Winning and Losing — Here’s What I Learnt From Hackathons and Startup Competitions
“No, no, and no. Who even let you into the final round?”
That is probably the last thing you want to hear after you think you have done a great job with your pitch. Alas, the judges had different opinions on the feasibility of my business idea.
“Could you please elaborate on what is wrong?” I asked.
Silence across the room. Finally, they spoke up.
“I don’t like the way your logo looks.”
“I don’t think machine learning algorithms have the capability to detect objects in pictures.”
I was floored. Granted, I wasn’t a expert logo designer or machine learning engineer, but it doesn’t take an expert to know that these are not constructive criticisms, especially not in a business plan competition.
“Thank you,” I said, and left. I did not return for the prize-giving ceremony, nor did I care about who won. But inside me, a fire lit up. Little did I know, the negative vibes I had gotten from that experience became my biggest positive energy and motivation to start participating in various hackathons and business plan competitions.
My First Hackathon
My first hackathon was in 2017, when I was still a freshman. We had a very young and passionate lecturer, Ms. Christy, to whom I owe my first hackathon experience. Prior to this competition, I had absolutely no idea that there were technical competitions, nor was I interested to find out about them.
However, I went anyway. I had six other group members, and on the first day it was a little chaotic. Neither of us had experience, and we scrambled to get our slides done before the cutoff time on the second day. But there was one very important part we missed: the business plan. We had all our technical details down to the dot — but when we got questions about how we would market our product, none of us could answer. Needless to say, we did not win, but it was still a great experience overall. You can view a snippet of the pitch here:
Moving on in 2019–2020
In September 2019, I signed up for my first hackathon in 2 years. It was the F10 Fintech Hackathon in Singapore. I had saw the Instagram ad for it a few days after my disastrous business plan competition. I wasn’t sure if I would be accepted, but decided to register anyway. I got accepted, and took a bus to Singapore on the morning of September 13th.
This hackathon proved to be a turning point in my technical career. I met 100+ amazing people from over 20 different countries, and although I had trouble finding a team at first, I ended up with 3 amazing people who decided to take me under their wing:
We pitched a solution that would enable the unbanked have easy access to financial services that would otherwise not be traditionally accessible, and managed to make it to the final round. However, we were not chosen as one of the winners, and after a reflection discussion, we realised that we did not emphasise enough on our value proposition.
My next venture was in the Microsoft AI for Accessibility Hackathon, where my team and I won. It was a relatively short competition, but nevertheless I learnt an important lesson: demonstrate something. Had we not made the video showing what we envisioned, I don’t think the judges would have been able to fully grasp what we were trying to say.
Here is a snippet of the pitch:
A week after that hackathon ended, I participated in the Kuala Lumpur NASA Space Apps Challenge. This competition taught me a very good lesson: be very sure of your ideas and communicate efficiently. Ultimately, I think what led to our failure was the fact that each of us had different expectations of the idea and could not get our thoughts across. Still, it became a very good indicator of what my personal strengths and weaknesses are.
In my subsequent hackathon, I made sure to put teamwork and communication as my priority. I assembled a few of my friends together to form a team, and gave very clear goals and instructions on what each of us were responsible for. This strategy proved to be a success; when everyone knew what exactly they had to do, tasks were carried out faster and that left us with more time to polish up on parts that we felt like we were lacking on. This was my first major win, and it felt great achieving it with really awesome people:
The last two competitions for the year 2019 were business/startup competitions. Drawing lessons from my first one, I crafted my pitch in such a way that there were minimal jargon. I realised that not everyone is a technical person, and a truly successful entrepreneur who knows their ideas in and out is someone who can explain them at varying levels. This trick worked, and I would also have to thank my teammates for the trust they placed in me to pivot our business plan around.
Hackathons are a great way to learn new things within a time limit, but it is important to know your level of technical expertise and what you truly want to show. In the NUS Hack&Roll 2020 hackathon, my team members and I tried to do too much in too little time. Nearing the end of the competition, we felt overwhelmed and tried to pivot our idea but it was too late to decide which functions were truly important. In the end, we had to skip out on a couple of essential features because we were too busy with the trivial ones.
Do’s and Dont’s
Now that I have finished narrating my experience, let me summarise a list of do’s and dont’s in hackathons/startup/business competitions!
Do’s:
- Always communicate. Nobody can read your mind.
- Plan and distribute tasks accordingly. Know the team’s strengths and weaknesses, and coordinate an organization of duties.
- Show a working prototype. Humans are visual creatures. We understand things better when we can visualise them.
- Practice your pitch. Especially in hackathons, where everyone is super hung up on the technical side of things. Sometimes your winning point could be the amazing pitch you just delivered.
- Always have a business model in mind. Be prepared to whip out something, even if you think it is a technical competition. Oftentimes teams lose because they did not plan this part enough.
Don’t’s:
- Do NOT go into competitions with the aim of winning. This messes with your mind and takes away any learning experience you are supposed to have.
- Do not use too much jargon. Sometimes participants try to overcompensate by using too many technical terms and this leaves everyone feeling confused and overwhelmed.
- Never answer “I don’t know” to any question. Chances are, judges are not really looking for the right answer, they just want to grasp a general sense of the team’s vibe (this is especially true for business competitions).
Alright, I think that is all I have for my first Medium article. I hope this article can be somewhat of a help to anyone who is looking to start competing to improve their skills. If you liked this article, please give a few claps and my Instagram a follow: lyfeofjoyce . See you in my next article!
