

Show HN: The Crowdtilt Mobile App - ajaymehta
http://tilt.crowdtilt.com/mobile/

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jvrossb
Just a few cases for the app other (as of 50 minutes since post time)
commenters aren't appreciating:

-I want to split a bill at dinner with friends

-I want to contribute to a charity fundraiser while at the event they are holding

-I want to snag tickets to an event that might sell out while out and about and don't want to wait till I get back to my computer to do it

-I want to snag tickets to an event while at the entrance to that event

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arkonaut
Yeah, I've been following Crowdtilt for a while (interviewed there), and their
use case has never really been about the Kickstarter type of crowdfunding.
It's more of a bite-size type of crowdfunding model (with A LOT of retention;
they mentioned their stats on repeat use) instead of elaborate projects. This
app actually makes a lot of sense.

~~~
jjb123
Thank you (co-founder of crowdtilt here). And yes, our view has basically been
that we want to build the most open and accessible crowdfunding tools for the
entire web/world. Crowdtilt.com might be for medium size campaigns,
Crowdhoster (built by us and powered by our API) is for large-scale ones like
Soylent, and now with our mobile app, we want to see if people will want to
take the mechanics of crowdfunding models and want to go small with them.

If Crowdhoster is like the wordpress (hostable, customizable, open-source),
then the Crowdtilt app type of campaigns (launched from the app, at least) is
like the twitter of crowdfunding, or perhaps more appropriately, for anytime a
group would interact around a small, casual financial objective. There's no
guarantee the behavior will become our primary creation driver, of course, but
as devs, it's exciting to try and take something as conventionally complex as
crowdfunding/fundraising/pooling money with a group and simplify it down to
something easy to digest in a mobile experience. If you download the app and
have any suggestions or feedback on our approach to tackle this problem, would
love to hear it at jb@crowdtilt.com. And another lens to view our approach
toward mobile is this - 7/8ths of the world will never own a computer. Like,
ever.

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pudquick
Just a commentary on your methodology, not your product - I'm not sure I
appreciate a submission to HN that goes to a URL that (on an iOS device at
least) opens straight to the App Store app page (even if it is free).

I'm reading HN on my iPhone using one of the various alternative mobile
interfaces running in Safari. Clicking your link, to learn anything about what
you made, requires switching to the App Store. Completely disrupts my normal
news flow.

... Is there a reason you don't have a one page splash covering the highlights
and features of the app? Can anyone without an iOS device even learn what
you've done?

~~~
ajaymehta
Hey, sorry about that! The app just launched today, so I wanted to throw up a
link.

Here's a blog post that can hopefully give you some additional clarification:
[http://blog.crowdtilt.com/post/61679155794/put-change-in-
you...](http://blog.crowdtilt.com/post/61679155794/put-change-in-your-pocket-
the-crowdtilt-mobile-app-is)

~~~
pudquick
Thank you.

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bkanber
I don't love the idea that someone might be so disinterested in their own
crowdfunding campaign to have to launch it from a smartphone, rather than
spending the time to do it from a proper computer.

~~~
DesaiAshu
Consider this: I see a pothole on my street, I hate it so I take a picture and
tweet about how I wish it was gone. Enter crowdtilt, instead, I take a picture
and create a campaign, it gets shared on facebook and twitter and suddenly a
movement to fix the pothole has started. Worst case the campaign doesn't tilt
and it's the equivalent of a tweet, best case we raise money to actually fix
the damn thing, talk about putting your money where your mouth is!

While this behavior may not exist yet, I see a future where this app enables
people to make much stronger statements about change they would like to see
and gives them a dead simple way to contribute to those changes (plus all the
fun spontaneous social stuff :).

~~~
ajaymehta
This comment is totally on the mark. Campaigns like that pothole example are
already popping up on Crowdtilt!

Check this (currently live) campaign out: a community in Oakland feels unsafe
in their neighborhood and isn't being helped out by the local PD, so they're
pooling funds together for private security:
[https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/security-patrol-for-
lowe...](https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/security-patrol-for-lower-
rockridge-southwest)

~~~
ukd1
This is an awesome use of Crowdtilt...though I'm glad I don't live there
myself!

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jf22
I've done everything from paying for group t-shirts to sports teams to shared
vacation homes and I've never thought the problem was hard enough to need an
app for it.

~~~
jvrossb
How about splitting a bill at dinner? Or contributing to a campaign on the go
before it sells out?

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dingaling
> How about splitting a bill at dinner?

1\. Divide food bill between number of attendees

2\. Divide drinks bill between number of drinkers

3\. Each individual adds 1 + 2 and ponies-up accordingly

Apologies if I have misunderstood.

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lukifer
How does the actual collection take place? I'm sure 30% is too steep a cut for
splitting a dinner check. Has Apple loosened its policies on third-party
payment processors?

~~~
cnowacek
Collection takes place through our payment service provider, not IAP. There is
no 30% cut.

~~~
liuhenry
Yep - IIRC, in-app purchases only apply if the purchase itself is delivered
through the app (usually content)

This is how apps like Uber, Lyft, InstantCab, Instacart, etc. let you pay
through your phone, and why Netflix and Hulu don't even let you sign up for
their service on iOS.

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sarreph
Why is the only way to receive a link/register via SMS?

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akhilcacharya
Android version?

