December 10, 2014 at 14:09Hackathon Budget. Hackday experience
Hello dear readers of a cozy blog. Today we’ll talk about budgeting a hackathon: what to do if it tends to zero, how to work with an average budget and what to spend money on if you have a lot of them.
Under the cut - a list of costs and their distribution depending on the budget.
The novice hackathon organizer most often has to fit into the framework of a tiny budget and painfully choose between several necessary articles, none of which can be thrown out. The budget of our first HackDay was 60 thousand rubles, not counting the cost of gifts that the sponsors provided in kind.
The following is an itemized cost allocation based on the hackathon budget. Such a distribution is most optimal for maintaining the quality and results that you expect from the event.
Costs in the table below are cash. Of course, you can take a lot from this list by bartering - food, prizes and jump over your budget threshold. Everything that is not checked in its size, it is better to exclude or find a partner. This primarily refers to the rental site and prizes.
Maintaining a balance of budget-quality is very important. On the one hand, you are concerned about the level of the event, on the other hand, the fulfillment of your tasks that are not related to the development of the ecosystem and other blah blah blah included in the press release. Participants and partners will wait for a certain level, which you set by the quality of the site, the number of sponsors, the strength of the advertising campaign. Also keep in mind the correlation between the level of the event and the size of the sponsorship package.
What you don’t have to spend money on
What is better to spend an oversupply of money
All other expenses of the "super budget" affect the success of projects and the hackathon very indirectly, and our task, as we recall, is the development of projects and our own goals.
Not included in other sections
Our team works with the budget in the usual Google Sheets, shared for three people in the company, including the financial director. Instead of the size of the budget in the table above, ours are respectively “Planned spending” - poured before making a decision on the hackathon, “Actual spending”, “Responsible”, “Payment status”. The document is only shared with those people who work with it directly.
Sponsors do not need to show the budget. They pay you money and close some kind of pain - whether searching for employees, advertising their service or something else. Focus on completing their tasks, not the report.
In this article, many issues were not addressed, for example, the budget model, when the sponsors of the event cover the articles with their products or services. This is an option to get what you want bypassing direct money. In the next article I will talk about relationships with sponsors and about the “full-scale” model in particular.
Articles about hackathon organization:
1. HackDay review experience. Symbiosis of a hackathon and business. Format and basic errors.
2. Work with hackathon information partners.
3. Motivation of the hackathon participants.
4. Hackathon educational program.
5. The room for the hackathon.
Under the cut - a list of costs and their distribution depending on the budget.
The novice hackathon organizer most often has to fit into the framework of a tiny budget and painfully choose between several necessary articles, none of which can be thrown out. The budget of our first HackDay was 60 thousand rubles, not counting the cost of gifts that the sponsors provided in kind.
The following is an itemized cost allocation based on the hackathon budget. Such a distribution is most optimal for maintaining the quality and results that you expect from the event.
Costs in the table below are cash. Of course, you can take a lot from this list by bartering - food, prizes and jump over your budget threshold. Everything that is not checked in its size, it is better to exclude or find a partner. This primarily refers to the rental site and prizes.
Maintaining a balance of budget-quality is very important. On the one hand, you are concerned about the level of the event, on the other hand, the fulfillment of your tasks that are not related to the development of the ecosystem and other blah blah blah included in the press release. Participants and partners will wait for a certain level, which you set by the quality of the site, the number of sponsors, the strength of the advertising campaign. Also keep in mind the correlation between the level of the event and the size of the sponsorship package.
What you don’t have to spend money on
- Large cash prizes. Teams are unstable and it is not known whether this money will go into development. It’s better to look at them a few months after and finish on achieving visible results. This item does not apply to small cash prizes.
- Costly gadgets. Horror if the gadget was the purpose of participating in the event. But a hackathon is not a competition or an olympiad. Our task is to give a kick to the idea of business, and not give gifts to talented programmers and presenters - leave it to other formats.
- Buffet receptions and banquets after the demofest. A thing the evidence of which, it seems, does not need to be explained, but every six months I see pictures from the hackathon buffet. It’s like graduation in kindergarten in limousines. Spending should be approached wisely, if there is an oversupply of money, you should buy something really useful for teams and the ecosystem.
What is better to spend an oversupply of money
- Bringing experts from other cities and countries.
- Cash prizes in support of a team already operating in the market to avoid collapse and misuse.
- Image paid articles in the media - your reserve for the future.
- Prizes for startups:
- costly startup training business training.
- a business tour, for example, to San Francisco.
- paid participation and tickets for a good startup conference (Slush, TheNextWeb, StartupSummit, etc.).
All other expenses of the "super budget" affect the success of projects and the hackathon very indirectly, and our task, as we recall, is the development of projects and our own goals.
Not included in other sections
Our team works with the budget in the usual Google Sheets, shared for three people in the company, including the financial director. Instead of the size of the budget in the table above, ours are respectively “Planned spending” - poured before making a decision on the hackathon, “Actual spending”, “Responsible”, “Payment status”. The document is only shared with those people who work with it directly.
Sponsors do not need to show the budget. They pay you money and close some kind of pain - whether searching for employees, advertising their service or something else. Focus on completing their tasks, not the report.
In this article, many issues were not addressed, for example, the budget model, when the sponsors of the event cover the articles with their products or services. This is an option to get what you want bypassing direct money. In the next article I will talk about relationships with sponsors and about the “full-scale” model in particular.
Articles about hackathon organization:
1. HackDay review experience. Symbiosis of a hackathon and business. Format and basic errors.
2. Work with hackathon information partners.
3. Motivation of the hackathon participants.
4. Hackathon educational program.
5. The room for the hackathon.