Supporting Entrepreneurship with Hackathons-A Study on Startup Founders Attending Hackathons

Entrepreneurial hackathons are generally perceived to foster the creation of new startups, support networking, and acquire entrepreneurial skills. Current research work about entrepreneurial hackathons focuses on reporting the perceived benefits of the participants. However, little is known about why startup founders initially participate in hackathons, how they perceive the impact of participating on their entrepreneurial journey, and how different hackathon settings can affect their perception. To address this gap, we conducted an interview study with startup founders who have participated in hackathons. Our findings indicate that founders are mainly motivated to participate in hackathons in relation to their startups to learn about the topic of their startup and train the prototyping skills of their startup team. Moreover, we found that the initial intentions of startup founders could change during the hackathon.