1) Get on a team. If you want to work individually, it is ok. However, working individually requires more effort, and is definitely not as fun as working in a group. Working on a team allows you to brainstorm ideas, play on each other’s strengths and distribute the amount of work.

2) Try to use more than one sponsor in your hack. Many sponsors have features in common. Many of them allow to send SMS, make VoIP calls, send real time messages and make WebRTC Calls. Using more than one sponsor will increase the possibility to win awards.  Note: this year’s sponsors include: vidyo.io,  telestax, matrix, Temasys and Apifonica.

3) Don’t lose too much time in coding details and programming best practices. TADHack is a hackathon and there are many things to do in a short period of time: You need to think of your hack idea, prepare the demo and work on the presentation. If you lose too much time trying to get a perfect code, you can risk your demo and/or presentation performance. No one will review your code, so having a few things hardcoded won’t affect the results.

4) Ensure a good presentation. The presentation is almost as important as the hack idea.  You can have a brilliant idea for your hack but if you don’t present it well, or you are not able to communicate it, it won’t be that interesting and you risk losing the attention of the judges. You need to tell a compelling story. It is crucial to clearly explain the problem you wanted to solve and how your hack helps in that context. Using a bit of acting is fine.

5) Use the TADHack Slack team. You can get help from the community and the official support from all the sponsors.

6) Try to do all you can in advance to the event. Read the documentation, learn what you can do with each sponsor, try to have a few things done before the actual TADHack weekend. You will feel more relaxed! Working on a few details, will give you time to change things at last moment and to practice your pitch.

Most of all, remember to have fun.

Good Luck!