My First Hackathon: Lessons Learned and Tips for Success

Focus on Selecting the Right Team

I didn’t have any reservations about the scope of the challenge or the limitations we had. However, I was nervous about selecting the right team. As this was my first hackathon experience, I didn’t know what an optimal team looked like. This worry was exacerbated when I realized I didn’t fully understand all of the 10+ roles in the room, as I mentioned above.

To help alleviate this concern, try reviewing examples of previous hackathons, their team structures and the results they presented. This will give you a better grasp of how you can align your ideas with your team structure.

Don’t Stress About Your Idea

Concentrating on picking a winning idea is not actually the best approach in a hackathon. Though winning is great, learning is much more of a sustainable, rewarding outcome.

Instead, spend your energy on building a great team. Aspects of team dynamics such as communication style, experience, working style and language play a major part in such a contracted timeframe. Identifying team members who work well together makes all the difference in cohesion and delivering an excellent result.

Pay Attention to Your Body’s Limitations

The importance of understanding what to expect when your body reaches its natural limit cannot be understated. I tend to believe I can power through any amount of time and work. Once I hit the seven- to nine-hour mark, I realized this was a delusional belief. Everyone who was newer to hackathons faced this realization during the process.

Awareness of your bodily limitations needs to be a contributing factor to your team’s project timeline. In my hackathon, many of us realized that we should have abbreviated our accomplishment targets.

An ambitious prototype might not materialize in the right way if, by hour eight, half of your team needs a one-hour nap and is significantly constricted by a state of fatigue. Instead, build breaks and rest periods into your planning.

Learn Fast. Fail. Grow.

In a hackathon, time is of the essence, so you need to streamline your processes. Quickly get a feel for the validity of your idea by running hypothetical tests and securing a consensus. It makes more sense to support an idea that you can productively move forward than to rush something that ends up outside of the challenge scope or you can’t achieve in the time you have available.

During the hackathon, make sure to identify who is doing what and how it will move your goals forward. Designate a team leader to check in with each area or team member to make sure everyone is moving in the right direction. If there is an issue with delivering something, it should be communicated early on to see if the team has resources to help or whether it needs to be phased out.

When you begin to build your prototype, you might discover that your idea falls apart. Don’t panic! This is part of the process. Constantly finding the flaws in your idea or its design allows you to move through barriers faster and get to a viable end result.

In many cases, you’ll need to flex your role to help someone in a capacity that’s foreign to you — which is exactly why hackathons are a perfect learning ground. You’ll develop your expertise and, more importantly, learn where you have adjacent skills that are waiting for you to develop them. Dive in and give it a try. You might unlock a new interest!

Many of the most interesting presentations are unconventional or speak directly to the voting body. Understand who your audience is and how to excite them. With this in mind, you can shape your storytelling and the presentation format of your prototype to address both the challenge and the audience!

Your outcome extends beyond just the solution. It includes networking, learning opportunities and, in my case, solidarity with your community.

How to Find Your First Hackathon

If you want to find hackathons to join, take a good look at your communities and keep tabs on their upcoming events! That’s how I came across my very first hackathon with Unicorns In Tech. I wanted to get more involved in the queer tech space in Berlin. Lo and behold, the week after I joined, they were putting on their very own hackathon.

As I noted earlier, hackathons come in different forms with different objectives. Research up-and-coming events in your area and ask yourself, “How does this fit with my career focus?” if you’re a working professional or, “How can I expand my experience in new ways?” if you’re a recent graduate or student.

Above all, just jump in! You’ll learn an incredible amount and have your stamina tested! It’s a good way to feel out new experiences and explore ambitious challenges.

Key Takeaways

A couple of key points to take away include:

• If you ever wanted to test something or explore a new skillset, this is the time to do it!
• Set clear goalposts, project tasks and deliverables so everyone is on the same page. Keep your limitations in mind when planning.
• Constantly test your idea and how it addresses both the challenge and the voting body.

Where to Go From Here?

Hopefully, by this point, you’re feeling fired up to enter your own first hackathon! But if you could use some additional resources, check out these links:

• How to Find the Best Hackathons Right Now.
• How to Write the Perfect Resume After Graduating a Coding Bootcamp
• Hack Your Job Search: The Authoritative Guide to Landing a Mobile Dev Interview

Do you have any questions about hackathons? Any tips from your first experience to share? Click the Comments link below to join the discussion!

About the Author

Marcus is a marketing and communications specialist. His expertise also spans into design and DEI. Much of his work addresses accessibility and closing the various forms of opportunity gaps in finance, investment, and technology.

He sits on the business side of the hackathon experience, lending his skills in product, project management, strategy, business development and branding to tell the story of his team’s solution and reinforce its viability.