We had this idea because there are many best practises related to hackathons
In general, Looks matter the most for a Hackathon Submission.
The Jury / Audience has about 5 minutes to judge the App. If it looks like a Million Dollar App, that's great.
What happens under the Hood, is of no particular interest.
Most Times the Hackathon is about one of these:
Business Case
Social Case
Which will win depends on the Hackathon Organizer.
Preflight
Check if they provide Accomodation.
Find someone to join your team. (around 4 people form a solid Team)
Check their Challenges. Identify which would be most profitable for the business,
and also the Social Cause Challenges.
Takeoff (at the Hackathon)
Find out if it is a business or a social hackathon
IMPORTANT
Talk to the judges and stakeholders for your challenge. Present them your Ideas.
Let them give feedback on your ideas.
8+ hours to develop the app. Focus on using Tech which most devs in your team can use.
Prefer languages /libraries with good ecosystem, such as
[Java,Javascript,Bootstrap,Leaflet.js,Chart.js,Disqus,Kotlin],
stay away from [PHP, Python, NodeJS, Vue.js, weird stuff no one uses] because they tend to fail and are also dynamically typed.
Get Some Fucking Sleep!!!
IMPORTANT
Use an API from the challenge creators
Bonus Points
Use innovative / difficult Tech such as: [ Blockchain, Face Recognition, Video, Photos, Live Video, VR, AR, ...]
Bonus Points
Create a Branding (Name,Logo,Colors) for your App
Bonus Points
Fake Data already in the App, as if People had used it.
Bonus Points
Deploy your App to a Server / Amazon AWS / ...
REQUIRED FOR LIVE DEMO
Get a Domain(around 10 Euros for cheap domain) , Subdomain or URL-Shortener-Link(bit.ly) for your App
Bonus Points
Touchdown (Presentation)
Have a tall, handsome guy with presentation skills do the presentation.
Have a Powerpoint to explain the Solution.
Do a Live Demo with the audience. Have the link to your App visible at all times during the Presentation.
Bonus Points
Printed Handout with the link to your solution and the key points.
Bonus Points
Look at the juding criteria. These could be:
Innovation (is it new, or has it been done before?)
Business Value (is there a clear business advantage in using the solution?)
Social Cause (does it help the poor people, women, children,etc ?)
Afterparty
Post the Link to your Live Demo on their Slack / whatever
Give everyone the Opportunity to try it out without time constraints
Tips to win
Tips to win a 'Business' Hackathon (backed up with data):
Either provide a promising Business model, or provide a clear solution to save on Costs.
Data about 'business' Hackathons to back up these claims:
My Team Won at Provinzial Hack 2018 with a Business Case about Renting and a Website
A Team Won at Kreathon Hack 2018 with a Business Case about decreasing Costs for a garbage collection company (which was a sponsor) by implementing hardware which would check which garbage-bins are full, and a garbage-car route planning optimizer. Overall this would save them 10% of the Cost.
My Team Won at Energy Hack 2019 with a Business Case about using Blockchain to track Payments for Africans to enable outside investors to gather information about credit-worthiness of a person.
A Team Won at ApoBank Hack 2019 with a 'smart financial assistant' App for Doctors, which showed financial recommendations and compared your financial information with that of other doctors, and the doctors could maybe for example switch insurances or invest some money. And the whole thing was gamified with levels and XP Points.
A Team Won at Journalism Hackathon 2019 with an Quiz App (like quizduell) that would let users battle against each other about regional knowledge. In the aftermath of a quiz-duell, you could see which answers you got wrong, and a link to the local newspaper page which contained the answer. This was to encourage young people to read newspapers to gain local knowledge and to provide traffic for these local newspapers
A Team Won at PropTech Hackathon 2019 by providing an app for renters to interact with their landlords, to ease their interactions which is usually by email or mail? The app would then also contain Ads and stuff.
Tips to win a 'Social' Hackathon: (backed up with data)
Do something with Air Pollution, Discrimination, Climate Change, ... if it is relatable to their Challenges.
My Team Won at GeoHack 2019 with an app that could compare 'Better Life Index' score for different regions in germany. 'Better life index' was their philanthropic score for how good life in an area is.
A Team Won DoHack 2019 by making an app where people could 'adopt' green spaces. This has to do with urban gardening. So people could post images, comments and such on a page for their green space. This would be done in collaboration with the City. It would promote environmental Stewardship and make the City Greener and increase Quality of Life.