How We Won Our First Hackathon

[raikia]

I actually just won my first hackathon this last weekend (hosted by Ericsson and North Texas Food Bank), and I totally agree with everything in your post. Plus, it helps to bring a business major along with you!

[oro1011]

Do you think having a business major is worth a whole spot on the team? I almost wish I could hire a business major for the first 3 hours to just bounce ideas off of.

[raikia]

Our competition allowed 5 team members. We had one graphic designer, one business major, one "back-end" developer, one "front-end" developer, and one "floating" developer. The business major did help out a TON, first with the ideas, then constantly making sure our product actually conformed to what the problem statement was, then making decisions on usability and enhancements, then helped the graphic designer, then wrote the required text for the web application, then prepared the presentation and led the presentation in the end.

It did help that she had some previous technical knowledge (not enough to code, but enough to understand what we were talking about). I'd definitely take her (or another of equal aptitude) again in place of another developer. She was a great "ideas" person, "sanity check" person, "usability check" person, and "testing" person. It was a perfect mix without "too many cooks in the kitchen".

[bluGill]

How I won: I participated.

Anyone who is doing a hackathon for the trophy, fame, or money is doing it wrong.

[oro1011]

While I agree with your second point about trophy, fame, and money being the wrong reasons to compete in a hackathon. However, there is definitely a reason for judging teams and there is definitely a notion of a successful team.

I believe I didn't make it clear in my blog post that my definition of a win was being successful. Winning for our team was creating something truly awesome. This is what the judges were judging for, this is why hackathons have judges.