But the best plan, and one most congruent to advice you would get from both the programmers (successful game developers, business-savvy hackers, etc.) as well as the artists themselves (designers: www.no-spec.com) is this:
1) ask around for recommendations on designers who've done related work before and how they were like to work with
2) establish what you are looking for, together with the designer, and let him or her create the art, of course making sure to have a contract that stipulates what is to be done and allows for a couple of additional levels of iterations
3) pay an agreed upon amount, not stock options. Yes, although I mentioned that some indie game developers go the route of offering royalties to artists, the real advice is to pay a flat amount to contractors for art, sound, and music and then keep full ownership of the game, and save lots of time and money managing royalties for the entire lifespan of the game, worrying about trust and tax issues, creating contracts with others, and more.
As well, on the hacker side of the equation, the author of the submission mistakingly equates "offering a few lottery tickets that might win five to seven digit figures" with "attracting the best designers." If you want to have a good design, you will have to do the leg work, and not throw it to chance and then say, "well, I tried! Let me offer 5 or 10 more percent."
And here's a new submission that design contests might not even be legal: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=443758
Edit: This might make more sense if you created a special class of stock without voting rights. If you're essentially giving away 5% of a potential exit someday that's one thing. Giving away 5% of control is another.
You have to think about the expected valuation of the startup. What are the odds that this particular startup is going to exit. As a lifestreaming service, I'd say the odds are around .01% (sorry, lets be realistic, web 2.0 doesn't have that many exits).
Given an exit of about $1M, we're talking about an expected valuation of the company at about $1,000 at its current state.
Then the question is, will giving up 5% of the website at its current state increase the expected valuation by more than 5%. I think that with a "kick-ass design" we can raise the success rate to 0.05%. Which increases the overall valuation by more than 5% of the stock given up, which increases the overall expected exit price, ergo 5% is worthwhile.
You're quite correct. What if they don't exit? Whats 5% of nothing?
I'd take the cash, thanks
Granted, you get what you pay for, but 5% is a massive overpayment even for "sweat equity."
(1), a professional design job for a template costs $1000-$3000. You're setting your valuation at 20-30k?
(2), the equity you're offering isn't worth anything. In practical terms, all you're offering is the opportunity for a designer to work on contingency. They don't like that.
If you really want to give up almost as much equity as a CEO takes 2 years in, or almost as much equity as YC takes up front, don't trade it for a design; find a partner who can do solid design.
Also: "Web 3.0 Enabled"
If anyone can figure out what they actually do, please reply to this comment.
It creates an underlying feeling that design is less important than the coding of the app - if you want a designer, bring them on as a co-founder and offer them equity. If your app requires a good user experience, you need a professional, not someone who spends a "few hours" to win a contest. I put "few hours" in quotes because that is a very low estimate for the amount of time it takes to create a great user interface.
Holding a contest is just a way to look at a bunch of free work and only reward one designer.
You can get out, but not without a lot of pain and legal fees. Be careful who you give equity to.
why not have the contest worded more to attract a design orientated co founder, 5% is a reasonable chunk of the company, for a template that can be knocked up in a few hours.
Summary: bad idea.
5% of any company is a huge chunk, especially for just a few hours of work! (In one company I founded, I only held 10%.)
If you win and these guys exit, you stand to make a few dollars.
This is a great idea though overall. For one, it's an easy way to get a good design for "free" for the owner. From an up and coming designer's POV though, it's a great resume/portfolio addition that could actually have a payoff in future years.
Me, myself and I take note.
Perhaps I should start a 'Help me out with legal issues' contest ;]
