After the content has been accidentally upvoted to the front page of HN, the OP will then make sure to only serve porn when your IT department goes back to verify whether or not the content was actually SFW.
He lost me when he started talking about Startup Weekend. Some people may find that kind of thing fun, but sorry that's not a hackathon.
I went to one a few weeks ago, and bailed when I realized business school students and hustlers out-numbered engineers 4 to 1. Entire teams of 7-8 people formed that didn't have a single technical person on them. I checked back with a friend afterwards, and apparently none of the top winning teams actually built anything -- they just presented business plans. Unless you want to work on a business plan for 48 hours, stay away...
Depends on the city and the makeup of the attendees but in NYC (where I organize them) we usually have an even split between devs and business (slightly fewer designers as well).
I had the exact same experience. I basically had to join up with 4 B-School students and work my ass off on their ideas which weren't interesting (and I couldn't play with anything technologically interesting since I didn't really have the time). By the end of saturday I realized I was burning myself out on something that I had no interest in and told them I quit (for fear of burning myself out for my actual job). It turns out they didn't even really need me because as you said, everyone presented business ideas with at most landing pages developed.
I think SW might be more successful if the process isn't so ad-hoc on the first night.. maybe a web site that goes up the week before that lets people decide what they want to work on and start some initial planning. I'd also like to be sure I'm matched up with developers that I'd like to work with because the main reason I went there was to learn from other developers; Instead I was the only one on the team and felt like an unpaid laborer. Also, developers and designers should be better incentivized to attend by e.g. having much lower entrance fees than biz dev folks, and perhaps also by having separate prizes for best code/design.
I've attended a flock of Startup Weekends - Austin, DC, Houston - and was one of the organizers of the last one here in Austin.
The mix of attendees & skill sets is both the hardest and most important thing. The approach we took was multi-faceted:
- we announced it quietly to the tech groups first - mobile dev, rails, php, python, etc - with an embargo on tweeting it;
- once we started spreading the word further, we made a very small number of non-technical/non-designer tickets available;
- once those were sold out, we put the entire event into waitlist mode.. from then on, to buy a ticket, you had to send us a Linked In profile to prove your background.
And once we opened it back up to business people, we wanted to get the most motivated, so we asked everyone on the list to make a 1 minute video pitch on why they should get a ticket.. and then tweet it to us with the event hashtag. Most didn't bother making a video, so the decision was simple.
The result was a good mix of people and the non-technical people were very motivated and (probably) felt lucky to be there.
That seems like a good approach. I'm not against spending a weekend working with Biz Dev folks as there is lots I can learn from them, but in my SW (Honolulu) it was mostly inexperienced B-school students and they outnumbered devs at least two to one (and of around 80 people I think there was 3 designers!)
I don't doubt your experience but you've attended one event and are telling people to avoid it despite the fact they organize hundred of events all over the world. Each one has it's own organizers and compositions. They even focus on different topics (edu/gov/general/maybe more?).
I've attended Startup Weekends and been an organizer (so you know my bias). But I've met lots of good developers at these events. Startup Weekend is more friendly towards non-technical people than any other hackathon I've been to. But that's also part of the appeal. It could be detrimental if any group isn't represented well enough or is over represented. But don't let that dissuade people from trying it out. If you're really worried, bring a technical friend, worst case scenario, you get to hack on something with a buddy for a weekend.
You seem a bit disappointed because of the outcome instead of focusing on what you got to do during the weekend. What did you work on? Did you learn anything? Did you make any new friends/connections? Did you get some new ideas that translate to something else you're working on?
Why the hell do they call it a hackathon if it is not a hacker-only event? The only thing that happens at a marathon is running. They should come up with their own description and stop trying to trick hackers into showing up.
Hackathons don't happen in my area, but I can assure you, I am not particularly interested in hacking on biz-dev ideas. I'd far prefer to put together a booting OS or a minimal VCS or ... (other technical idea not salable).
I've only been to one hackathon (Angelhack NYC), but I've heard that other ones have a similar problem - short demos. If you are evaluating a project in 2 minutes, you aren't evaluating anything except a team's ability to pitch. Granted, pitching is a useful skill, but maybe it should be called a Pitchathon because those of us who code all night get resentful of well-rested biz devs with a slide deck being in a 'hackathon'.
I know judging time tends to get limited, but one easy solution would have been to either split the judges up or use staff/volunteers to have some sort of preliminary round where you get 10-15 minutes to do a full working demo that shows all your work, not just a concept. The second added benefit is then you have a shorter 'final round' where only the best projects get demoed for everyone. The only downside is that not everyone gets to do a 'real demo' in front of the judges but maybe it's a good thing if it needs to be earned. I personally would have felt much better getting knocked out in an early round after actually showing all the work I put in rather than feeling like 90% of my work was irrelevant as far as the demo went because I didn't have time to show it.
Yeah, from what I heard about of the Melbourne startup weekend it made more sense for a team to do so mockups and work on a business plan an pitch than to write my code. In terms of winning at least.
I am a big fan of the global games jam held at 100s of venues across the world in January. Games are great because the results are mainly about the execution on the weekend and unlike building a web app and getting customers there isn't really any ongoing commitment unless you really want to continue with it.
I've been to three startup weekends and they seem to vary greatly depending on who puts them on.
First one I went to was in a college town in Michigan (East Lansing). The organizer was still a student and so were most of the attendees. It was very much a hackathon with a focus on building something in 2 and half days. My team had an iphone, mac, and web app working and we won "crowd favorite" and "coolest"
The second one I did was in Seattle. Lots of developers were there, but the teams that did the best didn't necessarily have the most functional code. Still, everyone had some sort of prototype, many of them quite polished.
The third I did was an internal Microsoft Startup Weekend (although still put on by the folks at Startup Weekend). It was dominated by business type people, although there were a decent amount of developers. The judges essentially ignored the fact that anyone had running code and went solely on people's slide decks.
As a developer, I enjoyed the first one the most by far.
Responding to top comment, but want to address concerns in several of the replies. FWIW, the event was actually organized by the management of Startup Weekend themselves: Marc Nager, the CEO, and Frank Nouyrigat, the CTO. So I don't think I'm misrepresenting the organization in talking about my experience.
The online application seemed to imply only technical people would be allowed in, which is what led me to think it was a hackathon. It was also restricted to Stanford students and alums. Only later did it become clear that the Stanford business school was one of the co-organizers, and they had secured a large number of the "slots" for their own students.
They did have a bunch of designers there also, which is nice. But the event still felt like it had a 4:1 ratio of "people who can think about a business plan" to "people who can build something".
More importantly, the judges didn't actually care about whether teams had built anything. Most of them didn't have tech backgrounds - they were there as reps from the sponsors. Startup Weekend is pretty open about the business-ey aspect of their events, so it's my fault for not realizing that in advance. On their website it reads "on average, half of Startup Weekend’s attendees have technical or design backgrounds, the other half have business backgrounds."
Still, I think they need to decide what they want to be. If they are going to use judges who could not care less if you actually built something, they need to be open about that up front. Technical people who want to spend a weekend building a product need to know they should stay away. Or, Startup Weekend could require judges to heavily take into account actual product development in their decisions, and try to attract more coders. But as of right now, they are doing the former but still trying to get coders to attend, and for me that was a bad experience.
That's a great point about having a winner not being all it's cracked up to be. Having to show something is enough motivation for me.
Also sponsors often take away as much from hackathons as they put into them. I'd love an API hack day where all API's including open protocols were on equal footing. At the API Hack Day I went to there were actually prizes for using the sponsors' APIs.
44 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 91.7 ms ] threadAfter the content has been accidentally upvoted to the front page of HN, the OP will then make sure to only serve porn when your IT department goes back to verify whether or not the content was actually SFW.
For example, I'm a guy with a CS degree who is a high school teacher. Does that make me a "corporate type"?
I went to one a few weeks ago, and bailed when I realized business school students and hustlers out-numbered engineers 4 to 1. Entire teams of 7-8 people formed that didn't have a single technical person on them. I checked back with a friend afterwards, and apparently none of the top winning teams actually built anything -- they just presented business plans. Unless you want to work on a business plan for 48 hours, stay away...
I think SW might be more successful if the process isn't so ad-hoc on the first night.. maybe a web site that goes up the week before that lets people decide what they want to work on and start some initial planning. I'd also like to be sure I'm matched up with developers that I'd like to work with because the main reason I went there was to learn from other developers; Instead I was the only one on the team and felt like an unpaid laborer. Also, developers and designers should be better incentivized to attend by e.g. having much lower entrance fees than biz dev folks, and perhaps also by having separate prizes for best code/design.
The mix of attendees & skill sets is both the hardest and most important thing. The approach we took was multi-faceted:
- we announced it quietly to the tech groups first - mobile dev, rails, php, python, etc - with an embargo on tweeting it;
- once we started spreading the word further, we made a very small number of non-technical/non-designer tickets available;
- once those were sold out, we put the entire event into waitlist mode.. from then on, to buy a ticket, you had to send us a Linked In profile to prove your background.
And once we opened it back up to business people, we wanted to get the most motivated, so we asked everyone on the list to make a 1 minute video pitch on why they should get a ticket.. and then tweet it to us with the event hashtag. Most didn't bother making a video, so the decision was simple.
The result was a good mix of people and the non-technical people were very motivated and (probably) felt lucky to be there.
My 0.02.
I've attended Startup Weekends and been an organizer (so you know my bias). But I've met lots of good developers at these events. Startup Weekend is more friendly towards non-technical people than any other hackathon I've been to. But that's also part of the appeal. It could be detrimental if any group isn't represented well enough or is over represented. But don't let that dissuade people from trying it out. If you're really worried, bring a technical friend, worst case scenario, you get to hack on something with a buddy for a weekend.
You seem a bit disappointed because of the outcome instead of focusing on what you got to do during the weekend. What did you work on? Did you learn anything? Did you make any new friends/connections? Did you get some new ideas that translate to something else you're working on?
"Seeking technical cofounder!"
I know judging time tends to get limited, but one easy solution would have been to either split the judges up or use staff/volunteers to have some sort of preliminary round where you get 10-15 minutes to do a full working demo that shows all your work, not just a concept. The second added benefit is then you have a shorter 'final round' where only the best projects get demoed for everyone. The only downside is that not everyone gets to do a 'real demo' in front of the judges but maybe it's a good thing if it needs to be earned. I personally would have felt much better getting knocked out in an early round after actually showing all the work I put in rather than feeling like 90% of my work was irrelevant as far as the demo went because I didn't have time to show it.
I am a big fan of the global games jam held at 100s of venues across the world in January. Games are great because the results are mainly about the execution on the weekend and unlike building a web app and getting customers there isn't really any ongoing commitment unless you really want to continue with it.
First one I went to was in a college town in Michigan (East Lansing). The organizer was still a student and so were most of the attendees. It was very much a hackathon with a focus on building something in 2 and half days. My team had an iphone, mac, and web app working and we won "crowd favorite" and "coolest"
The second one I did was in Seattle. Lots of developers were there, but the teams that did the best didn't necessarily have the most functional code. Still, everyone had some sort of prototype, many of them quite polished.
The third I did was an internal Microsoft Startup Weekend (although still put on by the folks at Startup Weekend). It was dominated by business type people, although there were a decent amount of developers. The judges essentially ignored the fact that anyone had running code and went solely on people's slide decks.
As a developer, I enjoyed the first one the most by far.
It was the recent one at Stanford, you can read about it here: http://stanford.startupweekend.org/
The online application seemed to imply only technical people would be allowed in, which is what led me to think it was a hackathon. It was also restricted to Stanford students and alums. Only later did it become clear that the Stanford business school was one of the co-organizers, and they had secured a large number of the "slots" for their own students.
They did have a bunch of designers there also, which is nice. But the event still felt like it had a 4:1 ratio of "people who can think about a business plan" to "people who can build something".
More importantly, the judges didn't actually care about whether teams had built anything. Most of them didn't have tech backgrounds - they were there as reps from the sponsors. Startup Weekend is pretty open about the business-ey aspect of their events, so it's my fault for not realizing that in advance. On their website it reads "on average, half of Startup Weekend’s attendees have technical or design backgrounds, the other half have business backgrounds."
Still, I think they need to decide what they want to be. If they are going to use judges who could not care less if you actually built something, they need to be open about that up front. Technical people who want to spend a weekend building a product need to know they should stay away. Or, Startup Weekend could require judges to heavily take into account actual product development in their decisions, and try to attract more coders. But as of right now, they are doing the former but still trying to get coders to attend, and for me that was a bad experience.
Also sponsors often take away as much from hackathons as they put into them. I'd love an API hack day where all API's including open protocols were on equal footing. At the API Hack Day I went to there were actually prizes for using the sponsors' APIs.
Dickey + I built weft.io for the last Angelhack (a couple weeks ago). We didn't win, but we definitely did a lot of things we were proud of.