

Ask HN: Help validating my startup, goowi.net - asotelo


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aswerty
I think you're on to a winner with regards identifying a pain point for people
in terms of dealing with the numerous charities, people, and organisations who
request/solicit money from them. But does this product not just add one more
channel that they then have to deal with? Because I'm someone who has the
problem you highlighted, I was nodding along with the video on your website.
But then I realised it doesn't solve my problem because it doesn't reduce the
number of existing channels I already deal with. It is actually changing my
problem from n to n+1.

The Goowi platform looks to add value to businesses as opposed to individuals.
And like your video says "businesses aren't people" which means they don't
have pain points, they just have a profit margin. So if your product increases
that profit margin by increasing sales sufficiently through perceived social
responsibility then you're looking at a viable customer base.

Things I'd point out though are that this platform is going to compete with
existing loyalty schemes that put money back in peoples pocket as opposed to
having them give it to a charity. For certain demographics the charity angle
could work better than a loyalty scheme. With loyalty schemes the pay back is
generally pretty low but consumers don't mind because they get something free.
The cash equivalent of this going to a charity might not seem like a whole lot
of money under the cold light of day. Also as with loyalty schemes certain
people (like me) dislike the lock-in nature and hassle of such schemes. I
prefer companies that give back without making a song and dance about it or
companies that are inherently socially responsible.

To bring it back to the video. I don't think your helping Nicole, your just
helping the business and Nicole is a means to an end. I'm not criticising
that, I'm just saying that's how I see it.

Finally, and I'm sure you given this thought, providing the platform as a
white label product would look like the best course because Nicole needs to
see Company X providing the money going to charities and not Goowi.

~~~
asotelo
Thanks a lot for your comments !!!. You are right, we somehow compete with
loyalty programs. We add value to businesses to help them become socially
responsible. We add value to individuals by giving them money & comfort on
getting funds and disbursing them. We are prodiving value to social causes by
giving them funds & spreading awareness.

We are working on making the message clearer.

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trcollinson
I am having a hard time speaking to your business model because I don't quite
get what you are doing. I believe somehow you would like to help my business
to allow my customers to donate funds to charity through me somehow? As a
business I would have a number of issues that would need to be addressed.

First, you name off quite a few statistics and have no sources cited for those
statistics. You also post other big brand names in a quite large block under
your youtube video player. Do these companies work with you? Are they onboard?
I would guess they aren't, or you wouldn't be asking us to validate your
startup; it would already be validated. Are these socially conscious
companies? Maybe, but I don't get it.

Second, as a business, I have no idea what I am signing up to do. Must I
pledge a certain amount of money to any random cause my customer wants to put
the money towards? Is there a tax advantage? Is there a liability on me
because my donated business money does not go to an actual charity due to an
error or omission? Many "youth soccer teams" take donations but are not tax
exempt and the filing becomes and interesting problem. What if, as an
organization, we don't agree with every charity in the world and only want our
donations to go to certain charities?

Third, what is your part and benefit in this? Are you a 501(c)(3) United
States Federally exempt charitable organization yourself? I highly doubt this,
as I have started 2 charitable organizations and they aren't easy to get set
up. If you are a for profit (or even a non-profit 501(c)(3)) organization and
you take my organizations money and use a portion of it yourself and then pass
the rest on to charity, do I get a tax advantage? How do I explain that
properly to my accountant? Am I really being charitable and socially
conscious? What portion goes to you for development and what part goes to
charity? You could say "a truly charitable and socially conscious organization
wouldn't worry about details like tax filing and advantages." I wish we didn't
have to think about these things, but the IRS is a cruel mistress and because
of our fiduciary duty to our organizations we must all answer to IRS rules.

The list can keep on going, unfortunately.

As for the site itself, it loads very slowly. There are a lot of spinning gifs
while your logo and your "big block of corporate logos" load. The wording is
difficult to read. Other than the very nicely made video, I am afraid this
looks like a corporate email fishing scheme. I don't mean to be rude, but I am
involved with an organization with a very high charitable dollar count and I
would have a hard time signing up on your site.

~~~
aswerty
I thought the big brand logos was a bid odd as well.

~~~
asotelo
Thanks about this comment. We will be addressing this concern soon with a
different approach :)

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Jeremy1026
I watched your video and read the copy on the site and am just confused. The
video shows a woman who makes donations to organizations, the copy talks about
businesses giving money to customers to make donations. So is this marketed to
individuals to track their charitable giving, or for businesses to donate to
charitable organizations?

~~~
asotelo
Thanks a lot on your feedback. Your confusion is understandable and we clearly
have to make the message clearer. We are marketing all 3 segments, as they are
inter-related: the individuals, the businesses and the social cause
organizations. Each one is served in a different way. Each one has pains/gains
being targetted at Goowi.

~~~
Jeremy1026
Separate them! Have one landing page that explains the cycle, with each
segment getting their own section/page.

~~~
asotelo
Hi Jeremy1026, do you think the update on the landing page is clearer now?
www.goowi.net ?

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jtfairbank
I'd much rather pay a consultant for an analysis of our business. If we're
good, help us present the social responsible side of the company. If we're
bad, come up with a list of action items to improve on.

~~~
asotelo
Thanks a lot for the feedback. We shall make clearer the benefits for the
businesses (which are a lot).

