Ask HN: Is this sponsored weeklong "hackathon" actually exploitation? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is this sponsored weeklong "hackathon" actually exploitation?

13 pointsorkoden9 comments

BeMyApp advertised a week long hackathon http://hackerisland.bemyapp.com recently and I applied. A week in a nice hotel on an island and hacking on fun stuff sounds great.

Now they would like me to participate:

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Here, are some additional information on this hackathon :

- It will take place during the Edenred Annual meeting with 200 managers from 40 countries.

- The aim is to select 13 designers and 13 developers who will work in teams with Edenred managers in order to implement a new dynamic for innovation

- There will be 13 teams. Each team will be composed of 15 people : 1 developer, 1 designer, 2 team leaders and 11 managers

- As a member of your team, you will participate in choosing the theme of your app

- Teams will be divided in 3 sub-groups : Group 1 : mock up Group 2 : benchmark – Market study Group 3 : Commercial pitch

- 1 appointment per day will be scheduled with John and Pierre from BeMyApp to help you

We are looking for autonomous designers and developers who can work in team and adapt quickly. Indeed, most of the managers have never taken part in a hackathon and some of them don’t really use mobile applications!

As we want to take care of you and want you to have fun we have booked a 5 star hotel for the whole duration of the hackathon with a private beach and a swimming pool. On top of this, the 26 participants will win a PEBBLE watch and the winning team will win 4000€.

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I'll be the only dev in a group of 3 to 5 building a mockup. At hackathons usually at least half the people are devs. I have the strong suspicion Edenred wants developers to work for free at prototyping ideas of those over 9000 managers. The payment consists of a Pebble, plus flight, food, and hotel. If they hired freelance developers, this would have to be payed for too.

Am I too suspicious or is this ok?

It's not exploitative if they're clear what the expectations are and what you're given for them. Does this sound like an offer competitive with your best options? Knowing nothing of your situation other than "you can probably program" I'm going to go out on a limb and say "You can find better ways to get to a tropical resort than this."

Your definition of exploitative is a little broader than mine. I'd definitely say at the very least they are exploiting developers that don't understand current market rates.

It could easily be exploitative in the opposite way. What's to stop a developer from treating it as an all-expense paid vacation where they hang out on the beach all day and give lip service to the project they're hacking on? It sounds like BeMyApp is counting on the possibility of getting a job with them as a sufficient carrot to get free innovation, but unless they write a certain amount of time & results into the terms & conditions for their offer, there's no way to ensure that developers don't just take advantage of it.

It's sold out, anyway, though, so it's a moot point (and we can't seem to view the actual terms and conditions).

The team will consist of 2 people, 2 liaisons (probably from Edenred's software development teams) who may or may not be coders, and 11 observers who may have some input into the process - that is how I read it.

The top prize is simply far too low. I can get that at a random hackathon locally. The real prize is getting an enterprise deal done with Edenred to implement the product. Insist on retaining all IP rights to everything, which is normally the case for all hackathons. If they balk, mention that Salesforce hackathon participants get to keep their IP. That's about as high profile as it gets. Having won enterprise software events in the past (eBay/PayPal and Ford), I can tell you that they open very interesting doors if your objective is to sell enterprise software.

Other than that, it's probably going to be 1-4 people coding and 11 people taking notes and participating in Group 2 and Group 3 portions of the project. The team will be overstaffed on marketing and sales side, which could be interesting.

I would probably do it to lay the foundation to sell them something after the event.

Background: My team won a Ford event, they sponsored our trip to Vegas, paid for a 5-star hotel at a bargain rate of $350/night, gave us CES Exhibitor badges and some spending money. So that's somewhat similar experience. No regrets, I got lots of business opportunities as a result of this and the red badge was a magnet for press. :)

1 developer. 11 managers. wut?

Other than that, I find it a little odd that they don't actually link to Edenred. I know that they exist (a former client had a small partnership with them)

Sounds like a company I used to work for, they had 2 managers for every developer. That usually leads for a terrible decision making process.

It sounds like a variant on the "how many CompanyX employees does it take to change a lightbulb?" joke.

But in all seriousness, if anything 11 managers and one developer to a team suggests the objective is for the managers to learn stuff about teamwork and prototyping and innovating and all those other buzzwords rather than actually getting any viable products ready to ship. If they wanted to get stuff built cheaply they'd be better off organising their corporate-controlled "hackathon" with a normal developer ratio after doing their market studies, and if they want developers to bounce ideas off there's plenty of agencies keen for future work they could be courting without picking up hotel tabs.

That doesn't mean the experience won't be odd or that the hotel tabs represent market rate, but the potential for "exploitation" exists just as much the other way round if one or more of the managers is convinced the idea is worth proceeding with, and you're the only person that knows to build it and available for hire at an hourly rate you choose...

I think that working with that many managers is too much, in a hackathon and in a 'real work' context. I work in a similar environment as well ie 15 manager meetings where only 2-3 people including myself can actually do the implementation (design, development). It's a pain in the arse and I wouldn't even participate for fun!

Hackathons are meant to be fun and as a way to innovate with cool new technology and learn technology. If managers want to work with 'innovators' (designers, developers) the innovators should be paid since they are providing a highly valuable service of showing the innovation process.

I wouldn't touch this with a 6 foot pole.

This doesn't sound like exploitation, but it sounds like work disguised as a hackathon. Find out how many hours a day you're expected to work. If you're cool with that in exchange for hanging out at an island resort, go for it. Ask them to throw in a per-diem for food and drinks.

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