Part 1 — Research

Inspiration References — What the Market Is Doing

Four market references that define the competitive landscape. SolarBuddy doesn't need to invent a new category — the category exists and corporate buyers understand it. The job is to build a version with genuine real-world impact at its centre.

1B — Market References

Four competitors and what they teach us

Dynamic Events Ireland — Digital Treasure Hunt

GPS-guided city exploration game delivered via smartphone
Reference
What it is

A GPS-guided city exploration game delivered via smartphone. Teams navigate to checkpoints, complete trivia and photo/video challenges, collect points, and compete on a live leaderboard. Ends with a shared "showback" where best photos and videos are screened for the whole group.

Event can be hosted without anyone in the room — staff monitor online. Remote facilitation is commercially proven here.

Key Mechanics
  • GPS navigation to physical locations — creates physical discovery and movement
  • Mixed challenge types (trivia, photo, video) — appeals to different skills within a team
  • Live leaderboard — maintains competitive energy throughout
  • "Showback" finale — shared viewing creates a social climax and memory anchoring
  • Remote facilitation — event hosted without anyone in the room; staff monitor online
What SolarBuddy can learn

The showback moment is powerful — it converts individual team effort into a collective shared memory. The SolarBuddy equivalent is the "Ripple Reveal" — all teams' impact paths converging on screen. Dynamic Events also proves that remote-facilitated format is commercially viable.

What SolarBuddy does differently

Dynamic Events' treasure hunt has no real-world impact. Participants have fun and go home. SolarBuddy's version ends with a real light going to a real child. That's the moat.

Jambar Team Building — "Are You App For The Hunt?"

Singapore-based APAC award winner; app-guided corporate team building
Reference
What it is

Jambar runs app-guided corporate team building in both scavenger hunt and themed challenge formats. Their "Are You Ready For AI" product layers an AI literacy theme over the traditional team game format — educational content delivered through competitive mechanics.

Singapore/APAC base suggests strong demand across Asia for this format — relevant for SolarBuddy's international growth.

Key Mechanics
  • Theme-over-game-engine model: gameplay mechanics stay constant; the theme changes per product SKU
  • AI literacy theme demonstrates corporate buyers will accept educational content inside team games when framed as "learn while doing"
  • Multiple product SKUs from a single underlying game engine
What SolarBuddy can learn

The "themed engine" model is commercially smart. One game engine, multiple theme layers (SDG decision game, city explorer, conference breakout). This is the architecture Bay AI recommends — build the platform once, skin it by use case.

What SolarBuddy does differently

Jambar's AI literacy theme is corporate upskilling — engaging but not emotionally resonant. SolarBuddy's theme is real-world humanitarian impact. The emotional weight is categorically different.

Stray Boots — Competitive Scavenger Hunts

One of the largest corporate scavenger hunt providers globally — 10,000+ clients, 800,000+ participants, 300+ cities
Reference
What it is

Fully app-driven scavenger hunt at enterprise scale. Deep customisation: custom questions, client branding, custom start/end messages. Event monitored in real time with online premium support. Post-event summary page with leaderboard and photo sharing.

Key Mechanics
  • 30+ different challenge types per game — variety sustains engagement over 60–90 minutes
  • Custom content + branding — corporate buyers want their own logo; this is table stakes
  • Online chat/photo sharing within the app — social connectivity built into the flow, not bolted on
  • Post-event summary page — the experience has an afterlife; shareable internally and in ESG reports
  • Scales from 8 to 10,000+ participants
What SolarBuddy can learn

The post-event summary is underrated. For corporate buyers writing ESG reports, a data export showing "your team completed X challenges, generated Y impact points, connected to Z SDGs" is genuinely useful output. SolarBuddy should build this from day one. White-label branding is an expected feature, not a premium.

What SolarBuddy does differently

Stray Boots' post-event summary has no real impact data — it's a leaderboard and photos. SolarBuddy's equivalent is ESG report collateral with SDG tags and verified impact metrics tied to real-world distribution.

AWA Denmark (Catalyst Global) — "IMPACT"

App-based team building game directly tied to all 17 UN SDGs — the closest existing competitor to SolarBuddy's vision
Closest Competitor
What it is

This is the closest existing competitor to SolarBuddy's vision for Product A. "IMPACT" is an app-based team building game directly tied to the 17 UN SDGs. Delivered by Catalyst Global through AWA Denmark. Runs face-to-face, remote, or hybrid/multi-location. Teams complete SDG-linked challenges, earning points and climbing a leaderboard. Donations are made through B1G1 (a giving platform) linked to participant activity.

Key Mechanics
  • Explicitly SDG-linked challenges — every task maps to one of the 17 goals
  • Three challenge difficulty levels — progressive complexity keeps experienced teams engaged
  • Multi-location hybrid capability — teams in different countries on the same leaderboard
  • B1G1 micro-donation integration — participant activity directly generates real-world giving
  • Mental, physical, and active task variety
  • Global Catalyst licensee network — delivered through partners across 50+ countries
What SolarBuddy can learn

This product is proof of concept for the SDG game format. It already exists and is being sold to corporates globally. SolarBuddy's version must differentiate — and it can, through the physical light artefact, the ripple narrative, the post-event "your light arrived" notification, and the emotional depth of the JuniorBuddy story.

The competitive gap

AWA/Catalyst's giving mechanic is a micro-donation via B1G1 — real, but abstract (a giving bundle, not a specific child). SolarBuddy's is specific: a real JuniorBuddy goes to a named community. That specificity creates significantly stronger emotional impact and more compelling ESG reporting collateral.

1B — What the Market Tells Us

Six consistent patterns across all four references

📍

Checkpoint mechanics

GPS/checkpoint mechanics for city games; challenge decks for indoor/office games. Both are proven and well-understood by corporate buyers.

🏆

Live leaderboard

A live leaderboard is the competitive glue throughout every format. Without it, team energy dissipates mid-game. Table stakes.

🎬

Shared finale

Every reference has a showback, reveal, or convergence moment as the emotional climax. This is what participants remember and share. The "Ripple Reveal" is SolarBuddy's version.

📊

Post-event data

Post-event summary and data export as ESG collateral. Stray Boots proved this creates an afterlife for the experience. For SolarBuddy, this becomes SDG-tagged impact data.

🌐

Multi-location capability

Multi-location / multi-city capability is the enterprise-grade differentiator that unlocks global corporate accounts. AWA's and Stray Boots' scale prove the demand.

🎨

Custom branding

White-label branding for enterprise clients is a baseline expectation, not a premium feature. Corporate buyers want their logo on the experience.

SolarBuddy's Moat

SolarBuddy doesn't need to invent a new category. The category exists and corporate buyers understand it. The job is to build a version with genuine real-world impact at its centre — and no competitor in this space has that to the same degree.

The difference is specificity: a B1G1 donation is abstract; a JuniorBuddy going to a named community in Uganda is not. A leaderboard of points is meaningless; a leaderboard of "+7,300 study hours" and "+80% kerosene reduction" is ESG reporting collateral. That specificity — SolarBuddy's real impact data repurposed as a scoring language — is the product moat.