How I Used Hackathons to Grow My Startup

Did you know that hackathons can help your startup grow?

And I am not talking about sponsoring some hackathon, but conducting one for your startup.

You must be wondering: ‘Isn’t a hackathon a big tentpole-type event, that only Enterprises can afford?’ 🤔

To be honest, I had a similar notion. In fact, I had pitched hackathons as an idea in my previous job at a startup, but it was rejected due to the above bias. 🤦

Whatever analysis I could gather, hinted at this as an expensive proposition with hard-to-justify ROI. So obviously, it didn't make the cut

However, when I took the plunge to start UXHack, somewhere I had the urge to validate my hypothesis.

In its initial avatar, UXHack was essentially a platform for companies to get UX Feedback on their products, from Product & design professionals and aspirants.

So, to grow the platform, I needed both :

• Users who can provide feedback and
• Startups who would be willing to post their problems

I thought to myself: ‘This is probably a good time to validate my hypothesis if a hackathon can work for a startup?’ But there were challenges:

• I didn't have a big budget. In fact almost zilch
• I didn't have an innovation problem that could be solved by coding

And I knew, given the premise, just naming it as 'Hackathon' would have sent the wrong signals.

But I had to execute it anyhow. So, here are a few things I did:

• Termed it as 'UX Hackathon' as that's what essentially it was all about
• Identified partners:
  • A partner to help in distribution. Where can I find startups and users both? Co-working seemed to be the best bet. Didn't want it to be a big bang. So, being in Noida, just shortlisted popular co-working spaces here and got Unboxed Coworking as a co-brand
  • A reward partner: Thought some organization that provides Product/Design certifications could be a good fit. So reached out to Upgrad and they too got on board
  • Got a few in my network, whom I respected as professionals, to be judges
• Created a very basic landing page, and we were on. In fact, I cringe when I look back at it now.

The first hackathon we did itself got us 200+ new users and had 5 startups posting their problems 😎

In the initial couple of years, we managed to do around 7-8 hackathons which I think gave us roughly 1k new users.

So, If you are wondering if hackathons are a right fit for your startup, here are key learnings that can help you decide 👇

• Hackathon is just not about novel ideas or coding: I think the general perception in the market is that a hackathon is all about coding, and hence you don’t see many startups do it. But, to be honest, a hackathon can also be about Design improvement, UX improvement, or just about getting the best feedback on your landing page. Can you identify such problems for your startup?

  
  

• It should naturally fit with your business: Since we were solving a chicken and egg problem, it worked for us. You will need to evaluate the nature of your business and accordingly see if there is a fitment. Though, I do believe, any business can definitely tie in hackathons as a way to find the right talent.

  
  

• You don’t need a big budget: While cash prizes attract, I have seen vouchers/in-kind/internships/job offers can also work equally well. It all depends on your target audience and the complexity of the problem statements.

  
  

• Distribution is the key: Having the right partners is like having a secret sauce.

  • Basically try to get three types of partners:
    • Distribution partners: those who can help you spread the word
    • Reward partners: those who can provide cool rewards
    • Judges: those who can judge the submissions
  • From the above three, I will say the first is the most important. Without the right noise and reach, your hackathon will not go anywhere. In our case, we found the right distribution partner in Co-working. Since they had both companies and our target users.

• Leverage a platform or use no-code tools to bring efficiency: Can’t emphasize this enough. We weaved into our product an event module to help us run this smoothly. So, from people signing up, submitting their work, and getting evaluated, we tried to make it as operationally efficient as possible.

  
  

• Conduct it online: We have tried both online and offline hackathons.

  But guess what? Online hackathons have always performed better for us. Both time and moneywise, it has always given us better ROI. And I think both are key for any startup.

  
  

Happy to chat if you would like to understand more about using hackathons in your startup marketing efforts.