I wonder if it's down to the lack of other places for these pre-cooked startups to pitch? They just want the audience. (Though this happens in Silicon Valley, for sure, where one certainly can't argue there aren't any pitch soapboxes.)

Perhaps two judging categories could help. Best technical feat this weekend, and best business concept. Bonus points for the business concept that actually built some kind of MVP this weekend.

There's a grey area between new hacks that use existing APIs/tech from a startup (vs. publicly available tech) and completely new projects. Not sure how that should be handled, perhaps just a case-by-case basis (is this a feature for the startup, or is it a brand new project that happens to leverage existing knowledge?)

I am starting to see this trend where hackathons are more about investors bringing an undercover team to pretend they formed a team and code for 2 days, while in reality. The team was formed a while ago, product was pre-cooked, actually more like ready to be served. And just need it an event to get some PR. Hackathons should have a (literally) Code of Honor. Judges should be hackers and they need to make sure there is no code before the event and do a code review before the judging.

So, did anyone complain at the event? Or even after the event? How did the judges and organisers respond to the complaints?

There wasn't much that could be done. According to the rules, all's fair so long as the code wasn't written until the hackathon itself, which is pretty much impossible to prove or disprove anyway. You can prepare as long as you want. There is a section about a "code review" but I doubt that was really done; IIRC we didn't even submit our code, we just did a demo & video.

The strongest complaint we could make was that it was strongly against the spirit of a hackathon, which is a difficult argument to win.

The strongest complaint you can make is presumably "I wouldn't have come if I knew a team like this could enter and even win, and I won't come to your next one, and I will be sure to let others know that I won't come and why". Saying it publicly with all the other entrants around lets others join in if this is something that is widely regarded as unpopular and lets the organisers know that there is some serious resentment. Not complaining at all is certainly one way to make sure nothing will be done.

I mean, nobody here can even say "wow, I won't go to their next one!" because you haven't even named them.

You're right, and I wish we had. Instead we were just sort of stunned by the underwhelming ending and the crowd filtered out very quickly (there was no "drinkathon", we were all too tired). It was Angelhack - I suppose, by the name, we should have known that investability comes first, hacking second.

Our team was tired out after all-night coding and really didn't possess the mental finesse at the time to walk the fine line between arguing "the results don't fit the spirit of the event" and "we are sore losers".

Is it not normal to have a team made before the hackathon? We're registered for a few hackathons and a lot of them ask us to join a team ahead of time or join one when we get there but they do ask that teams put down their idea. The rule we adhered to was no prior coding or design work before the hackathon so build everything there but feel free to discuss the idea we want to go in with.

Yeah, forming teams is pretty normal - I think ssafejava is talking about something well in excess of simply forming a team and talking about ideas.

I was at Angelhack NYC last time it was held, and was disappointed in that way also. The winner, and indeed a lot of contestants, had code or designs that were impossible to generate in a 48 period.

There was a "code review" clause in the rules, but I did not see it ever enforced. Some of the high-ranking (the ones that made it into the final round of judging anyways) projects had clearly pre-cooked designs and mockups (this wasn't against Angelhack's rules), and obviously little to no working code. Many presentations were slide decks. Disappointingly few showed the core idea working.

I've always thought that the spirit of a hackathon was to get together with some crazy smart people and see what useful and worthwhile things you can bang out in a limited time. Precooking 95% of your project beforehand seems rather against the spirit of this.

Personally I've resolved to stop going to corporate-sponsored hackathons, or hackathons where investors are waiting at the sidelines. There's a tremendous misalignment of incentives and it encourages a rather ruthless atmosphere. It's no longer about good clean fun and all about attracting investor attention.

Question: anyone in NYC know about low-key hackathons where it actually fits the spirit of a hackathon?

Hey Potato, that's sad you don't want to go to hacks anymore. Code reviews are either done in private before we announce the winner or within 7 days after the event.

The slide deck thing is a persistent problem and one we're not happy with. I think that kills it for everyone and its disappointing when judges are impressed by them. To change this, starting this Fall we'll be the first hackathon to disallow power point presentations and require teams to demo if they'd like to win.

YES "no prior coding or design" although this is not followed. There is no transparency in the process and also not regulated. There are no code reviews or not way of knowing if somebody came with a "ready to serve" product. Even a less a code of honor.

You might need to fake it and that's ok.

Given that the hackaton might be 2 days, unless your idea is 'simple' enough to have a MVP in 1 day (never seen it happen), the second day will be all preparation for the presentation because this is what will win a jury.