I have attended over forty five hackathons inside the final yr. Some as a mentor, a few as a player and most as a judge. There are many biases I have, such as a “developer bias” – I pick developer heavy teams to MBA teams or income teams and many others. I understand a number of these biases and plenty of I am no longer aware about.
So, it's far usually captivating once I get a hazard to fulfill the people first before they form teams after which see them promoting their thoughts to get great hackers, hustlers (presenters, extra than sales men are needed for a hackathon) and hipsters (designers) on board.
I were doing an test to assist me understand a way to evaluate teams and ideasbetter.
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The experiment in all fairness simple. On a white sheet of paper, I positioned the names of 5 human beings I think are the probable to win at the start of the hackathon. This can be based totally on only a 2-three minute communication with them. I dont understand what is going in my thoughts, however I need to report it. I assume I choose how they introduce themselves, what the first few words are, the history and training, and many others. I suppose I have the equal judgment biases as most investors and marketers have, so it's miles very in all likelihood that the pinnacle 10 on my listing can be similar to any of the alternative those who are judging or mentoring. I even have shared these notes and the pinnacle 10 listing with other mentors and requested them to percentage theirs as properly.
Then while the ideas are being pitched I write down the pinnacle five ideas. I am positive many biases are being performed in my thoughts again. I normally dislike the schooling and ideas aimed atsolving issues that college students have, as an instance seeking out mentors or locating internships. I am very keen on answers aimed at developers or advertising audiences.
Usually at the end of this procedure I have my top five or 6. The cause is that I have observed that during four out of 10 instances the “right character” on the listing does no longer select a “proper idea” or the “precise concept” has a few “average groups”.
I have tried to then map my initial “choices” against people who win the hackathon ultimately. In the eleven hackathons that I have continuously completed this over the past 2 months, there has been handiest 1 case while a group from the “other list” has received the hackathon. In 6 of the closing 10, my first select has long past on to win and within the remaining four, my first choose has made it both to 2nd or third region.
I thought I became doing pretty excellent. Over the last 5 hacakthons I actually have allow other judges and mentors in on this experiment and requested them to fee before and after with a view to get their before and after choices.
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Turns out most of the judges were in the equal ballpark. So, my whole basis for being able to judge exact teams was as top or as terrible as other judges. There is not any proprietary information to leverage since the conferences and records exchanges are so quick.
The second part of the question is what mattered greater – an excellent group or a terrific idea – this is only to win the hackathon.
Turns out excellent ideas win more hackathons than appropriate teams in five of my 11 cases. I actually have insufficient data to find out how most of the correct thoughts will ultimately come to be properly startups, given how nascent some of the ideas and teams have been.
What I also assume is that even though I took a person fairly tech savvy no matter revel in, they could have a similar “wining picks” ratio.
This also calls into query the “revel in” judges and mentors have collected over time and the publicity they ought to all other competing thoughts and corporations. Turns out all that revel in is probable beneficial at sure different things, but on the earliest of early tiers, it does now not require a rocket scientist to parent out who wins the hackathon, within a low margin of blunders.
What do you think? Or am I taking confined facts and generalizing to a fashion?
