An options and rewards simulator is not a business plan

An options and rewards simulator as a business plan

Can a three-line idea become the next big hit? According to a proposal circulating online, all it takes is to build a simulator where the user picks an option and receives a reward. It is so simple that some even compare it to SimCity, the urban simulator that built an empire. But there is a gap between the joke and the business that enthusiasm alone will not cross.

The recipe for a simulation that is not a joke

There is a difference between inventing a shell game and building a useful model. For an AI to run a simulation that makes sense, the design must include six basic elements:

• The goal of the simulation and the question to be answered.
• The system and its participants: people, companies, resources.
• An initial state with figures and conditions.
• Rules of behavior for each participant.
• Variables that change and constants that stay fixed.
• The time horizon of the exercise.

Without that framework, what you have is a whim, not a solution. The comparison with SimCity is dangerous: that game did have rules, an economy and consequences. "I'll figure it out tomorrow" is not a business model.

The gap between a whim and a business

A recognizable pattern: the certainty of having found the universal solution, trinc by a definition so vague it fits in a tweet. The triumphalist message crashes against the reality that building something sustainable requires planning the initial state, the rules and the variables. Whoever gets up ready to produce "added value" should perhaps start by fixing their own grammar; in the end, the only guaranteed reward is the one the simulator itself hands out. With that level of vagueness, the next entrepreneur who announces "I have the solution!" should bring the parameters and the schedule. If they don't, the reward will probably be the same one their simulator offers: nothing.