[tedmiston]

The goal of each hackathon (and each team) can vary a lot. There is a big difference between say a local community hackathon and TechCrunch Disrupt.

The most common goals I've seen are:

- to learn a new tech: API / framework / language / etc.

- to build a random side project

- to solve a small personal pain point

- to begin to solve a larger problem that many people in the world experience (i.e., an idea with potential to become a startup) [1]

- just to win prizes

1: A lot of people think this is the only way to compete in a hackathon, or will go out of their way to present their product or idea as if it were a potential company, even if that's unrealistic. I don't think this is the best or only way to participate.