Hackathons in Web3
An opportunity for recruiting a more inclusive builder community
This report explores why people join Web3 hackathons and how hackathon design influences the attendee experience. It features archetypes of hackathon teams and includes a hackathon journey map that organizers can use when planning their events.
Not everyone goes to Hackathons to win.
Insight 1 from the report. While many hackathon designers optimize the experience to help attendees win prizes, many of the attendees with whom we spoke were most interested in meeting new people and learning new skills.
Report Goals
For Web3 hackathon designers to better understand the motivations of people attending hackathons.
To create a framework that can be used to design more diverse and inclusive hackathons.
To understand why hackathons rarely yield projects that have significant long-term impact.
What’s in it:
An examination of why and how individuals participate in Web3 hackathons.
Archetypes for five different types of teams that form at hackathons
A framework for understanding the key components of a hackathon, as well as two case studies applying this framework to one in-person and one virtual hackathon.
We interviewed a range of developers, such as Tracey Bowen and Yip (Thy-Diep Ta), Co-founders of H.E.R. DAO. We spoke to hackathon organizers, like Ellis Norman, VP of Sales at HackerEarth.
Key Takeaways
Not everybody goes to a hackathon to make the sponsors’ technology useful.
Diverse participants don’t necessarily lead to diverse teams.
Team composition influences participant experience and project quality.
Event and experience design determines who is (and is not) included, reinforces values, and shapes behavior - for better or for worse.
The Hackathon Experience Journey timeline describes essential milestones in most hackathons. Each of these marks an opportunity to enhance the participant experience and signal the values of hackathon organizers.
Related CRADL Content
Experiment - Web3athon: A humanity-centric hackathon produced in collaboration with CoinDesk
Op-Ed - Why We Need to Build Web3 Differently: Hackathons are an ideal place to meaningfully shift the culture of Web3 towards building products with real-world applications, says the co-founder of Crypto Research and Design Lab.
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