3 Secrets To Winning A Hackathon
Hack Midwest- A Kansas City Hackathon
Do you want a leg up on the competition at Hack Midwest?
Today, we’re sharing tips & video clips compiled after witnessing several winning ideas at our past hackathons in Kansas City. Read on and increase your odds of winning awesome prizes at our 24 hour code-fest!
Build A Balanced Team
The Team
Build a team that’s passionate, just like you. There are few things that drag a team down more than lack of commitment.
Make sure it’s balanced with the right mix of skillsets:
- Design + UX
- Front-end developer(s)
- Back-end developer(s)
Great design apparent in most of the winning ideas we’ve seen. Do everything you can in order to find & bring a great designer along!!
The Idea
Done Is Better Than Perfect – Facebook
Solve a problem.
Is there a tool you wish you could build for yourself?
Is there something that might make your life easier?
Visualize what your solution might look like and then work backwards toward building a Minimum Viable Product.
Focus on the core idea: we’ve seen too many teams try to add tons of features and then run out of time. This spells disaster when it’s time to demo.
Deliver Your Best Pitch!
The Pitch
You’ve got 3 minutes to tell the judges about your hack, so make it count!
Tell a story about the problem and share a couple of reasons why your team built this solution.
Show us what it does (make sure you’ve got a finished product to demo). Perhaps you might get creative – find a way to engage the audience.
Don’t focus on the technology – we don’t care if you hammered out 10,000 lines of python, used NoSQL and jQuery.
However, DO tell us if you’ve used a particular API from our API sponsors!
Watch a couple of short winning pitches from last year’s Hack Midwest:
Have You Registered?
DON’T wait till the last minute to register – we’ve sold out our last 2 hackathons!
Don’t forget – we’ve got thousands in prizes up for grabs!
Developers, Designers & CS Students: what are you waiting for? Register today for Hack Midwest… spots are limited!
Hack Midwest- A Kansas City Hackathon
