Software development contest in business plan?
Our business
Greatly simplified: We provide data obtained from localized
hardware via sensors (mostly cameras) and make it available on the
Internet via an API. Having a good UI for the data is non-trivial, and
usability is crucial for success.
Contest idea
Instead of developing the UI in-house, I am now thinking about proposing to hold a
public contest:
- Challenge: Create an easy to use app that interfaces with our API.
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Condition: Release source code on Github.
Rationale: That way we can continue building on top of it. Our core
business is hardware (roughly speaking), and we wouldn't mind having
the public software component open sourced forever. - Prices could be money, possibly also a contract for future development.
Can this work? How can we put the plan for a UI contest into a business
plan, i.e. without scaring off investors that are used to UI
wireframes? It's a bit vague, right? There is also the problem that competitors may steal the idea during the
development phase, which the contest is part of. Personally, I am not
too worried about stealing: Setting up the hardware on location is
non-trivial, requires certain industry contacts (we have), permits from
local authorities (we have), and big funding (to be secured).
Examples
What others have done:
- Boston Launches App Challenge to Link Transit and Bike Share (2012)
-
eIDEE contest for apps that interface with the German ID
(public voting started today)
Software Contests Outsourcing Business Plan Hardware
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How are you planning to advertise/market your contest to get enough people involved? Obviously its much easier for a City/Country/Large Established Company to get interest in something like this. – Ekoostik Martin 11 years ago
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@EkoostikMartin That's a good question. As far as I can see, 1. we would need good rewards, and 2. we would need to do lots of publicity work, contacting the right people and groups. – Feklee 11 years ago
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honestly I think your time and money is better spent hiring a new employee or even a contractor to complete this UI for you. While a cool idea, there are probably only a few companies that could pull this off correctly, and an unknown startup is not one of them. Also, to do this contest for such a key piece of your overall solution seems troublesome as well. – Ekoostik Martin 11 years ago
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@EkoostikMartin, I appreciate your insight! Perhaps I'm naive, but I still believe in the idea of holding a competition. Consider that this particular problem seems as much creative as it is technical. A good comparison could be an Architecture competition. It seems common knowledge that hiring a big name Architecture firm doesn't guarantee a solution that fits the space. – Feklee 11 years ago
1 Answer
If something isn't a part of your core business (software, for a hardware company) it's always worth considering outsourcing or offloading it somehow. It frees up more of your time to focus on what you're good at.
Can a competition work? Only you can determine this for your specific situation, but there are definitely times and places where this could be very successful. Of course, it needs to be executed well and properly motivate/reward the right kind of participants.
You do run a risk of spending a bunch of your time designing and managing this contest, and getting no good software out of it. Making software takes a lot of effort, and making good software takes even more. This might be your weakest link. Most successful software competitions that I know of take a day or a weekend to complete. Sounds like you might want something more involved.
To address your question about presenting it in a business plan without scaring off investors, let me ask you a question. Are you actively pitching to investors right now? Do you need the investors to run the competition?
If the answer is no, you could just do the competition and see what happens. If it fails, chalk it up to something you tried that didn't work and move on to the next thing. It drops out of your future plans, and it becomes more or less irrelevant to investors. If it works, then you're one step closer to the finish line, and people will be happier to invest.
If you need the investors before the competition, I'm quite certain that there is a way to present it that wouldn't scare them off. Like I said, it is a sound business move to try to outsource work that isn't a part of your primary purpose, and investors generally understand that. I suppose if I were in your situation, that's the angle I would take.
I think most investors would not reject you based solely on the fact that you've decided to try to outsource the software development through a competition. You should be prepared to explain why you think that's the best choice (research your alternatives) but this idea shouldn't be a deal killer with investors.
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Very helpful - thanks! Our two team leaders are pitching to investors, now. In the team, I am responsible for the software, which is based on work I have done before. The project is an entertainment event, broadcast via the Internet. If investment happens, there will be a company, though at first just for that event. To our knowledge, nobody has ever tried something comparable before. Therefore I would like to see different and creative approaches - which led to the competition idea. We are also supported by two publicly funded research institutions, but I don't want to place all bets on them. – Feklee 11 years ago
