A Starter’s Guide to Organizing a Hackathon

Hackathons have become a global phenomenon, gaining momentum across various industries. These events typically last 24-48 hours, and they bring together developers, designers, innovators, and domain experts to collaboratively solve specific problems.

While initially known for their tech talent engagement, hackathons have evolved into a valuable methodology for problem-solving, skill-building, and collaboration. Today, hackathons cater to a wide range of domains, including medical tech, mobile apps, APIs, and more.

Beyond problem-solving, these events serve as effective platforms for talent recruitment, idea generation, use case exploration, and staff training. Their inclusive, agile, and collaborative nature, combined with shorter development cycles, make them advantageous over traditional innovation processes.

A hackathon is a marathon to invoke continuous innovation and collect input to manage important real-world business challenges. It is a time-constrained competitive event where individuals work together to develop proof of concepts and create minimum viable products to address a predefined challenge.

Internal Hackathons:

Internal hackathons are aimed at employee engagement, teamwork, and promoting a culture of creativity and collaboration. It is a valuable method to identify existing talent with entrepreneurial potential.

External Hackathons:

External hackathons are a platform to invite outside talent and interact with the community. Often, external hackathons are a way to get media coverage, start a dialogue with tech communities, and carry out recruitment activities. While external hackathons do demand more planning, they also cast a wider web of dialogue and engagement with the outside world interested in innovation.

Online Hackathons:

Online hackathons are digital events that engage participants across the globe without any logistical barriers. Most organizations use a partner platform to conduct a virtual hackathon. Online platforms allow a certain degree of automation in the process, making it less challenging for the organizers.

Hybrid Hackathons:

Hybrid hackathons are a mix of offline and online hackathons. Most organizations choose to conduct the first few stages in the online mode, and then the final presentations of the product prototype are onsite at a chosen venue. While both offline and online hackathons have their pros and cons, a hybrid hackathon allows organizations to achieve their objectives through the right mode, with the right intensity.

The benefits of organizing an internal and external hackathon are multifold, each with its suite of benefits.

• The primary benefit of a hackathon organization is its ability to crowdsource ideas. Hackathons are playgrounds for tech enthusiasts to experiment with upcoming technologies and create something new and innovative.
• With hackathons always being associated with technological development, organizing a hackathon brings organizations into the limelight, positioning them as the voice of change, creating a strong employer brand and recall value, and helping organizations attract and hire the best talent.
• Internal hackathons are a great way to engage employees, build a learning culture, and foster innovation. Hackathons nurture problem-solving skills, cross-team collaboration, inclusivity and innovative team-building experience for a fruitful exchange of perspectives. They also present employees with a platform to explore their creative boundaries or discover innate interests and abilities.
• Hackathons also help organizations get multiple working prototypes in a very short span, accelerating the product roadmap. Hackathons expedite innovation from a couple of months to a couple of days.

A hackathon is a problem-solving platform, and it impacts an organization’s technical talent recruitment, new product concepts or use cases, and training for existing staff. These events offer distinct advantages over conventional innovation and issue-solving methods.

Continue reading to explore the steps for organizing a successful hackathon.

1. Define the objectives of the event

It is imperative to have a clearly defined objective to ensure the success of a hackathon. Without clear objectives, participants may lack direction, impacting the overall effectiveness of the event.

Hackathons are known to deliver results in five key objectives, discussed below:

• Finding new business solutions: Hackathons facilitate the discovery of new business solutions by involving individuals who are closest to the issues at hand. This approach allows for the improvement of existing products or processes and the generation of new use cases for existing products through creative ideation around specific technologies.
• Speeding up product launches: In large organizations, product launches often face delays due to research and development (R&D) time, internal processes, and approval requirements. Hackathons can expedite product launches by fostering collaborations with innovative technologies and ideas.
• Training and engaging staff: Effective training and engagement of employees are important for onboarding new hires and acclimating the team to new technologies. Hackathons serve as a medium for integrating new tools into existing processes, ensuring collaboration between team members, and encouraging innovation within the organization.
• Finding new talent: Hackathons can be leveraged to attract and hire candidates by hosting engaging events that leave a positive impression and reducing the time and cost of hiring by identifying standout individuals.
• Improving developer relations: Hackathons play a crucial role for businesses aiming to raise awareness of their tech products within the developer community, such as APIs or SDKs. Hosting hackathons centered around technical products can effectively build awareness and establish a strong presence within the developer community, enhancing developer relations and product visibility.

2. Prepare for the hackathon

Once the final objectives are established, the subsequent step involves preparing for the hackathon:

• Defining the appropriate format for the hackathon: Hackathons can take on various formats, including internal, external, online, and MVP hackathons. Each format serves distinct purposes, such as promoting innovation within the organization, recruiting participants from outside the organization, conducting online events, or facilitating the development of working prototypes.
• Establishing the terms and conditions: After selecting the format for the hackathon, it is imperative to promptly outline the terms and conditions. These should encompass all legal aspects and regulations pertaining to the organizer and participants, covering areas such as intellectual property rules and prize allocation.
• Creating a website for managing registrations: Building an online presence for the hackathon is necessary. This involves creating a website to engage and communicate with potential participants and setting up a seamless registration process.
• Creating a workback schedule: It is important to establish a schedule of milestones for the organizer to accomplish before the event. This workback schedule is necessary for ensuring adherence to timelines and seamless execution of the hackathon. These preparatory steps are fundamental in organizing a successful hackathon, contributing to the overall effectiveness of the event.

3. Prepare the event schedule

At this stage, organizers need to begin preparing the event schedule. It involves the following steps:

• Create a theme according to the objective: The first step is to develop a broad theme based on the objective outlined in the initial step. This theme should be comprehensive enough that potential participants can think of at least two to three ideas for their projects during the event. Some examples of themes are enhancing customer experience within the industry, developing an app for a social cause, etc.
• Develop challenges based on the theme: The challenges for the event should serve as sub-themes guiding participants to create the desired business solutions.
• Define judging criteria: The judging criteria of hackathon should be based on the objectives identified in the initial step and may include aspects such as business potential, relevance to the theme, practicality, and technical complexity. For instance, some relevant criteria would be business potential, the solution’s viability, relevance to the theme, and the effectiveness of the solution in addressing the problem.
• Prepare the hackathon schedule: Once the objectives, challenges, and judging criteria are defined, prepare the hackathon schedule. This schedule should include activities, workshops, coaching checkpoints, milestones, and deadlines.

4. Promote the event

After finalizing the preparations for the hackathon, focus on event promotion. The recruitment of participants significantly influences the success of the hackathon, and effective promotion is important to attract a diverse and engaged audience.

To promote the hackathon, a comprehensive communication plan tailored to reach the target audience is necessary. For instance, if seeking the participation of college students, engaging in an outreach campaign with local universities could be a strategic approach to maximize resources.

This may also involve crafting press releases, email templates for outreach, or developing ad copies and images for an advertising campaign.

For external hackathons, consider implementing the following creative strategies to promote your event:

• Leveraging social media channels to share and advertise the event.
• Using newsletters and collaborating with other relevant publications to promote the hackathon.
• Engaging with developer communities, universities, incubators, and meetups to inform them about the event and explore potential partnership opportunities.
• Investing in targeted advertising on relevant media outlets.
• Effective promotion is crucial to attract the right participants to the hackathon.

5. Make it engaging

While a strong organizational brand is important, it is essential to make the hackathon appealing to the intended audience by infusing elements of excitement.

Hackathons are inherently appealing because they offer an opportunity for programmers and domain experts to leverage their skills in a competitive setting, distinct from their regular work commitments. To attract this audience, it’s crucial to imbue the event with a sense of purpose that resonates with potential participants. Beyond the theme, consider incorporating the following elements to elevate the overall experience:

• A prize: Offering a prize can significantly enhance the appeal of the hackathon. Providing opportunities for participants to win something can make the event attractive. Prizes can range from cash rewards to job opportunities, internships, etc.
• Engaging activities during the hackathon: While hackathons are known for their intensity, incorporating downtime and leisure activities is equally important. Providing access to recreational activities such as table tennis, board games, or video games can offer participants opportunities to socialize during the event.
• Sharing content: Capturing and sharing images and videos of participants and their work can improve engagement and offer recognition. Sharing these visual assets on social media platforms keeps participants engaged and boosts event visibility as they share their experiences with their networks.

During a hackathon in any industry, certain key tips can be universally applied to ensure its success. Here are ten essential tips:

1. Clearly outline the specific technology or problem-solving goal to be achieved. A well-defined objective enhances the clarity and purpose of the event.
2. Choose dates that do not conflict with major events, holidays, or industry conferences to maximize participant engagement.
3. Seek commercial sponsors within the industry to support the hackathon financially and provide prizes. Establishing sponsorships is a mutually beneficial arrangement that can enhance the event’s impact and future opportunities.
4. Provide participants with ample notice, especially when involving prominent professionals. Clear communication in advance allows participants to plan and commit to the event.
5. Consider setting participant limits to manage the event effectively and ensure a quality experience.
6. When segregating participants into groups, ensure a balanced mix of subject matter experts and newcomers, fostering a fair and collaborative environment.
7. Develop a set of rules that apply to every participant, particularly in competitive hackathons. Clear guidelines ensure a level playing field and smooth event execution.
8. Decide between offering a single large prize or multiple smaller ones, considering the impact on participant engagement and the overall value of the prizes.
9. Announce the prizes beforehand to attract participants and motivate their involvement.
10. Consider incorporating training sessions focused on specific topics in the industry. These workshops, often centered on technology, can provide valuable learning opportunities alongside the core hackathon activities.

Mercer | Mettl helps businesses with hackathon planning, from inception to culmination. Our fully online platform, Xathon, helps set up a hackathon within minutes from anywhere, invite any number of participants and auto-grade the submissions for instant results.

While Xathon helps in organizing a hackathon, our subject matter experts assist in hackathon preparation. Here is how Mercer | Mettl can help conduct hackathons: 

Expert consultations for ideation

Leverage our in-house expertise to collaboratively brainstorm on hackathon themes, problem statements, different rounds and target audiences according to the hackathon’s objective.

Library of assessments and coding simulators

Get access to Mercer | Mettl’s rich assortment of question banks and a wide range of simulators (coding, case study, spoken English) to test domain skills, business acumen and coding prowess.

Attract high-quality participants

Harness our network of Tier-1 and Tier-2 colleges, along with a dedicated and customized marketing plan, to spread the word within the right communities.

Public or private hackathon organization

Our scalable platform is suitable and customizable for organizing both internal and external hackathons.

Seamless participant experience

Our single-dashboard multi-utility platform allows participants to effortlessly form teams, complete multiple rounds and track the competition on the live leaderboard.

Successfully hosting a hackathon involves the above six steps. After identifying the objective of the hackathon, the subsequent organizational process becomes simpler and more manageable.

On the day of the hackathon, effective online management is crucial to ensure that the final outcome aligns with the desired goals.

Following the conclusion of the hackathon, the post-event phase begins, which involves maintaining ongoing communication with participants to encourage their return to future events. Additionally, it is essential to engage with the winning teams to discuss potential next steps, such as product launches or team recruitment. These actions directly contribute to the return on investment (ROI) of the hackathon.