
Ask HN: Review my startup - Banksta - F50V12
Check it out at http://banksta.com/<p>In short, Banksta is a simple and fast-paced auction site. It pairs up users anonymously and randomly as they bid against each other for an item. The highest bidder wins the item while the second-highest bidder forfeits their bid. This was, of course, inspired by Professor Bazerman's classic in-class example of human irrationality. And in staying true to that inspiration, we are currently allowing users to bid on 20 dollar bills. But we would like to expand into other items.<p>We think it would be remarkably insightful to watch real users actually use the site. So please feel free to explore the site. You can click on 'BID FOR FUN' to get a feel for how it works.<p>Would love your feedback on the idea, execution, and its direction!
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apsurd
For lack of a better, more constructive comment: This is no good.

This is clearly the framework for those shady penny auction sites like beezid,
quibid and whatever the hell other thousand clones have sprung up.

These sites are unethical. I feel like your about page is trying to present
banksta as some other more positive purpose when it's really not. The design
is lacking and of course the sample bidding thing consisted of me clicking a
button... not sure what I was supposed to get out of that...

I do not support your site.

~~~
growt
You're right, they are unethical and they face some problems at the moment. In
germany swoopo is laying of 50% of their staff and dealstreet closed. The main
problem is, that their "customers" never come back once they've been ripped
of.

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troygoode
This is incredibly silly because nobody will ever win a $20 for less than $20.
As an example, let's say you & I are bidding on the $20 bill...

\- After bidding for a while, I eventually place a bid of $19. At this point
if you quit I make $1 and you lose $18.

\- So now you bid $20. At this point if I quit you would break even and I
would lose $19.

\- So now I bid $21. Why bid $21 on a $20 bill? Because if I win I only lose
$1 (rather than $19) and you lose $20.

\- Now of course you would rather lose $2 than $20, so you're going to up the
bid to $22, right?

I'd be interested in hearing from somebody more knowledgeable than I in game-
theory: When should an agent quit bidding and accept their losses?

~~~
shaddi
I'm not an expert in game theory (I just had a half-completed econ degree once
upon a time) but your analysis is spot on as far as I can tell. The pareto
efficient outcome is for the first agent to bid $1 and for the second agent to
quit without bidding. If there is a counter bid, then the first player will
have an incentive to bid higher to avoid a loss. The second player would then
have to counter bid in order to avoid a loss as well, and so on. At the $20
mark nothing changes: at that point both players are now trying to minimize
loss. In any case, any other alternative from the pareto efficient $1 vs $0
bid will cause at least one agent to have a less preferable outcome, and hence
that strategy would be chosen by a "logical" player.

Maybe more interesting would be to have each agent pick a bid in advance and
reveal the bids simultaneously. Of course, the optimal strategy there would be
to just bid as close to $20 as possible and hope for winnings to accumulate
over time.

And in all of this it's not clear how the proprietor of this site will make
money out of this deal.

Feel free to correct me if someone thinks this is wrong: perhaps there is a
reason I never finished that degree. :)

~~~
a-priori
Strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

~~~
akkartik
_A_ strange game :)

(<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/quotes#qt0453844>)

~~~
a-priori
I stand corrected :)

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jat850
For a lot of questions here concerning the psychology of the $20 bid:

<http://mfinley.com/experts/bazerman/bazerman.htm>

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edanm
This sounds like the scam auction sites which are actually gambling, as
described by Jeff Atwood here:
[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/12/profitable-until-
de...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/12/profitable-until-deemed-
illegal.html).

Sorry to be harsh if I understood this wrong, but right now it sounds like
this is nothing more than a way to get money from people who don't know
better. It might work, but I'd never go there myself.

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w1ntermute
This is highly unethical. Like Jeff Atwood has said, they're gambling:
[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/05/penny-auctions-
they...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/05/penny-auctions-theyre-
gambling.html)

------
yoseph
Here's the best tip I could give you: Hire a designer.

Personally, I don't see a business here. I even tried to bid for fun and it
wasn't fun. I guess you're trying to create a new form of gambling?? The thing
for me is that it sounds like such a losing proposition I don't know why I
would risk my money. There are plenty of other forms of gambling that, at the
very least, have better odds, surely..?

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notahacker
How do you prevent gaming the system with a limit of two bidders? With low
user numbers at a given point in time, is anonymity enough?

With an unlimited number of bidders it's not dissimilar to the pay per bid
model used by the likes of MadBid and Swapoo and at least as potentially
profitable, at least until the point the government realises it's essentially
gambing and decides to regulate accordingly.

~~~
F50V12
Gaming the system was an early concern - one that we believe we solved.

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vaksel
your site just screams scam to me...not only the actual business model, but
the actual design too

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growt
<http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2952>

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owkaye
What software are you using to deliver the auction status updates which appear
directly below the image of the $20 bill?

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ElbertF
Clickable: <http://banksta.com/>

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dotcoma
This is really a banksta paradise!

(not that real banks are much better, mind you)

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sergiu
Are you pairing only 2 people for an auction?

~~~
F50V12
Yes, that's the idea. In the event that another user is not available at the
time a user joins an auction, that user is paired up with a bot.

~~~
sergiu
Why limit to only 2 people?

~~~
F50V12
No reason really - 'cept to study one-on-one auctions.

~~~
ac132
Are you trying to "study" auctions or make money? You need to be more explicit
about the goals of your site and as other people suggested: hire a designer.

Another really bizarre aspect of your site is the use of Adsense. If this is
supposed to be a real business why attempt to make some small pocket change
off Adsense? It's really quite confusing.

These things all add up to make you seem untrustworthy. 3 things to do:

1\. Clarify your purpose. 2\. Clean up the design. 3\. Get rid of Adsense.

Unless you're a content site that is living off ads it makes no sense to have
Adsense. Given that you're running a gambling site, the inclusion of Adsense
just makes it seem even more obvious that you have this naive get rich quick
ambition.

~~~
flipbrad
4\. Move it out of the jurisdiction of Costa Rica... no?

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pinksoda
\- Why would the auction loser forfeit their money?

\- Bidding on a $20 bill is stupid.

\- I understand you wanted to get it up fast and try it out, but you couldn't
design it a little better?

