1.
HISTORY | GREP ‘HACKATHON’
BY JON GOTTFRIED
FOR OPEN TECH NYC 2013

2.
HI. I’M JON GOTTFRIED
Developer Evangelist at twilio
Conductor of the StartupBus
Co-Founder of the Hacker Union
@JonMarkGo

3.
HACKATHONS ARE A BIG DEAL

4.
HACKATHONS PER MONTH ON HACKERLEAGUE

5.
PARTY LIKE IT’S 1999

6.
OPENBSD
• June 4-6, 1999
• Focus on IPSEC
• Calgary, Alberta
• 10 developers
• communal

7.
SUN MICROSYSTEMS
• June 15-19, 1999
• Palm V
• John Gage challenge
• competitive

8.
HACKATHONS != STARTUPS

9.
2005 - SUPER HAPPY DEV HOUSE

10.
FACEBOOK

11.
2005 - BARCAMP

12.
2006 - YAHOO!

13.
2007 - STARTUP WEEKEND

14.
2009 - MUSIC HACK DAY

15.
2010 - HACKNY

16.
2010 - TECHCRUNCH DISRUPT

17.
2011 - ANGELHACK

18.
HACKATHONS PER MONTH ON HACKERLEAGUE

19.
HACKATHON MOTHER SAUCES
• Startup Hackathon
• Open Source Hackathon
• Competitive Community Hackathon
• Brand Hackathon
• Non-technical Hackathon

20.
STARTUP HACKATHON
• Not purely technical
• More practical concepts
• Mix between slides and demo
• Pre-pre-incubator

21.
OPEN SOURCE HACKATHON
• Pure community event
• No financial incentive
• No pitches, just demos
• Focus on a particular technology

22.
COMPETITIVE COMMUNITY HACKATHON
• Prizes galore
• Pitch is important
• Practicality is secondary

23.
BRAND HACKATHON
• Prize is the incentive
• Brands want developer mindshare
• Brands want demo apps
• Not community focused

24.
NON-TECHNICAL HACKATHONS
• “Ideathon”
• Business plan iteration
• Concept pitching
• Slide decks galore!

25.
DOLLA DOLLA BILL Y’ALL
• Developer Mindshare
• Proof of Concepts
• Press
• Lead Generation
• Community Support
• Recruiting
• Free Labor

26.
WHY DO WE HACK?
• Love
• Press
• Money
• Education
• Community

27.
WHAT IS NEXT?

28.
HACKING IS ART

29.
THANK YOU!
Jon Gottfried
Developer Evangelist at twilio
@JonMarkGo
jon@twilio.com