Tell HN: An idea for product "duels" where loser gives company to winner. | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: An idea for product "duels" where loser gives company to winner.

3 pointsamichail5 comments

The idea is for one startup to challenge another to a "duel". This would be some sort of officially supervised competition over a short period of time.

For example, it might be who will gain the most active users in a week say.

The loser of the duel must give away their company to the winner.

I think this could be quite a spectator sport -- attracting a lot more interest than typical marketing.

Moreover, it might really benefit sites with user created content, since there would be fewer competitors and hence more traction in each site.

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Let's be clear about one thing: all businesses, even startups, are supposed to generate profits. That competition already exists.

So, on it's face, this is a terrible idea. But not hopeless. Maybe it can be turned into a serviceable one if we turn the premise on it's head. Let's instead consider the question: What business activity would benefit from an intense competition conducted over a short duration?

Of the top of my head, what comes to mind is something like a product/service launch marketing campaign. Or perhaps something that has a defined expiration date, like event promotion.

Hmm... the way it could work is that the company whose business it is to adjudicate would solicit Customers requiring the marketing/promotion services. A Customer would be able to specify the rules, duration, judgement criteria and awards. Then the Adjudicator would open the solicitation to the public, and manage the resulting competition on behalf of the Customer.

Marketing/PR/promo companies would come to the Adjudicator's site to view the various Customers solicitations. They can then choose to respond to a solicitation as a Competitor.

That's kind of interesting, at least to me. Similar to another startup I worked on a few years back. So, what would the entrepreneurs setting up the Adjudicator need to do? Setting up a site to enable Customers to enter the actual competition criteria is trivial. There would be two big challenges.

One relates to verifying results. How would one accurately measure the key criteria of the competitions as specified by the Customer (eyeball views/tickets sold/etc), and corresponds them to the correct Competitor? Tricky, but solvable. I have some notions about that. You can probably think of a few ways.

The second has to do with creating lightweight, but binding, legal frameworks to protect the Customers', Competitors', and Adjudicator's interests. Non-trivial, but also solvable.

So, not necessarily a great idea, but definitely better than the original premise.

Thoughts? Ways to improve this idea? Or create a competition out of some other outsource-able business activity that customers would pay for?

Isn't this already happening? I suppose there's a business opportunity in making a spectacle of startups, but is it something you'd want your new company to endure. There's a lot of investment by founders and early employees in a startup. One slight design advantage could extinguish a business who may later become an incredible corporate machine.

Admittedly I'd be curious about startups that would engage in such an activity. By why not go all out. Have founders wear padded sumo suits and battle on a massive trampoline. The last one standing after a 5 minute duel takes all.

Or, you could compete like this: both companies sell products, and make money. Whoever makes the most money 'wins', but those that make more than they spend still get ranked in the credits.

I don't really see the need for any other sort of 'business competition'.

In the case with user created content, all companies in some domain could fail because they have split the community for that domain too much.

Presumably they won't all fail at exactly the same time, so whoever hangs on long enough wins in that case.

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