Using Design Contests to Achieve Stunning Logo Design {Million Dollar Idea Project}

As you know, I’ve been working what I’m calling the Million Dollar Idea Project, a side project I am doing in my spare time to turn $5,000 into $1,000,000 using only the tools I have available to me. I’ve pulled cash out from my bank account, and will be keeping track of everything I spend that money on and keep you abreast of my progress.

Today, we’re here talking about design.

The question of where design falls in a corporate budget is always a difficult conversation, but I think it belongs under marketing. Good design means the difference between a product coming off as hip and trendy or scammy and worthless.

We want to build trust with our users, and we’re most likely targeting a trend-setting younger audience, so our design needs to reflect that. Like I said, Care/of nails the aesthetic (though I could do with more vibrant colors, as the pastels just feel about 3 years too late for my taste).

Myself, I am not a designer, so I need help. While I do have some designer friends, they are a little too expensive for this project, which needs to be done with minimal funds. Getting a high-quality logo could easily tap into the entire $5,000 budget.

So I went where most people in my shoes go, design contests. 99Designs is the brand I’ve worked with in the past, and perhaps the best known player in the space, so I went there.

On The Economics of Design Contests

Design contests always felt like an economic risk to me. Given that you may have 10 people entering each design contest, with a price of $300, the estimated value of their work they submit needs to be $30 (since they have a 10% of chance of getting any money). It’s even less than that, given that 99Designs also takes a cut.

So compared to working directly with a designer on the same budget, theoretically, you are either going to be getting $30 worth of work or $300 (since the direct designer knows he’s getting paid).

Of course, there’s an element of competition here, and as we know, competition is what drives innovation in America. I believe this is why graphic design contests do actually have a tendency to produce great results at lower costs. Compared to a single designer who knows he’s getting paid and can kick back, contestants will pull out all the stops to win.

I’d also wager a guess that there’s a very minority segment of the contestant population that wins the vast majority of the competitions, and therefore the expected value computation above doesn’t quite work out that way.

How To Optimize Results

The key to successfully navigating a design contest is to be highly specific about what you are looking for.

First, you need a great name. I chose Alphawave Nutraceutical, because Alpha Waves are the brain waves associated with waking restfulness, most pronounced in form during mindfulness meditation, yoga, sensory deprivation, and self-reflection. Since I want this company to be as much a tool for self-reflection as it is a tool for distributing high-margin products to customers and boatloads of cash to my pockets, it felt like a great choice.

Alpha is also the name of the first experimental phase of a product, where things are being tested even before it’s mature enough to be called a Beta. I believe we are all in our alpha-testing phase, in life, and so this felt doubly-appropriate. To add a little extra, Alpha is what we all want in the market, returns over the benchmark indexes.

I chose the term Nutraceutical to distinguish it from Dietary Supplements, even though U.S. Law makes no such distinction, because I want to demonstrate just how powerful these substances can be for life improvement. I don’t intend to be distributing any cutting-edge nootropics, but I do intend to be making recommendations that will have real impact.

It also just sounds better, to me.

You also need to write a really detailed design brief. Designers are smarter than you when it comes to design, so it’s important to know exactly what things you need, and what things would be better left to the experts. Making sure to spend sufficient time on the design brief, and to truly understand what you’d like to achieve with the logo, pays off in the long-run.

Like leaving a bug report for an engineer, which has an ideal format that outsiders find difficult to adhere to (you need to specify what you did, what you expected to happen, and what happened instead), writing a design brief takes practice, and luckily, I’ve dealt with many great designers.

As the designs start rolling in, you need to be vigilant about doing honest ratings, leaving constructive, helpful feedback that guides the design in the direction you want, seeking feedback from outsiders who have a different perspective, and working with your designers to get at what you’re looking for.

Some designers have a tendency to just dump a ton of very similar designs. This makes it difficult to rate, as giving them a low rating feels dishonest, but giving them high ratings crowd your filtered set. I make a rule of only having 2–3 designs per designer in the 4–5 star category, and only choosing my favorites.

When it comes down to the final moments, it’s best to narrow your decision down to just 2–4 designs overall, and then step back, and let the crowd decide. Show the options to your friends and coworkers, build a consensus, and then make the final call.

This is what we ended up with, and I’m pretty proud of it:

It ended up costing just $300, which we were able to charge to a PayPal credit account with 6-month zero-interest financing, so we don’t even need to dip into our main budget line, and we can count on the upcoming cashflow to eventually pay down that price. If you’re not going into debt, you’re underutilizing your purchasing power.

After The Project is Done

Good designers are a real rarity, so once you find somebody you like, you need to hold on to them. You’ve got half the question down: this person can design. The next question is whether they will be down to do the work, and only by building a positive relationship can this be done.

Also, nobody understands an aesthetic better than the person who conceived it, so keeping this person around has some other benefits. Use the delivery process as an opportunity to show the designer that you can be a great client, and try to reach out about followup work. It’s probably against the rules, but you’ll also get a much better deal going directly to the designer and cutting out the middle-man.

Over the next couple weeks, I’ll be working with the winner to design the website, packets, dispensary boxes, and shipping boxes, until we get to where we need to go.

Financials Summary

We will be working to figure out what KPIs we want to be tracking, but now that we’re spending money, I think it’s a good idea to keep y’all abreast of our ongoing financial situation. So here are some stats:

• Cash on hand: $5,000
• Debt: $300
• Customers: 0
• Monthly Recurring Revenue: $0