Chainlink Fall 2022 Hackathon it’s out since 14th October, this event is one of the biggest crypto hackathons this year for web3 community and definitely is something worth trying. Like this, there are many others that take place throughout the year bringing opportunities for developers in the space to shine, show their best skills and also get some SWAG!
Before continue reading this post, go ahead and register here!
However, as common as they are, they remain chaotic, difficult to navigate and sometimes even frustrating. So, today we are talking about how to participate into a web3 hackathon without dying in the process, enjoying all the progress we make and also, increasing our chances of winning.
But first of all…
Why should you care about Hackathons?
Well, it’s not surprise for anyone that the crypto space is relatively new on the tech industry, people are joining web3 everyday and that means that most of us are just beginners. Myself, I’m an experienced developer with variety of projects with crypto on my back, and yet, I still feel like a baby, because there is so much I don’t understand, new technologies here and there and always something incredible to learn. Also, the preferred place to get that kind of experience are hackathons.
Moreover, universities are not offering curriculums for crypto, yet. So the place companies are looking for talent nowadays are hackathons, and us, as new comers trying to make ourselves a name on the industry we can find a place to call home on hackathons. Not to mention that there are plenty other reasons to join a hackathon, of which I will mention the most important ones.
- Get in touch with the community: most of the projects and proposals I work with on my daily bases are due to people I met on hackathons. So they are an incredible place to meet new colleagues and with luck, friends.
- Build a good portfolio: As mentioned before, a lot of crypto protocols are hiring people from hackathons and all the projects you submit helps you a lot to build a nice portfolio, increasing your chances to be successful on the industry.
- Get nice SWAG: Most of companies giveaway a lot of swag during their hackathons, in form of shirts, stickers, NFTs, POAPs and more. So you can get cool stuff just for being there.
- Prizes: Of course I have to mention this, if you submit a project and it is good enough you can earn money, from some hundred of dollars to several thousands, and if your project is good enough you may get funded and build the next billion dollar protocol.
I hope these are good enough reasons to encourage you to join a hackathon, so let’s give a look the basics of being a hacker on this events.
Choosing a Hackathon
So, you have decided to give them a try, you want to register yourself in one and build a cool project that will make you proud. But, which one to choose? the common place to look up for hackathons is Devpost, and with a simple search on “blockchain” category you will find a lot of them, some happening at the same time, so, which one should you choose?
To make this decision my advice is to focus on 3 key aspects.
The technology: Companies behind hackathons are constantly promoting the core technology of their protocols, so do a little research on google and discover how the technology works, which blockchains are compatible and how much you like the proposal. Is also a great idea to look for the sponsor technologies and do the same.
The Community: Most, if not all of them have a community, primarily on Discord, join the community and get in touch with people there and ask yourself. How supportive they are? How comfortable you feel with the community? Are they people who inspire you to build great products? and most important, Would they be good partners for a team?
The prizes: Although I will not recommend to focus your attention on the profits you can get out of a hackathon, as the real ones are more intangible. If you put a significant amount of efforts and spend time working on a project you will like to receive recognition for all your hard work, so don’t forget to check out the prizes you can win.
Haven’t decided yet? Again go and check out Chainlink Fall Hackathon, if you are reading this on October 2022 you have till 18 November to submit a project. And no, this is not an article sponsored by Chainlink, I just really like their technology and their community is amazing!
First Steps
So, you have registered yourself on a hackathon and you are ready to Rock! Usually you will join the opening ceremony hosted most of the times on YouTube and after the ceremonial welcoming and some extra steps is most likely you will get invited to join a meet and greet, commonly companies use platforms like Gather Town for this, then you’ll create your avatar and enter to this big event with a lot of people.
Here, you will most likely feel lost, really lost. when you enter to this meet and greets you’ll see a lot of people talking about crazy ideas and technologies you probably never heard of before, small and big groups spreading all over the place discussing topics with passion and the hosts with a lot of people around them trying to answer as many questions they can and giving as many feedback for project ideas they are capable of.
But you know what, is ok to be lost. Everyone is, specially on their first hackathon.
The key here is, don’t let this to make you feel intimidated and just talk to people about anything, of course talk about crypto, but also talk about the weather, your cat, the last lemon chip cookies you bought the other day, it doesn’t matter. The important is just to hang out with people, listen to their ideas, learn from their experience and share your own.
This events are supposed to be the best place to find a team and specially if you don’t have an idea, you can participate and build others person idea which resonates with you.
Teams are not easy to make
I do not have statistics for this but I would say that a high percentage of hackathon teams end up falling apart, for a variety of reasons, may be the project is too big and it makes people feel overwhelmed, may be people have other responsibilities like work, kids and more. So, before you jump in and team up with the first person you find on the meet and greet, let me give some advices for team building that might help you to decide whom you want to work with.
Have a clear objective in mind: When you enter a hackathon you can go there with different mindsets, if you are new you will probably want just to learn a cool new thing, meet people and build something small, or in the other hand you may have a big idea you are sure it can become the next billion dollar protocol. So, have that in mind when choosing your team members and always try to team up with people with similar objectives as yours, if you are new find people which is also new, if you have a big project in hands then team up with people with a more business focus mindset.
Be honest with your time: Is really easy to underestimate the time and effort a project could take, so before you commit to an idea take some time to review how much time you will actually have to work on the project. If there are going to be just a couple of hours per week, then you might prefer to work on a small project. If you want to fully commit to it a challenging one might be the best for you. Always have this in mind and be honest when people ask how much time you are willing to spend.
Be sure you feel comfortable: Despite most of people on the crypto space are really friendly and the communities are very supportive, it doesn’t mean that you are free to meet an arrogant prick which believes they are the center of universe. So, even if the technical skills of that potential team member seems to be impressive, if you don’t feel comfortable around them is better to find another team member.
Be aware of the time zones: I actually like meeting and working with people around the world and I met colleagues from all over the globe, however you must also take in consideration that if the time zones are to far from each other you might have problems at working with a team, so try to reduce that breach to 5-7 hours tops.
Note: you can always participate on a hackathon with a solo project, but you are going to be missing most of the experience.
What happens when the actual work starts?
def create_solution(problem):
if problem == exists():
keep_hacking()
else:
print("You have changed the world")
So, you have been lucky so far and you now have a team, with a cool idea in hands and you will work to make it real. Congratulations!
Now, things here can become great and also a nightmare. This is because is really easy to take a reasonable and doable idea and make it into a massive mess of a project you will never be able to finish, people are used to propose an idea and from that idea it appears three more, then other member propose adding another functionality and this happens over and over again. So before you make your project a nightmare here are some advices that might help you:
Keep it simple: is better to have a simple but doable idea instead of trying to create the next worldwide solution for all humankind problems. So the simpler the better, if you commit to an idea with your team, do not add more functionalities or features until you finish that main idea.
Focus on a MVP: a minimum viable project, in other words the product which has the minimum amount of features and specifications to satisfy the initial requirements of your project. Even if you are working on a big complex protocol, focus your attention on the core functionality which will make it work.
Work more, think less: is surprising the amount of teams I encounter on hackathons which spends weeks, even a month just polishing the idea they want to build. Don’t do so, if you have an idea do not expect it to be perfect and just start building, don’t waste your time creating a complex mockup on Sketch or Figma and just start coding. May be at first you will have a really ugly web page with a really simple Smart Contract but you can improve on it and is preferable rather than get freeze from overanalyzing.
Have a plan: the better your organization the most your chances to succeed, you don’t have to be a Scrum guru or a product manager. Just be aware of the time you have, split it on milestones and work hard to accomplish them, the best approach is to have one milestone finished each week.
Use a productivity Tool: there are a lot of them out there like Jira, Notion, Trello, Asana, Clickup and more, Just choose one and use it for the project, believe me it’ll make your life a lot easier.
I hope this advices will help you to have a better workflow to be able to finish your project in time and if you do so, y then you can upgrade and add more functionalities but just once you have all the core finished. That leads me to my next point
Do not trust the deadlines
Is really easy to say something like, we have what… two month to finish this project? Meh, we are going to be just fine. Believe, you are not! in the hypothetical case you finish your project in time, then you can upgrade, but that’s not likely, most of times you will struggle a lot just to finish the main idea on time so again, keep it simple.
You may end up doing most of the work on the last week or even on the last day. So don’t get that confident on the the deadlines, is better to make small constant progress everyday rather than to pack all the workload at the end. This is a problem bigger than it seems at first look, and this can cause you to hate your teammates due to the amount of stress you all are going to go trough, so to keep a good ambience with you and your team, work hard at the beginning and rest and the end, remember you have a plan so follow it!
Communication
Is highly probable to work with people in different countries and time zones, which primarily language might not be English so the internal communication on the team could get tricky as people may find hard to understand each other, so here are some tips to improve the internal coms:
- Listen carefully and attentively: to all your teammates ideas, proposals and concerns and specially if there is a language bridge put extra attention and try to fully understand them.
- Communicate all your ideas and doubts: no matter how small they are, try to use any resources you have at hand to express them as clearly as you can and specially if there is a language gap, try to exaggerate a little bit your expressions and support yourself with images, videos or slides.
- Use a professional tool or channel for communication: like Slack or even a Discord server, is really important for you to have a place where you and your teammates can catch up and have a record of what was told and what progress was made.
Final thoughts
At the end, my best and most important advice for you as a “hackathoner” is, have fun, enjoy the process. A hackathon project is a taste about how working for a big crypto company is like, but here no ones get fired if things go wrong, and you can always try again on the next hackathon.
So, have fun, be responsible with your teams mates and try always to keep good communication. Being a hacker on this events are something you will love and hate equally, but definitely something that will bring you a lot of learnings and also experiences.
Thanks for reading till the end, if you have any other extra recommendation of comment you want to add please feel free to do so on the comments, I’ll adding the best ones to the article and of course you will receive the credit for it.
Have a nice day and keep Hacking!
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