

Show HN: Launched my side project: Goalfinch - hanskuder

http://goalfinch.com<p>I had the idea for Goalfinch while reading an article here on Hacker News about economic incentives and how effective they are. It got me thinking: What if there were an easy way to set up economic incentives for the goals I have in my own life?<p>A few months later, after working on it off and on in my spare hours, it's ready for prime time.<p>With Goalfinch, you define a goal and make a contribution of cash that acts as an incentive for you to complete the goal. Your Facebook friends confirm whether or not you've accomplished it. If you succeed before your deadline, you get the cash back. If you fail, it gets donated to the charity of your choice. The combination of money on the line and your friends breathing down your neck makes for a very powerful motivator.<p>It's a pretty simple idea that could go in many different directions, but I wanted to share it with this community in its first, fledgling stages. Please let me know what you think!<p>http://goalfinch.com
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effetti
Nice, this perhaps has some very interesting implications for healthcare ! ?

If I may offer three thoughts:

First, as I understand your model, you're taking 15% of the unrealized goal
funds to pay for 100% of the transaction fees. This seems off in that the only
way you benefit financially is by people NOT completing their goals. Hardly
the point of your project. Why not take a "success fee" for playing an active
role in helping people achieve their goals ?

Second, someone mentioned trust, and while this suggestion is probably not the
ultimate solution, I would urge you to consider adding your personal
profile(s) and picture(s). This would at least give people a human element to
connect with. Similarly, the inclusion of "Gain, LLC" is slightly confusing,
as well as perhaps lends to the possible interpretation that you are the only
one gaining from the transaction.

Third, stickiness & ticklers... is there something you can do to gently remind
people of their goals and / or get them coming back to update progress ? ?

Hope those help...

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atgm
It looks neat, though I'd worry about being gypped out of my money:

1\. I don't know your or your site from Adam (no offense intended, honestly)
and your site hasn't been around long enough to have a rep. There aren't any
"trust markers" around to help me decide whether or not to trust you with my
money.

2\. I'd worry about, for example, some of my facebook friends not responding
in a timely fashion or forgetting to do it, and the FAQ makes it sound like
one person not responding would prevent me from getting my money back.

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hanskuder
Yeah, I totally understand. I'm actively looking for ways to increase the
level of trustworthiness and to make people feel confident that I won't take
the money and run.

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brudgers
Wouldn't you be doing the same thing if you were running a scam?

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hanskuder
Clickable: <http://goalfinch.com>

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fuzzmeister
One suggestion: goal URLs should use a salted hash key, so that they aren't so
easily guessed. Alternatively, implement some kind of access control so that
you can only see goals you are a party to. Otherwise, seems great, I'm trying
it out!

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mazsa
Cf. <http://www.stickk.com/>

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alphaoverlord
What does one do if there is an entrenched competitor? Theoretically there is
room for more than one right? I haven't heard of stickk.com. It'd be
interesting to see what OP does with this.

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vrish88
I did something like this a while back
(<http://1week1project.com/tagged/week-9?chrono=1>). The hardest thing was
trying to set a price, ie Should I pay myself $25 to schedule a dentist
appointment?

It would be really cool if you were able have some better way to determine the
payout for a certain goal. Perhaps you have your friends vote on it or
something like that.

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jefflinwood
It's a neat idea, and I like your simple design.

I'm really not crazy about the verifying with my Facebook friends though. I
would feel much better about it if you told me what your app is going to do -
is it going to send them an email, a Facebook message, post on their wall now?
Basically, is it going to spam them?

Probably the best thing would be a screen shot of what you are going to send
them.

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hanskuder
Good call. There's a screenshot of the notification they receive on the next
page, but I just put in a disclaimer about never spamming them or posting on
their walls.

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jefflinwood
Cool. Another thing I noticed is that I didn't go through and actually pick
anybody for step 2, and it didn't stop me until I put in a dollar value for
step 3. Maybe it should validate right after step 2?

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alphaoverlord
I can think of some pretty ironic goal/charities:

Lose 10 pounds or donate 10$ to heart disease research.

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davidk0101
Incorporate twitter login or some other OpenID provider.

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mkramlich
cool idea. good luck!

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expertio
It's so exciting to see people launching their new sites everyday!

Good Luck.

