DEV Community

Cover image for How to Win Any Hackathon ๐Ÿš€๐Ÿค‘

How to Win Any Hackathon ๐Ÿš€๐Ÿค‘

Jonas Scholz on November 02, 2023

Hackathons are a great way to learn random stuff, meet new people, and build cool projects. I met some of my best friends at hackathons and finance...
Collapse
 
dasheck0 profile image
Stefan Neidig

From my experience (both of participating an and hosting hackathons) it is all about the idea. You can execute all you want. If you miss the point or it is not engaging enough (especially for community awards) you wonร„t win anything. Judges take only little time to evaluate your solution. They will skip you if they don't understand the use case or intention of your submission. There is also little to now opportunity to ask some questions about it. So carrying out a clear and concise idea that one can understand and evaluate is key here. Also judges are often less technical. They don't know what complexity goes into your submission and often won't judge it even if they can grasp it. So bottomline: idea first, execution second.

Source: Participated in 20 + and hosted 6+ Hackathons.

Collapse
 
code42cate profile image
Jonas Scholz

Absolutely! I also had to learn that the hard way. As a computer scientist/programmer I was always focused on building something technically impressive (given the time constraint) but I learned pretty fast that you don't win with cool tech, but with an awesome pitch. The hackathons I won were usually a combination of both, an awesome pitch that the judges liked and a good technical prototype that differentiated me from those who only had a pitch but no prototype.

Idea first, execution second is so ingrained in my head that I didn't even consider it for this blog post!

Collapse
 
dasheck0 profile image
Stefan Neidig

Awesome. Do you have any techniques on how you come up with ideas and more importantly validate and develop them? Would be cool and worth to share as well.

Thread Thread
 
code42cate profile image
Jonas Scholz

Do you mean for hackathons or in general?:)

Thread Thread
 
dasheck0 profile image
Stefan Neidig

Both. Always eager to hear how other ideate :)

Collapse
 
rsmets profile image
Ray Smets

Wow! What a blog post. So much utility laid out and concisely explained. Thank you.

Will certainly be forking your starter template but will be swapping Next for Svelte.

Collapse
 
code42cate profile image
Jonas Scholz

Nice! I've seen Svelte used a lot in hackathons as well, good luck in your next one :)

Collapse
 
royra profile image
Roy Razon

Awesome post! TIL about docker watch. Can you give some details about the "workspace:*" database dependency?

Collapse
 
code42cate profile image
Jonas Scholz

docker watch is awesome right?! I really didn't enjoy docker dev setups before. The workspace dependency is turborepo magic, the docs probably explain it best: turbo.build/repo/docs/handbook/wor...

Collapse
 
pradumnasaraf profile image
Pradumna Saraf

Awesome post ๐Ÿ”ฅ

Collapse
 
Sloan, the sloth mascot
Comment deleted
Collapse
 
code42cate profile image
Jonas Scholz

thanks, and good luck at your next hackathon!

Collapse
 
mlhacks profile image
Major League Hacking (MLH)

This is awesome, thanks for sharing Jonas!

Collapse
 
code42cate profile image
Jonas Scholz

โค๏ธ

Collapse
 
anni profile image
Anietie Brownson

Nice post
Bookmarked!

Collapse
 
fyodorio profile image
Fyodor

Nice and neat ๐Ÿ‘ such templates are also useful for fast project prototyping, the stack is quite good to scale further if necessary

Collapse
 
Sloan, the sloth mascot
Comment deleted
Collapse
 
Sloan, the sloth mascot
Comment deleted
Collapse
 
Sloan, the sloth mascot
Comment deleted
Collapse
 
Sloan, the sloth mascot
Comment deleted
Collapse
 
Sloan, the sloth mascot
Comment deleted
Collapse
 
Sloan, the sloth mascot
Comment deleted

Some comments have been hidden by the post's author - find out more