Journal, timeline, experiment tracker, etc for the trilvalchal

APPLY NOW for the $10,000 prize - sourced from some of the finest startup mentors in the world!

9/3 LAUNCH

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10/8 (just returned from Startup Istanbul!)

NEW MENTORS AND SPONSORS are ONENINE, David Bland, and Eamonn Carey - the beautiful thing about this is that the mentors are starting to come to us! There is nothing quite like the feeling of a marketing effort gone from push to pull. We are now up to about $5,000 in cash, hours in mentor-ship, and a $1,200 front end design and branding package from OneNine that the winner can use to test a specific hypothesis:)

9/12

Thanks to peer pressure, and +Jackson Lindauer the pot is now up to $4,300. $700 more and we launch officially to the teams... and focus on recruiting teams and finalizing the tournament.
New channel (thanks to happy cyborg, a service we will comment on separately - but it's awesome) = ssg

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9/10

We are psyched that Mike Fishbein is supporting the challenge. He's a prolific blogger and really knows his shit about custdev, marketing, and personal development. The teams are lucky to have him, so are we.
Our riskiest assumption remains at raising $10,000 but I think we can do it. We are at $4,100 now and when we raise $900 more we are going to shift focus towards recruiting teams. We may decide to make it clear that the 5k is the minimum prize and that 10k is just a goal... we will decide.
We are on product hunt, but who knows for how long... I am not sure how I feel about that channel for something like this, that said - I guess if you want to comment or upvote, it is directly tied to a measurable hypothesis "I believe that being on product hunt will result in 10+ quality teams applying by Sept 31"

9/9 - UPDATES (hours invested so far, 10ish)

RISKIEST ASSUMPTION is still that we can raise the $10,000 in commitments in enough time to keep everyone engaged. Should have it all done by the end of the month at the latest but should have 5k committed by next week.
UPDATES (specific to that assumption) we reached $4,000 in commitments today, mostly due to Ozan our hero.
HYPOTHESES to test (specific to that assumption)
---------At least half of the folks from last year will sign up again for the same or greater amount. So far we have retention from +Steven Sherman and +Dominique Aubry - waiting to hear back from +Douwe Wester and +Franck Debane :) even if the news is NO, we want to LEARN from it - that will teach people in the challenge to embrace all feedback, even if it is not what we want to hear.

Second RISKIEST ASSUMPTION as of today is that we can get 64 teams to ENTER (entering means 5 interviews submitted) by November 1st.
HYPOTHESES
-------------If we email teams that submit one interview, that the challenge does not start until the 64 teams are selected, it will cause them to share the link 2x as often as those who are not... ahem, threatened
-----------If we announce the full 10k of commitments... clicks to the bitly will hit 2500
-----------If we work with +Heady Vids , last years winner - our learnings will result in a smoother experience for everyone.

CHANNELS (this section needs work - want to figure out a TRUE ROI including time)