Something we've heard (and experienced) with other industry awards shows is the opaque process used to determine winners.
So like with many aspects of The Starties, we are trying something different with the judging process. Settle in while we break this down:
We are assembling 3 groups of judges:
5 people from within our sponsor organizations
10 early-stage investors in the real-money gaming space
25 founders of startup and growth-stage companies in the space
Collectively, these people are members of The Starties Academy.
How Finalists & Winners are Selected
Here's how it works:
Nominations are received. Anybody can submit a nomination until February 9.
When a company gets nominated, we reach out to them to let them know. They can choose whether to accept or decline the nomination.
For those that accept, we ask them to prepare an awards submission package.
Awards submission packages will be shared with members of The Starties Academy.
For each award category, members of The Starties Academy will pick their top 3 submissions, and rank them 1-3.
The startup that has the highest number of "1" scores will be a finalist.
The startup that has the second-highest number of "1" scores will be a finalist.
The startup that has the third-highest number of "1" scores will be a finalist.
The startup that has the highest number of "1" scores will win the category award.
In the event of a tie in the scores, tiebreaker rules will be applied to objectively determine finalists and winners.
It is our hope that this process and framework sets a new standard for transparency within industry awards shows.
We also intentionally welcomed startup founders as members of The Starties Academy, as we think the community should be the ones wielding the most influence in picking winners amongst peers.
Since it's the first edition of The Starties, we might not get everything right, but our hearts are in the right place and we're open to any and all feedback for future events.
