over 12 years ago
7 tips for hackathon success
- Realistic expectations - It is tempting to think you are going to build the final version of a product, but you need to think what you can create in less than 2 days. Otherwise, you'll be left with a bunch of diagrams on the back of a napkin, but no actual thing that you can demo. You need to think big, but what is the simplest thing you can build that provides value? Check Out: minimum viable product (MVP).
- Attract talent to your team - If you are a business person and can't write code, you're going to need to convince a developer to join your team. Likewise, if you're a developer but can't design, your team is going to be much stronger if you can attract designer talent. Without the right people on your team, you're going to be handicapped and have a hard time getting to a working prototype.
- How do you attract talent to your team? You don’t’ have to have a team beforehand. HackOut will provide 30 sec to pitch your idea before the hackathon starts. Write down a concise description of what you want to build, who it's for, and why they would want to use it (what's the problem that you're trying to solve). And then practice your pitch so that it comes off naturally when you stand up to present it. State very clearly who you are looking for, and if you have a particular technology in mind, mention that too.
- Get to know the mentors/ vendors/sponsors More info
- Study the APIs Go through examples and understanding how the various libraries you're going to use are put together. That way you don't spend precious time reading docs, and trying to figure out how to use a library or 3rd party API, but can focus 100% on building the functionality that is unique to your app.
- Use version control tool
- Envision your perfect demo and work backwards