The product management competition from Bending Spoons

In total, there’s €52,000 gross prizes. When all submissions have been evaluated, the top 40 participants each win €300, and are invited to attend the Awards in Milan (or online, depending on the COVID situation). That’s where the top three rankings, as determined by the expert judging panel, are revealed. The highest ranking participant wins €20,000, the second highest wins €13,000, and the third wins €7,000. Prize winners are asked to provide a bank account, and the transfers happen within five working days of the Awards ceremony. Prizes are subject to taxes—see the rules for full details.

The goal is to identify the best 40 submissions, so we can invite their creators to the Awards. There, we reveal the final rankings, and award the winners accordingly. To do so, we follow a two-phase process. First, a jury of Bending Spoons team members scores each submission and passes the top 40 to the next phase. These 40 submissions are scored again by a jury of experts, composed of external judges. To minimize bias, the judges aren’t told the score each submission received during the first phase, and each judge scores each submission individually without consulting anyone else. We then rank the 40 submissions according to the average scores assigned by the judges, discarding the previous scores of the Bending Spoons jury. We extend an Awards invitation to the top 40, and assign prizes accordingly.

The Bending Spoons jury and all of the judges are provided with a list of criteria to follow, with each factor carrying equal weight:

• Customer insight. Make sure you clearly identify your target audience, understanding it comprehensively and addressing it precisely.
• KPI identification and impact estimation. Define how to measure the success of your product idea in both the short and the long term.
• Go-to-market plan. Set the guidelines for your product’s launch and beyond, balancing ambition and pragmatism.
• Creativity and innovation. Your idea should be fresh, inventive, and as disruptive as possible.
• Structure and attention to detail. Your work should be polished and pristine, with information clearly displayed and well organized.

We vow to ensure all submissions are judged objectively, with the minimum possible amount of individual bias. So, to avoid unpleasant and useless disputes, our decisions are unappealable, and we won’t provide the judges’ scores or the reasons why a certain work is judged superior to another. Please only participate if you promise to be a good sport about it. 😉

You may use any tool, as long as you submit your work as a PDF file. We provide more details on the exact format required in the brief.

The contest doesn’t require your physical presence, and you may send your submission from October 1 at 7 pm CET, to October 4, 11.59 pm CET. We announce the winners during the Awards, which will take place on March 19, 2022 at the Bending Spoons HQ, via Nino Bonnet 10, Milan, or remotely, depending on safety guidelines closer to the event. The 40 top-ranked participants are invited to attend the Awards. We provide all travel and accommodation expenses, assuming it goes ahead in Milan as planned.

Productflows is completely free for all participants. If you qualify for the Awards and they take place in Milan, Bending Spoons provides food, hotel accommodation (the night of the Awards, and either the night before or after too), and refunds all travel expenses up to a maximum amount of €300 per participant. This is on top of the €300 won by every participant attending the Awards. If you’re traveling by train or by plane, we’ll book the tickets for you. If you choose to reach us by car, we ask you to send the related payment receipts via email to info@productflows.io after the event, and to provide a bank account for the refund according to the instructions set out in the rules. Refunds/expenses are paid together with the payment of the prizes.

We don’t use your work for any commercial purposes without your prior written consent. However, we reserve the right to display all submissions within the scope of this contest. For more details, please read the rules.

Applications remain open until September 30. We reserve the right to close the application window earlier and at any time. When applying, you’re asked to provide your full name, a contact email, your LinkedIn, your CV, and a cover letter. This helps us reduce spam and cheating, and gives our recruiting department something to work with. Should any of the provided information look like a joke (for example, if your name is “Anakin Skywalker”), you won’t be invited to take part in the contest.

Students and recent graduates of a European university, or European students or recent graduates living anywhere are welcome to apply. Productflows is all about encouraging and stimulating students to pursue a career in product management, where Bending Spoons believes there’s a huge opportunity to achieve even more. To enter, you certainly don’t need to be an expert in product management—although, of course, a bit of experience within the field will probably help. Also, participants must be at least 18 years old at registration date. We’re going to trust your word regarding your nationality, residency, and age. However, if we get suspicious, we reserve the right to ask for documentation. 🧐 Granting admission to the contest is at our sole discretion. See the rules for full details.

Bending Spoons is a tech company that specializes in developing and marketing mobile apps. Our apps are used by tens of millions of people all around the world, and get downloaded 300,000 times a day on iOS. We sponsor and organize Productflows to encourage students to pursue a career in product management and to make our brand as an employer more widely known (we’re hiring!). For more information on Bending Spoons, check out our website, as well as what Spooners say about working here.