After watching 40+ demos I noticed a few things about the ones that stood out and ultimately won prizes:
- Sell the sizzle not just the steak. Simple ideas which were presented well overshadowed bigger ideas that weren’t communicated as clearly. Many presenters were so focused on what they were building they didn’t think of a good way to explain it to a room full of people in 2 minutes.
- Show the hack working live. If it takes too long to load or isn’t solid enough to demonstrate in real time the hack wasn’t nearly as impressive (and was more of an idea than a hack anyway). Again, simple hacks which ran smoothly beat out more elaborate ones that were a bit clunky.
- Don’t forget the front end. I know there’s a tight timeline, but at least do some basic design to give the hack some personality. Even just a background color to the interface is enough to make it stand out a bit.
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Here are a few of my favorite hacks:
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Clever corrilation between the daceability of popular music and the stock market. Not a lot of crazy tech to build this, but a good presentation put it over the top.
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Listen to previews of all the bands on a bill. It attempts to solve a valid problem and does so with an awesomely simple interface. SongKick’s API works pretty well when it comes to finding shows, but I wish 7digital had a more extensive library of samples (local bands don’t seem to be in their system).
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As a Last.fm stats junkie I totally understand why someone would build a tool to track what vinyl they’re listening to.
