# Post-Hackathon > Share your work, follow up with contacts, and turn weekend projects into career-changing portfolio pieces. Canonical: https://thehackathonplaybook.dev/playbook/post-hackathon Last updated: 2026-06-24 --- ## The Tree Falls in a Forest Most teams pack up and move on after the hackathon. The ones who win careers (not just prizes) know the real work starts when the event ends. TL;DR The real work starts when the event ends: share, follow up, and keep building. It only takes one person seeing it. No followers? Doesn't matter. It only takes one. One person seeing your LinkedIn post. One recruiter clicking your Devpost. One conversation that changes your trajectory. #### Post Your Work Make it public. Post on LinkedIn, share the demo, pin the repo. You never know who's watching: a recruiter, a founder, a future co-founder. A private repo helps no one. Within the first 4 hackathons, a LinkedIn post about a project led to an interview, which led to a first internship. #### Nurture Connections Follow up within 48 hours. Judges, sponsors, and fellow hackers are warm now. In a week, they're strangers again. A short message referencing your conversation goes further than you think. Companies aren't just watching the winners. They're scouting for grit, teamwork, and innovative thinking. #### Keep Going You're already half done. Most people never start long-term projects because step one feels insurmountable. You already started at the hackathon. Spend the next 6 months making it outstanding. A proven hackathon project is the easiest starting point for a portfolio centerpiece or a real product. The Visibility Principle > “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” — Traditional philosophical thought experiment; earliest known printing in The Chautauquan, June 1883 (often misattributed to George Berkeley, who never posed it) If a project is made but no one knows, was it made? A private repo helps no one, least of all you. The First Internship Story At LA Hacks, a LinkedIn post about a RAG-style chat app caught an interviewer's eye. They were building the exact same thing. The interview became two people geeking out over one problem. A week later: first internship offer. “We didn't win. But that weekend quietly rerouted my trajectory.” ## Luck Surface Area — Share Your Work Luck isn't random. It's a function of what you do and how many people know about it. The more you build AND share, the more opportunities find you. TL;DR Luck = doing times telling. Share your work widely and opportunities start finding you. #### Jason Roberts' Luck Surface Area The more you do AND the more people who know about it, the more “lucky” opportunities find you. > “The amount of serendipity that will occur in your life, your Luck Surface Area, is directly proportional to the degree to which you do something you're passionate about combined with the total number of people to whom this is effectively communicated.” — Jason Roberts, serial entrepreneur and TechZing podcast co-host, “How to Increase Your Luck Surface Area”, Codus Operandi, 2010 (L = D x T) Where to Share LinkedIn post Twitter/X thread Blog post Devpost portfolio GitHub pin Portfolio site The proof: Within the first 4 hackathons, sharing publicly led to an interview and a first internship. Without job searching after that: 2 expedited interviews, 1 direct offer, and hundreds of recruiting DMs. All from visibility, not LeetCode. You don't do hackathons to win. You do them to network. ## The 48-Hour Follow-Up Hackathon contacts are warm right now. In a week, they're strangers. Follow up within 24-48 hours, before the connection goes cold. TL;DR Message everyone you had a real conversation with inside 48 hours, while the connection is still warm. #### Who to Follow Up With Anyone you had a real conversation with, not just winners or VIPs. - Judges who asked good questions - Sponsor reps who liked your tech - Teammates you'd hack with again - Participants you bonded with over shared struggles 48 hours follow-up window before it goes cold send now send now #### How to Follow Up Short, personal, and valuable. No generic “let's stay in touch.” - Personalize: reference the exact conversation you had - Add value: send the project link, demo, or a useful resource - One clear ask: coffee chat, feedback, or collaboration - Keep it short: 3-5 sentences max 3-5 lines short, personal, one clear ask Mark Granovetter, Sociologist — Strength of Weak Ties Casual contacts beat close friends for finding jobs. Judges, sponsors, and fellow hackers are weak ties, and weak ties open doors. “The Strength of Weak Ties”, American Journal of Sociology, 1973; one of the most cited sociology papers ever Porter Gale — Former VP of Marketing, Virgin America Your network is your net worth. Your connections reach far past the people you actually know, and the best ones form over shared struggles, like debugging at 3AM. Your Network Is Your Net Worth, Atria Books, 2013 ## Turn It Into a Long-Term Project You already have half the work done. Most people can't start long-term projects because it feels insurmountable. But you already started at the hackathon. TL;DR Win or lose, you leave with a working prototype, a team, and momentum: keep building instead of starting from zero. #### You Have a Proven Project A win is validation. Judges believed in it, it beat the field, and you have a working prototype. Spend 6 months making it outstanding, then make it your resume centerpiece. Why start from scratch when you already have something that works? Polish it, extend it, ship it. #### You Still Have Momentum A loss is rocket fuel. You still have a prototype, a team, and momentum, more than most side projects get. One hackathon spent learning vector databases won nothing, but that knowledge landed an internship and a full-time job. Losing hackathons is better than winning them; the “losses” are where the real growth happens. Steve Jobs — Apple Co-founder “Real artists ship.” Don't let it die in a private repo. Each iteration you ship makes it more impressive and more useful. Macintosh team retreat, January 1983, as recounted by Andy Hertzfeld on folklore.org; later popularized by Seth Godin Patrick McKenzie (patio11) — Software Entrepreneur and Writer Side projects compound into career-changing portfolios. His Bingo Card Creator, built on nights and weekends, became a full career pivot. Hackathon projects have the same potential. He ran Bingo Card Creator alongside a day job until he went full-time on his software business in 2010; story documented on kalzumeus.com ## Why This Works — The Science Post-hackathon actions aren't just 'nice to have.' They're backed by research on how careers, networks, and opportunities actually work. TL;DR Four researchers agree: visible work and weak ties, not raw talent, drive the opportunities that change careers. #### Show Your Work > “It sounds a little extreme, but in this day and age, if your work isn't online, it doesn't exist.” Kleon builds the case on a line he borrows from Clay Shirky, who teaches at NYU: “The real gap is between doing nothing and doing something.” You don't have to be a genius, just share what you make. Sharing is generosity, not self-promotion, and it attracts people who care about the same things. — Austin Kleon, author, Show Your Work!, 2014; Shirky line from Cognitive Surplus, 2010 #### Luck Surface Area > “The amount of serendipity that will occur in your life, your Luck Surface Area, is directly proportional to the degree to which you do something you're passionate about combined with the total number of people to whom this is effectively communicated.” L = D x T. Do more (build, iterate, contribute) and tell more (post, share, demo). One project shared with 1,000 people beats 10 projects nobody sees. — Jason Roberts, serial entrepreneur and TechZing podcast co-host, “How to Increase Your Luck Surface Area”, Codus Operandi, 2010 #### Strength of Weak Ties Sociologist Mark Granovetter's landmark 1973 study, built on his Harvard doctoral research and published while he was at Johns Hopkins, found casual contacts (people you don't see every day) beat close friends for finding jobs. They link you to networks outside your own circle. Judges, sponsors, and fellow hackers are weak ties. Cultivate them. They open doors your close friends can't. — Mark Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties”, American Journal of Sociology 78(6), 1973 #### Regret Minimization > “I knew that if I failed I wouldn't regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried.” Picture yourself at 80. You won't regret sharing the project or sending the follow-up. You'll regret staying silent. The downside of sharing is zero; the upside is unknowable. — Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, Academy of Achievement interview, 2001 ## The Post-Hackathon Playbook A step-by-step timeline for maximizing the value of every hackathon. Follow this and your projects will keep working for you long after the event ends. TL;DR Follow up day 1, post publicly by day 3, clean up and open-source in week 1, then keep building for months. Day 1 — Within 24 Hours Message judges, sponsors, and contacts. Pin the GitHub repo. Update your LinkedIn headline if you placed. Connections are warmest now, so don't let them cool. Day 2-3 — Share Publicly Publish a LinkedIn post and share the demo video. Tag teammates, sponsors, and the org. Tell the story: what you built, learned, and what's next. This is the post that gets seen. Week 1 — Clean and Open-Source Polish the README with badges, screenshots, and install steps. Open-source it, add it to your portfolio, and write a short post on what you learned. Month 1-6 — Keep Building If it has legs, set a monthly milestone and treat it like a real product. The hackathon gave you the MVP. Add features, get users, iterate. This is how weekend builds become portfolio centerpieces. ## The Ship-It Toolkit Run all four deliverables with one prompt, or grab a single skill. The portfolio site and YouTube description live here; the GitHub README and Devpost skills moved to the submission page. TL;DR One copy-paste prompt ships all four: the portfolio site, README, Devpost, and YouTube description, generated to tell one consistent story. #### Do All Four at Once One skill that runs the other four. It interviews you a single time, then generates the portfolio site, README, Devpost, and YouTube description in order, so they share one tagline, one set of stats, and one story. Best if you want everything done in a single sitting. ``` Install the Ship It skill and run it: npx skills add IdkwhatImD0ing/hackathonstarterkit --skill ship-it Use the ship-it skill to create all four of my post-hackathon deliverables in one pass: the portfolio site, the GitHub README, the Devpost submission, and the YouTube demo description. It should install the four sub-skills it needs (portfolio-builder, readme-writer, devpost-writer, youtube-writer), read the repo first, then interview me ONCE for everything all four need (the demo video and its beats, the live URL and Devpost, any awards, the event details, the team, and the challenges and what's next). Then generate the four so they tell one consistent story, pausing after each so I can redirect. Do not invent awards, stats, timestamps, or challenges. Note: the portfolio step uses Anthropic's frontend-design plugin, so if it's not already installed, tell me to run "/plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-official" and "/plugin install frontend-design@claude-plugins-official" before that step. ``` Or run them one at a time #### 1\. Build Your Portfolio Site Installs Anthropic's frontend-design skill for a one-of-a-kind look, then builds a one-page case study (hero, problem, architecture, demo, results, team, honest limits). Works even for non-web projects, and never invents awards or stats. ``` First install Anthropic's frontend-design plugin in Claude Code so the site gets a unique design, not a template: /plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-official /plugin install frontend-design@claude-plugins-official Then install the Portfolio Builder skill and run it: npx skills add IdkwhatImD0ing/hackathonstarterkit --skill portfolio-builder Use the portfolio-builder skill to build a recruiter-facing portfolio website for this project. Read the repo first, then ask me for the demo video, the live URL and Devpost, any awards, the event details, and the team info. If the project is not a web app (hardware, an ML model, a CLI), showcase it with photos, diagrams, and the demo video. Do not invent awards, stats, or prizes. ``` #### 2\. Write Your YouTube Description Writes the demo video's title, description, tags, and chapter timestamps so recruiters can find it. Reads your repo, asks for the video beats, and never fakes a timestamp or award. ``` Install the YouTube Writer skill and run it: npx skills add IdkwhatImD0ing/hackathonstarterkit --skill youtube-writer Use the youtube-writer skill to write the title, description, tags, and chapter timestamps for our demo video. Read the repo first, then ask me for the video length and its beats (so the chapters are real), plus the Devpost and GitHub links and any awards. Front-load the hook in the first two lines of the description. Do not invent awards or timestamps. ``` [Need your GitHub README or Devpost? Those two skills moved to the submission playbook page, next to the README and Devpost how-tos.](https://thehackathonplaybook.dev/playbook/submission#generate-it-with-a-skill) > “It's not enough to be good. > In order to be found, you have to be findable.” — Austin Kleon, author of Show Your Work! (2014) The hackathon is the beginning, not the end. Every project you share, every follow-up you send, every iteration you ship expands your luck surface area. One LinkedIn viewer might change your trajectory. You never know who's watching, or which conversation matters: the interviewer building the same thing, the recruiter who found your Devpost, the founder who saw your demo. You never know. And that's the whole point. ## Post-Hackathon Checklist A step-by-step summary for maximizing the value of every hackathon. The event is over. Now the real work begins. TL;DR Work this list while the event is fresh: follow up, post, clean up, open-source, and keep building. Follow up: personalized messages to judges, sponsors, and contacts within 48 hours Post on LinkedIn: tag teammates, sponsors, and the hackathon org Pin the GitHub repo to your profile and clean up the README Share the demo video: it's the highest-signal content you can post Open-source it if possible; it becomes a living portfolio piece Keep building: set monthly milestones (you already have the MVP) Make it findable: "if your work isn't online, it doesn't exist" (Austin Kleon, author of Show Your Work!, 2014) Remember: The hackathon gave you the project, the connections, and the momentum. What you do next separates people who attend hackathons from people whose hackathons change their careers. Share it, follow up, keep building. It only takes one.