I have made $600K from hackathons this year. I have a very high hackathon winning ratio of around 80 or 90%. Some tips: 1. Think before starting. Idea is the most important thing. If you're building something that could go viral on X (AKA something fresh/new/clever) you have way, way higher chance to win. 2. Scope depending on the hackathon time. Don't do more than you need. Having the right working pieces is far superior than having many pieces that are not fully fitting together. 3. Polish! Be VERY detail oriented. Whatever you do make it perfect. Any small details that are off might potentially distract a judge, so make sure to make a smaller but tighter and cleaner project. 4. Everything that you present should be truly functional, don't fake stuff just to make your submission look "bigger". 5. Packaging is almost 50% of the submission. The video, the text, whatever the hackathon requires you for the submission. Don't leave it for the last moment. If you built something great but have a bad video, you have a bad submission. Learn how to communicate your great project. 6. You don't need a team anymore. AI has your back.