ETHDenver Hackathon Judges: How to Excel in a Hackathon?
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ETHDenver Hackathon Judges: How to Excel in a Hackathon?
The greatest收获was learning knowledge and making a group of good friends at the hackathon.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWritten by: ZainanZhou
About the author: ZainanZhou is one of the six current EIP Editors and the first Chinese EIP Editor in the Ethereum community. EIP Editors are responsible for reviewing all EIP proposals submitted to the ETH community and play a crucial role in the development of the Ethereum ecosystem. Victor Zhou is also the author of protocols such as ERC1202 and ERC5750, making significant contributions to Ethereum's DAO voting governance protocols.
As one of this year’s judges, I noticed that some builders were highly talented but missed winning due to shortcomings in presentation skills—truly a pity. Given the limited number of Chinese-speaking judges in such international events and the lack of discussion within Chinese communities about competition experience, I’d like to share some insights from a judge’s perspective, hoping to help future participants. I also hope this encourages more dialogue and collective progress within the Chinese-speaking tech community:
1. Hackathon presentations are only 90 seconds—extremely short—so they must be concise. A project should highlight just one or two key product and technical innovations; other aspects can be omitted. Some excellent projects implemented many features but delivered them like a laundry list, making it hard for judges to grasp the most important points—a real shame;
2. If you have a demo, make sure to show it—even if only for 10 seconds, a quick glimpse can demonstrate your project’s completeness. My fellow judges and I place strong emphasis on this criterion. Some teams had fully built demos but chose not to present them due to time constraints, requiring us to ask proactively. This nearly cost them valuable recognition.
3. Demos vary in credibility: deployed demos, local demos, and design-only demos differ significantly in perceived completion level, leading to large scoring differences. If your project is nearly complete, deploy it on platforms like @vercel or @Netlify so judges can access it directly—this makes a big difference. Failing to deploy when capable is truly regrettable.
4. Project novelty matters. Without originality, your effort may as well be wasted. Most judges have seen countless products, projects, and past hackathon entries. Similar or repetitive ideas are easily penalized. Research thoroughly in advance to avoid duplication.
5. Visual appeal is both important and not. Poor visuals do hurt first impressions and reduce chances to impress judges. However, achieving a clean, professional look comparable to an average shipped product is sufficient—beyond that, further visual polish brings no additional scoring benefit.
6. Be ready to answer sharp questions from judges, such as: "Where is the centralization point in your system?" One team was stumped by this question, causing judges to deduct impression points. Another team answered clearly—even acknowledging centralized components—but earned extra credit for their deep technical understanding.
7. Be prepared to clearly explain which parts of your project were built during the hackathon period. For EthereumDenver, this is critical—early development or reusing old projects can lead to disqualification. One team wore T-shirts with their team logo and was asked, “When were these T-shirts made?”
8. Make smart use of existing templates. Web frontend templates can greatly boost prototyping efficiency and deployment convenience, often outperforming scratch-built projects even in visual quality.
9. As a blockchain hackathon, your project must answer: “Why does this problem require blockchain?” Many teams build thoughtfully, yet apply blockchain to problems easily solved with traditional databases. When this happens, I glance at other judges and can immediately sense their interest drop sharply.
10. A small consolation: hackathon judging involves considerable randomness. Sometimes missing an award is simply bad luck.
Ultimately, gaining knowledge and meeting great friends at hackathons are the greatest rewards.
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