an opportunity to demonstrate competence through the execution of the event.

How to not die:

  1. Have a plan for sleeping. If you're visiting a campus, crash in a friend's dorm or bring a sleeping bag. Sleeping time is why they invented --dangerously-skip-permissions.
  2. There will be infinite food and water at any competently run hackathon, but it can be nice to leave and get some food from outside (unless there is a snowstorm).
  3. Even if there are no showers, bringing a couple of changes of clothes helps immensely. Put a fresh shirt on to demo.

Go forth and build something awesome.