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5 Surprising Lessons My First Hackathon Taught Me About Startups
If you haven’t done a hackathon, you should try one immediately.
Last Thursday, I received a call from a friend I haven’t seen in quite a few months.
“Kevin, how would you like to earn $1,000?” was the first thing I heard.
At first, I thought I was being scammed, but then my friend started explaining the whole situation. He and another friend had originally entered a hackathon, but his friend had to drop out due to a music performance.
So now he was calling me last minute to step in for his friend. After a few minutes of researching and looking around the specific hackathon website, I agreed.
It was a small hackathon. The grand prize wasn’t $1,000 but actually $500 and there were 4 different categorical prizes at $300 each.
It was a two-day event and 12 teams consisting of 2–5 members signed up. Only youth between the ages of 13 and 18 were allowed to participate.
The challenge was to create an app or website around the topic of climate change within the two days only and then pitch the product in less than 8 minutes.
“What could I lose?” I thought to myself, but what I really should have been thinking about is, “What could I gain?”
