How an online tournament can discourage “finish next week”
Hello! I want to talk about online competition for projects and startups, where I have been playing for the third month with Loresome as a project. This time was the most productive and focused not only in the life of the project, but, probably, in my life as well.
A brief summary of the article for those who have no time: Pioneer is an online tournament similar to a hackathon that never ends; you saw your project, write a report of 280 characters every week, vote for other participants, get feedback and motivation, communicate with other players from all over the world in thematic chats. Finalists are awarded with various bonuses and potential investors.
Pioneer is a gamified tournament and community for ambitious developers and creators of whatever. Previously, the championship was held in 4-week cycles, but more recently it has switched to an uninterrupted model. Makes tournament Daniel Gross - former partner YCombinator.
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You can participate from anywhere in the world, and with a project of any kind: from academic studies and art, to blockchain and AI. Here is the distribution of projects by category a couple of weeks ago:
Education is the dominant category, most likely due to the participating students and recent graduates who are always unhappy with the existing system ( I definitely was! ). Many projects in AI, medicine, and blockchain. But the math world especially no one is going to change.
Having reached the end, the winners themselves become Pioneers (Pioneers?). This title is accompanied by a lot of bonuses:
Full list can be found here .
The logical question is why the organizers do this? The answer is to find the next unicorn and invest money in it. Relevant clipping from the rules of participation:
And what if you are an artist or a researcher, and you are not going to create any companies? Then you will get all the prizes without any conditions at all:
Free translation: “we want to support everyone who changes the world for the better. But entrepreneurs have an advantage - they can make money with their vocation. We hope that a small share in their companies will help us support future generations of Pioneers. ”
Projects of past winners, like the winners themselves, are very diverse. Here are some examples from the last round (age is shown in brackets):
Looking at the list of finalists winners, you can see that many of them are very young, and in the descriptions of projects there are a large number of buzzwords. But there were exceptions.
The main weekly participation cycle looks like this: on Sunday you send a progress report for the week, during Monday you vote for other participants, and on Tuesday you get points based on the votes for your project. In addition to voting, points can be obtained for various tasks - “quests” - such as laying out a one-minute video about your project, or connecting to the chat of a tournament on Discord.
There are only three fields in the report - a brief description of the project, a week’s progress, and a plan for the next week - and all three have a limit on the number of characters.
Most often, participants use different hacks to contain more information and make the report more attractive:
Bullets
+20 for specific metrics
59% more emoji
Less words
More bullets
Links to bit.ly with screenshots and demo
After the end of the voting, a letter comes with earned points and feedback from other players:
After getting into the top 100 of the global table, it is possible to select three adviser-mentors and write them letters. For example, in the list of experts you can find such stars as Marc Andreessen and Stephen Wolfram. The organizers try to diversify the areas from which they invite experts, but most of them are now somehow connected with the Valley.
Pioneer is constantly experimenting with chat rooms for participants on Discord. After connecting to the server (+25 points), the bot puts you at the “village” - a channel with 20-30 other players to communicate on arbitrary topics. Previously, the distribution was random, now people are trying to group by similarity of projects.
Chatting supports motivation and, at times, brings random bonuses. I once asked for advice on hiring designers for freelancing, and in response received a link to the coolest design book that I met - Refactoring UI.
Also, the organizers arrange additional activities - in the last tournament every week it was possible to ask live questions to the “expert of the week”; and the other day included the broadcast of presentations of the finalists of the tournament to investors in the Valley.
Participation in the tournament changed my approach to the selection of goals and strategies to achieve them. When reputation is at stake (in front of random people on the Internet, yeah), the desire to “finish next week” and fix the “color out of that button” magically disappears. I would never go through all the hell circles of publishing the first app in the iOS Store in a week if it were not for the tournament. Or here is a screenshot of the results of the week when I set myself the goal “to find new users and get some feedback” (I am still analyzing feedback):
Advisors are one of the most interesting looking tournament bonuses, but my experience so far has been rather disappointing. For two tournaments I wrote to four experts (+1 letter that should have been sent to several relevant people at once), but did not receive a single answer. Players in chat rooms shared similar experiences (including those in the top 10).
Getting feedback every week is one of the most important factors for project development. Fidbek in the tournament is different from what users would have written, since participants evaluate the development, and not just the visible part of the product.
Pioneer has a stunning effect on my progress with the project. Maybe it will work for you too! 280 characters is a small price for the motivation and focus that participation gives.
Learn more and register here .
Thanks for reading! You are awesome
A brief summary of the article for those who have no time: Pioneer is an online tournament similar to a hackathon that never ends; you saw your project, write a report of 280 characters every week, vote for other participants, get feedback and motivation, communicate with other players from all over the world in thematic chats. Finalists are awarded with various bonuses and potential investors.
Pro Pioneer
Pioneer is a gamified tournament and community for ambitious developers and creators of whatever. Previously, the championship was held in 4-week cycles, but more recently it has switched to an uninterrupted model. Makes tournament Daniel Gross - former partner YCombinator.
')
You can participate from anywhere in the world, and with a project of any kind: from academic studies and art, to blockchain and AI. Here is the distribution of projects by category a couple of weeks ago:
Education is the dominant category, most likely due to the participating students and recent graduates who are always unhappy with the existing system ( I definitely was! ). Many projects in AI, medicine, and blockchain. But the math world especially no one is going to change.
Prizes
Having reached the end, the winners themselves become Pioneers (Pioneers?). This title is accompanied by a lot of bonuses:
- $ 1000 Directly + $ 7,000 Equivalents (Stellar)
- $ 100k credit for Google Cloud and AWS
- Free Stripe Atlas Services
- Tickets to Silicon Valley
- Industry Leadership Mentoring
Full list can be found here .
Where is the catch?
The logical question is why the organizers do this? The answer is to find the next unicorn and invest money in it. Relevant clipping from the rules of participation:
Pioneer will give you an opportunity to make it a lot more. Our right will be expire once we’ve invested $ 100,000 in the company (if others are investing $ 50,000, we’ll invest at most $ 10,000).Translation: in case the winners of the tournament create a company and attract investment (or win and attract into an already created one), Pioneer will have the right to participate in the investment round (with a limit of 20% on the value of the round and $ 100k total limit).
And what if you are an artist or a researcher, and you are not going to create any companies? Then you will get all the prizes without any conditions at all:
Pioneers will be the painters, painters or musicians. Extremely successful people. It is a comparative advantage. We hope that they can fund future generations of Pioneers.
Free translation: “we want to support everyone who changes the world for the better. But entrepreneurs have an advantage - they can make money with their vocation. We hope that a small share in their companies will help us support future generations of Pioneers. ”
Winners of past tournaments
Projects of past winners, like the winners themselves, are very diverse. Here are some examples from the last round (age is shown in brackets):
- Arun Johnson (18), USA: Study of New Materials for Nuclear Energy
- Ahmed Moselhi (17) and Cameron Kerr (15), USA: Personalized Immunotherapy with AI
- Karolis Šablauskas (27), Lithuania: automated ultrasound diagnostics of the heart
Looking at the list of finalists winners, you can see that many of them are very young, and in the descriptions of projects there are a large number of buzzwords. But there were exceptions.
Ready player one
The main weekly participation cycle looks like this: on Sunday you send a progress report for the week, during Monday you vote for other participants, and on Tuesday you get points based on the votes for your project. In addition to voting, points can be obtained for various tasks - “quests” - such as laying out a one-minute video about your project, or connecting to the chat of a tournament on Discord.
Report
There are only three fields in the report - a brief description of the project, a week’s progress, and a plan for the next week - and all three have a limit on the number of characters.
Most often, participants use different hacks to contain more information and make the report more attractive:
Bullets +20 for specific metrics 59% more emoji Less words More bullets Links to bit.ly with screenshots and demoFeedback
After the end of the voting, a letter comes with earned points and feedback from other players:
Advisors
After getting into the top 100 of the global table, it is possible to select three adviser-mentors and write them letters. For example, in the list of experts you can find such stars as Marc Andreessen and Stephen Wolfram. The organizers try to diversify the areas from which they invite experts, but most of them are now somehow connected with the Valley.
Chats and community
Pioneer is constantly experimenting with chat rooms for participants on Discord. After connecting to the server (+25 points), the bot puts you at the “village” - a channel with 20-30 other players to communicate on arbitrary topics. Previously, the distribution was random, now people are trying to group by similarity of projects.
Chatting supports motivation and, at times, brings random bonuses. I once asked for advice on hiring designers for freelancing, and in response received a link to the coolest design book that I met - Refactoring UI.
Also, the organizers arrange additional activities - in the last tournament every week it was possible to ask live questions to the “expert of the week”; and the other day included the broadcast of presentations of the finalists of the tournament to investors in the Valley.
Personal sensations
Participation in the tournament changed my approach to the selection of goals and strategies to achieve them. When reputation is at stake (in front of random people on the Internet, yeah), the desire to “finish next week” and fix the “color out of that button” magically disappears. I would never go through all the hell circles of publishing the first app in the iOS Store in a week if it were not for the tournament. Or here is a screenshot of the results of the week when I set myself the goal “to find new users and get some feedback” (I am still analyzing feedback):
Advisors are one of the most interesting looking tournament bonuses, but my experience so far has been rather disappointing. For two tournaments I wrote to four experts (+1 letter that should have been sent to several relevant people at once), but did not receive a single answer. Players in chat rooms shared similar experiences (including those in the top 10).
Getting feedback every week is one of the most important factors for project development. Fidbek in the tournament is different from what users would have written, since participants evaluate the development, and not just the visible part of the product.
Conclusion
Pioneer has a stunning effect on my progress with the project. Maybe it will work for you too! 280 characters is a small price for the motivation and focus that participation gives.
Learn more and register here .
Thanks for reading! You are awesome
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/460485/
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