The World Record Hackathon was a World Record Disappointment

I had way higher expectations than what was delivered

The Bolt.new World Record Hackathon ended this past weekend. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Well, a whimper followed by a lot of follow up questions after everyone was left feeling a bit underwhelmed.

In case you missed it, I made a rather bold declaration at the beginning of it:

You can probably tell from the title of the post that I didn’t win the $100K first prize. But that’s not why I’m disappointed in the outcome. I actually did win the hackathon, because I got exactly what I had hoped out of it: clarity of mission, the starting point for a movement, and the ability to explain my ideas to others.

On Saturday, we had a watch party for the awards being announced. And I didn’t have a big turnout, because I didn’t manage to pull a huge audience for what I was working on, but I had a couple of people who showed up. And they shared stories about how I had helped them win during the hackathon. People who didn’t think they had what it took to build being empowered to take action and change their lives.

That’s what hackathons are about to me. They are launchpads to the future. And Bolt.new managed to screw up the launchpad quite a bit. I didn’t realize how far off the mark they were, but I also realized I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was the same pattern I’ve seen everywhere else in tech. A lot of noise in the beginning, and then a lack of follow through in the end.

But let’s talk specifics: What did they do badly, and where could they improve if they wanted to have a meaningful hackathon next time?

Fix 1: Transparency around the process

I made an assumption that sunk me. When I saw a panel of 30 judges, I assumed that I’d have a chance to get a three minute video in front of 30 influential people. While I can’t say for certain that they didn’t see my video, from the reports I’ve been seeing in the comments, I’m pretty sure I didn’t pass the first wave of “AI” scanning the submissions.

The winner seemed to have a cool project based on the really fast video they showed. An AI powered video editor that lets you simply say what you want it to do and it does it? Sound great! I honestly thought it sounded like a better winner than I was expecting with some of the leadup projects. Except…then things started to get a little weird. Did this product actually work?

So, the team specified very detailed criteria of what you needed to include to be considered, and then ignored that apparently, didn’t seem to actually consider all of the projects, and managed to gain a bunch of media attention by half-assing a hackathon that over 100K people took the time to submit to, only to not be given a fair shake.

That pisses me off. This spits in the face of the people who busted their asses for a month, while a bunch of tech bros made bank from the sponsorships and media attention. This is exactly the type of shit that I’ve been fighting against.

Now I’ll admit that a lot of this is taken from random twitter comments, although there were others I’ve seen by people I know and respect in the initial aftermath that seem to have been buried or removed. But this is caused by a complete lack of transparency around the judging process. And there were very few people that spoke to the projects that were judged during the final stream, so I don’t know if all of the judges that were on the page were even actually affiliated with the hackathon!

There was an offhand comment on the stream that I think could potentially speak to how it was set up. Greg Isenberg was the MC of the hackathon, and he made a comment that he was announced as the MC before ever agreeing to it. I wonder if that was true of the judges too, and then not all the judges actually agreed.

More transparency will do wonders in the future. And maybe a little more underpromising, over-delivering, instead of what we got.

Fix 2: Grow a pair of balls

This is something that angers me about everything right now: it’s all so fucking BORING! I want to see some builds with heart and soul. Show me the weird shit, the stuff that breaks brains and wins hearts. Stop showing me fucking dashboards and the same damn app that Silicon Valley has celebrated 15 times in the last 3 months. It’s showing a comical lack of imagination.

Take a stand and pick the shit that really might make a difference in the world! Be willing to take a chance to be wrong!

In other words, grow a pair of balls.

Fix 3: Set a Victory Condition

This one is a little bit different, but it’s something that I think Buildspace did especially well with their Nights and Weekends program, which was basically a six week long hackathon. The prizes were secondary to the process. The goal was to ship something and get users for it. Not to win prizes. The prizes ended up being awarded throughout the process and you knew which people were doing well throughout. The transparency was there as part of the process, but also, everyone there was working toward a shared goal: personal success.

And if you fulfilled the steps of the process, you’d have a much better chance of success than if you didn’t, because it was based on real experience in shipping products.

I never won any prizes in Buildspace. But I feel like I completed it every time, and it wasn’t submitting a form that nobody saw. It was getting my idea in front of people who might care about it, and oh yeah, also the Buildspace team.

They made it easy to do the right thing and win. That’s what Bolt.new missed on. That’s not their job or their focus, so it’s not surprising they didn’t take this path, but it was a huge miss for me compared to what I’ve experienced before.

Next Steps

I’ve realized that hackathons are incredibly powerful tools for helping people transform themselves and their lives. And with the advances in AI tooling, anyone can participate in them. But you don’t need to wait for one. I’m now offering personal hackathons. In your personal hackathon, we will work together to identify your particular place in the universe, the problem you are solving, and we’ll build out your community around your idea. I know what hackathons can do and I want to give you one that actually helps you transform your life. Because now, I know what my superpower is. It’s making sure there’s no Kryptonite around you taking your superpower away.

I’ve got 10 slots available for the first round of personal hackathons, and I’d love to help you create one for yourself.