The Hackathon Hamsterwheel
Outlining a common pattern among serial hackathoners.Hackathons are some of the best events the tech industry has to offer. Where else can you meet new people, build awesome projects, and drink copious amounts of coffee while your mind crumbles into madness?
Jokes aside, hackathons are great. They give the budding developer an opportunity to connect with other developers, build something new, and maybe win a FitBit + some cash. They’re a positive force in an industry where it feels like there aren’t many of them.
That being said, I’ve noticed something peculiar over the years. A phenomenon characterized by a shift in the culture of hackathons, and the behavior of those who compete in them. I call this the Hackathon Hamsterwheel.
► Hackathons as I knew them
My first experience at a hackathon was my sophomore year of college. Every year the engineering department put on a 24 hour in-person competition, and it was a blast. I worked with two other people who I’d never met before, and we’re all still friends to this day. We ended up taking home a prize, and it was one of the best feelings I had felt to date. I was hooked.
Throughout the next year, I’d find myself participating in hackathons every other month. These were generally online, since those are easier to come by. I’d get a team of random people from the event’s discord, drum up an idea, and maybe get a finished submission out. This was the trough of disillusionment on full display. I tried desperately to build ideas that I was sure would be winners, but came up short time and time again. One would say, a skill issue.
During this period, I was still doing it for the love of the game. There weren’t huge prize pools and a multitude of tracks. These were simple ordeals that were tailored for university students just getting started. This is stage one of the hamsterwheel.
► More Money, More Problems
As I started to delve deeper into Web3, I found myself running faster on the Hackathon Hamsterwheel. Prize pools got bigger, there were more tracks, more sponsors, more opportunities to make it big as a developer. I pounced at these opportunities. What started out as a hobby after school turned into skipping classes to meet the deadlines.
In hindsight, a shift in the industry (or my view of it) had happened. Hackathons were no longer short events where you’d pump out a cool side project that you could put on your portfolio. Those still existed of course, but they were largely eclipsed by the spectacles. Multi-week affairs with millions in total prize money, and tracks as far as you can scroll. These are what defined the next few years for me.
A key attribute of these new age hackathons is the framing. “Build the next big startup” or some variation of that is generally the message. The judge lineup will generally have at least a few VCs on it, and advertise the possibility of raising a seed round if you win. This is what enamored me, and many others. In today’s industry climate, startups are everywhere, and the grind of building one is romanticized. However, people don’t always notice the amount of highly valued startups that exist solely to serve other new startups. I’m talking incubators, accelerators, launchpads, many genres of management software, cloud hosting, and more. These have been the real winners. Do you see where I’m going with this?
Hackathons, and their organizers, have become hundred million dollar businesses off of this shift.
► The Definition of Insanity
The final stages of the hamsterwheel are well characterized by this quote:
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” - Albert Einstein
Einstein didn’t actually say this, but the sentiment rings true. Using this definition, the final stages of the hamsterwheel are insanity.
By this time, I had already zeroed in on one project that I was building. It was started in a hackathon, and continuously grew in subsequent hackathons. Normally, I’d build a new project for each, giving me a chance to iterate on new ideas and build new skills. Not anymore. Now I was submitting improved versions of the same product to different hackathons over and over. Chasing the dream of being announced as a winner, VCs practically knocking down my door to invest, and being recognized industry wide for what I’d done.
I didn’t place in a single one. I didn’t even get an honorable mention. Each snub would motivate me further to continue building, continue iterating, and drive myself further into burnout territory. All of this while continuing to feed into the narrative that my next big win was just around the corner.
This type of behavior is incentivized by many hackathons and their organizers. The ability to submit existing builds tends to disincentivize people to build something new. I can’t blame organizers for this, as they want to see projects continue to build and iterate, but it’s an uphill battle to compete with another team who has a two month head start. In all, it continues to perpetuate the hamsterwheel.
► The Message
While this may seem contradictory to what I’ve been saying throughout the entire article: you should participate in hackathons if you’re a young developer. I say that with a big asterisk however. These events give you ample opportunities to build something cool, improve your skills, get noticed by employers, and earn good prize money. However, it’s important to recognize why you’re participating in them.
The point of this article is to highlight a trend I’ve seen in young developers, including myself. A trend that ultimately leads to burnout, and self-doubt. Reflect on your goals for each hackathon, be realistic in your expectations, and don’t be afraid to take a step back.
Ultimately, I found the concept of the Hackathon Hamsterwheel important to write about because I lived it. It was both a great asset to my skills, and a one way ticket to my mental destruction. It doesn’t need to be that way for you.