How do you win a Hackathon? (4/4)

You have the mindset. You have the team. You have a killer idea. Time to make it pop.

A killer idea is key for qualifying; the "wow factor" is key to clinch the win. By the time you pass the general submission stage, you're up against good and very good ideas. What sets your idea apart from them? To quote Megamind: "Presentation!!!". Here's how you do it:

Create a persona

You need to describe the person experiencing both problem and solution. Even if both happen 100% in the backend, find the human impacted by it. If you can describe the problem and solution through the eyes of a person, you make it easy for the judges (hopefully still humans) to relate to it. Let your visionary and presenter team members lead this task.

Tell a story

Turn the problem and solution into a story using your persona's experience. Describe the situation they encounter - their difficulties and how your solution helps overcome them, and describe how their life is made better. This makes your narrative easier to both understand and remember, which is important when the judges have heard all the presentations and go off to deliberate. Here too, your visionary and presenter team members should lead.

Create a killer demo

The demo helps people visualize what the story you told looks like in a real life application, driving home the value. But you also need to blow the viewer's minds; the demo needs to look polished, professionally designed, and realistic. It also needs to work flawlessly - mock it if you need to make sure the experience is perfect. The visionary and UI expert do the "looks great" part, and the manager and other SMEs in your team do the "works perfectly" part.

Tie it together in your presentation

Once you have these pieces, combine them in your presentation. Introduce the persona; describe the problem; briefly describe the solution; show the solution (demo); highlight the value; briefly explain the technical aspects (so feasibility is established); talk about next steps and future features; wrap up by recapping problem, solution, value. The team presenter builds this.

Present it perfectly

Seems intuitive, but you'd be surprised how many hackathon presentations I've seen delivered in monotone, or hesitantly, or nervously, or in some other way that distracts from the actual content. I've yet to see a submission presented this way win. Your team's presenter needs to be clear, confident, enthusiastic, sincere and polished. Also, make sure your presentation looks different than everyone else's - don't use standard templates, fonts or designs (AI or otherwise). Find a way to be different, even if there's a template forced on you. Your team presenter leads this effort, with the help of your UI expert.


That's it! Get into the mindset, choose the right team, find your killer idea, and wrap it up in "wow". Done all that? Go out there and win!



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