In a global race for a real buried treasure, how do you keep friends from becoming “frenemies?”

 

Two pieces of feedback we’ve heard since the beginning: “Please make more prizes available!” and “We love this program – but we’ll never tell anyone else about it because our odds of winning would go down!” Yes, the second comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek – or so we thought. But when you hear something often enough and from enough different people, you begin to listen. And as a startup still fighting to bring online learning to more and more students around the world, we could use all the word-of-mouth help we can get.

That’s why we made some changes to the Brain Chase prize structure last summer. Instead awarding the trip, the trophy, and the entire $10,000 scholarship to a single Grand Prize Winner, we’ll now offer a $5,000 scholarship to the Grand Prize Winner (yes, there’s still the trip and trophy), and $1,000 each to the next five runners-up. (Note – there’s only one prize winner per household per program, and each household can only ever win a Brain Chase Grand Prize once. See contest rules for full details.)

What does this change mean for participants? For one, it means your friends might suddenly become a bit more important to your strategy. There are no rules around collusion, networking, or team-building, so nothing is stopping you from phoning up a few friends and sharing your tips, hints, and clues. Think you have the winning guess? There’s nothing wrong with helping five of your friends become the runners-up. With any luck, they’ll do the same for you.

What do you think – was modifying the prize structure the right move? We’d love to hear from you at info@brainchase.com.