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  2. Hackathons for your own start-up, do they work?

Hackathons for your own start-up, do they work?

Jemma Simpson
2 replies
I'm thinking about hosting a 2 day hackathon, with the aim of solving 2 or 3 issues our platform has right now. I'm not an engineer, so haven't organised one before. Question: Do hackathons for specific tasks / companies work?

Replies

flo merian
@jemma_simpson Hey Jemma, great topic! When I worked at Specify, we experimented with a 1-day hackathon, and it was a blast. The day went as follows:
  1. The day before, we asked the entire team to come up with as many ideas as possible about projects or features that could benefit the company in any shape or form.
  2. People shared their ideas in a Canny board, and we spent the evening upvoting the projects that inspired us the most.
  3. The next day in the early morning, we created squads to work on the most upvoted projects.
  4. Each squad had the entire day to come up with a delivery of their projects.
  5. At 6 PM, every squad showcased their work to the team with a Pitch presentation and, when possible, a live demo.
It was an intense team sprint that led to some significant product releases. Some resources that inspired us: Hope it helps — Enjoy!
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Krishna Kumar
Yes, Hackathons work. They bring focus to the tasks at hand. You need to be very clear about expected end results (task A, B, C, D to be completed) and should not divert the participants to anything else. One person should ensure that the hackathon is managed well and no one looses sight of the deliverables. Devs work together, share knowledge and help each other out. A whiteboard or even a sheet of paper listing all tasks, and updated will currently active tasks, who are working on it and challenges will hep bring the focus.
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