Personally I find the way to winning hackathons is gamesmanship. If you’ve had startup (too small to get in TechCrunch) experience you know how to make a demo on a short deadline, how to demo broken software and look like Steve Jobs, etc. It helps a lot to get the right team too.
Great, now go apply yourself to winning things that matter, like global warming and disease. Hackathons are supposed to be about creativity and fun. If you can make nature bend, you have my respect.