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Assuming that works and you actually get a few decent candidates to submit solutions, how exactly do you propose that the business guy/gal selects the winner? He can't evaluate their code, he can't evaluate their design decisions... What criteria exactly do you think the business guy/gal would use to select the winner?

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You would have to select a project that produces output the business user can judge. So if it's a UI, the business user can make sure all the parts are functional, the load times speedy, the edge cases handled, etc.

Defining edge cases without technical knowledge is problematic, load times are meaningless without load testing, so basically all you'll know is if the code works, and that is a very low bar to set especially for a startup.

And even if you could do all these things without technical knowledge at best you'll be able to weed out the mediocre, never find the best.

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