Ask HN: What's the mission of your company and why does it matter? - coutcin
======
vividgibberish
We are FreeWill ([http://freewill.com/](http://freewill.com/)). We may be the
most efficient fundraising tool for charity ever made. We provide free wills
to people, and make it very easy to donate charitably in that process. We've
raised over $190M for charities in just over a year! At the same time, we've
made legal services more accessible by providing free estate planning to over
17,000 people.

Just had a feature in the New York Times:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/your-money/online-
wills.h...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/your-money/online-wills.html)

hmu with interest and feedback: jenny@freewill.com.

~~~
wat1729
Full disclosure, I know this company (we went to the same school), but wanted
to say congrats!

~~~
dmarlow
I don't think people have to say "full disclosure" every time they know
someone/something more intimately than others. Are you taking a stance on
something where your prior connections and involvement matters?

------
enjayz
I'm a co-founder of Mixnode and we want to "make web-scale data affordable for
everyone".

Having access to trillions of data points from the web is a super power
reserved for only a handful of companies; what if anyone could access and
analyze these data points without having to hire 25 experts in distributed
systems and raise VC... Imagine the explosion of innovation this will bring
about.

We want that explosion to happen sooner rather than later.

If you find this mission intriguing please send me an email: nj@mixnode.com

~~~
portobelln
I worked for 2 years on the crawl infrastructure team of a well-known
SEO/analytics company that was pulling in over a 120 billion web pages a
month. It was definitely one of the most difficult projects I've ever worked
on and we did have a team of 6-7 very incredibly smart people -- not "25
experts in distributed systems" though :P

This is a very lofty goal and I'm not sure how you are going to tackle it with
3 people, however I'm rooting for you and would love to get my invitation
soon. Best of luck.

~~~
comboy
> pulling in over a 120 billion web pages a month

Can you tell more? That's 45K pages per second, and assuming that each page
load on average takes 1 second you already need 45K workers. Are you talking
requests or really loading web pages and evaluating them?

------
nikivi
I am working on Learn Anything. It’s an open source website with the goal of
providing most efficient learning paths. A kind of Netflix for learning.

If humanity really solves personalized learning by crafting learning paths
based on all of Internet’s resources, user’s current knowledge and learning
preference, I believe something akin to singularity may be reached. So I am
trying to build the website that tries to reach this goal in an open source
way so anyone can help.

Website [https://learn-anything.xyz](https://learn-anything.xyz) Code:
[https://github.com/learn-anything/learn-anything](https://github.com/learn-
anything/learn-anything)

~~~
oceanghost
I have been kicking around a vastly different idea with the end-goal of making
education more efficient. Yours is eminently more practical however :)

Glad to see this.

~~~
jasekt
Hey, can you elaborate or contact me via jasek.t@gmail.com? I am pondering
about this issue as well and I would love to speak with you.

~~~
oceanghost
I'd be happy to.

------
neutrino137
At Kayak Adventures, "we are a small, locally owned shop that strives to
inspire our guests to join us in reclaiming an active stewardship of our
natural world through inspiring sea kayaking tours."

It's important because climate change is one of the biggest problems of our
age, and by helping our guests foster a sense of connection to an amazing (and
vulnerable) place, we can produce what thousands of news articles cannot:
people who care.

[https://www.kayakak.com/](https://www.kayakak.com/)

(Apologies if this is considered "off topic" for HN, I've been a lurker for a
while but this is my first post.)

------
rudolph9
Enable community driven coordination of distributed enegery production and
consumption. Basically virtual power plants operating on the edge of our grid.

Heat, refrigeration, lights, etc are at the foundation of modern society. The
foundation of modern society is driven by the distribution of energy. Helping
ensure energy sources at the edge of our grid achieve scalability and fault
tolerance strikes me as something that truly matters.

LO3 Energy

The company has been around for some time but recently underwent rapid growth.
I started as a part time remote contracted and was the first software engineer
to be brought on full time.

It’s been a lot of work and there is still a long way to go but the thing that
keeps me chugging is the people involved. We’ve attracted a powerhouse of a
team both on the business and engineering side. Further, I’ve never worked
with a more genuine and kind group of individuals before.

~~~
moneytide1
I'm reading about your Allgau microgrid, and it looks like it may have been
chosen as a pilot because some feed-in tariffs are expiring. Is the idea here
to effectively bypass the utility company (even though there is a partnership
for this pilot) so that energy consumers end up directly paying each other
through the blockchain ledger?

~~~
rudolph9
Speaking generally about all our projects and from my personal perspective
(software guy, not public relations); The idea is to bring both sides of the
industry (customer, utility) together more efficiently and effectively.

The current model (power utility produces electricity, maintains distribution
infrastructure, and bills on a KWh basis) for producing and distributing
energy is very wasteful. We’re constantly producing more energy than necessary
to react to spikes in demand. The current model is also increasingly strained
as we adopt more renewables due to their relatively unpredictable nature.
However, the utility isn’t going away in the foreseeable future. The lines and
other infrastructure still need to be maintained.

The idea is to elimate waste. Work toward new models that benefits both sides
(e.g. peak demand gets supplied via energy sources at the edge of the grid,
utility doesn’t need to install more infrastructure to accommodate growing
energy demand within that microgrid).

~~~
3rdAccount
I work in this field (electricity markets) and don't really see microgrids
fulfilling this niche anytime soon.

Due to FERC Order 841, we will see a surge in grid-scale batteries and our
markets (in the US) will have to accommodate this. They will hopefully help
some with various issues such as congestion, transmission buildout, and short
term changes in demand.

~~~
rudolph9
In the US, you're are right. The regulation in the US is currently not
conducive to microgrids. The world is a big place though.

~~~
3rdAccount
Yea, if you're talking about non 1st world countries, the idea could
definitely work i think.

Best of luck!

------
dougmwne
"When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is
polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late,
that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money."

~~~
omosubi
I don't have crazy debt or people to support, so it's very easy for me to say
this, but it's sad to see the smartest people in my generation putting so much
effort into getting people to click on stuff :/

------
shafyy
I'm a co-founder of Kosmos
([https://kosmosschool.com/](https://kosmosschool.com/)). Our mission is to
build a complete K-12 school that exists only in virtual reality. It matters
because such a school could provide better education to kids from all around
the globe at a fraction of the cost today.

~~~
abledon
Dude, a developing brain growing up in VR.... I dunno.

------
danidan11
I'm building HuggyList. Our mission is to provide condensed knowledge for busy
professionals.

It truly matters because it makes learning much easier for people who lack of
time. This helps everyone to make better decisions and have a greater impact.

As an example, here is some YC startup knowledge summarized in bullet points:
[https://huggylist.com/channel_lists/1537220271873x5642096565...](https://huggylist.com/channel_lists/1537220271873x564209656557068200)

------
simon_acca
Your documents and notes are a reflection of your knowledge and experience. We
believe the hard work you put into them should benefit you in the long term.
This is why we are working on the most intuitive and flexible platform for you
to capture, share and navigate your thoughts.

~~~
aldoushuxley001
Is your platform up yet? Would love to give a try

~~~
simon_acca
We are going into beta test in the coming weeks, I would love for you to try
it! Shoot me an email (in HN profile) if you are interested.

The invitation is open to anyone of course :)

------
napsterbr
I'm the solopreneur and solo developer behind Hacker Experience 2
([https://hackerexperience.com](https://hackerexperience.com)), an open-source
MMORTS hacking simulation game with the main goals of

1) fostering interest on Computer Science among young adults and curious
people, especially those on third-world countries that have no chance of going
to college

2) bringing people to the FOSS world by having a low-barrier to entry project
where they can contribute directly (not necessarily with code). That kind of
experience - seeing their contribution being rolled out worldwide to a game
they love - must be life changer.

3) raising privacy awareness and let people know about encryption and VPNs

4) and why not, create a fun, interactive and highly strategic game :)

After 4 years of development, I'm still nowhere close to reaching any of them
(not yet released). But if my game can motivate and change the life of a
single kid, all that trouble will be well worth it.

Here's to another 4 years! For people out there in similar situation, the urge
to quit may be high, but try not to give up. E-mail is on profile in case
anyone wants to talk.

------
jakestein
I'm a co-founder at Stitch, and our mission is to inspire and empower data
driven people.

I believe that the development of the scientific method and evidence-based
decision making is the most important development in human history. It's not
universal, and it's a lot of work. We want to motivate more people to come
over that way of thinking and make it easier for them to do so.

www.stitchdata.com

~~~
tixocloud
Hey there! We have very closely related missions. At the very least we’re in
the same domain space. Would love to learn more about the Stitch platform to
see if there are opportunities to collaborate?

------
JangoSteve
At Genomenon, we're building tools that help discover, diagnose, and treat
cancer and other inheritable disease. To do this, we've built the Mastermind
Genomic Search Engine [1], powered by the world's most comprehensive source of
genomic evidence.

You've probably seen a lot in the media lately about the possibilities of
precision medicine powered by personal genomic sequencing. With the advent of
the $1000 whole genome sequencing [2], we now have an immense amount of data
at our fingertips. The problem we have now is known as the "bioinformatics
bottleneck" [3], in which our sequence data reveals thousands of variants in
our DNA, and we need to figure out which ones are clinically relevant, by
figuring out which ones have been observed and studied. We seek to make that
task easy; to minimize the time it takes to perform an exhaustive search, and
reduce the chance of missing important information in a patient's sequenced
genome [4].

Most people have been or know someone who has been affected by cancer or
inheritable disease. As far as missions go, this was an easy one to get behind
when I met my co-founder almost five years ago. When my startup at the time
got acquired shortly after meeting him, I knew immediately what I wanted to do
next.

[1] [https://www.genomenon.com/](https://www.genomenon.com/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$1,000_genome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$1,000_genome)

[3]
[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/344/6184/653.3](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/344/6184/653.3)

[4] [https://scipol.duke.edu/content/questathena-wrongful-
death-s...](https://scipol.duke.edu/content/questathena-wrongful-death-suit-
district-court-judge-holds-hearing-motion-dismiss)

------
swarnie_
Make money so i can buy food and the shareholders can buy better food.

------
juancampa
Unify all web APIs in a single, programmable, and customizable interface. It
matters because people's data does not reside in files anymore, it's behind a
very heterogeneous set of web APIs which, as a whole, are very hard to use.

------
shreyas-satish
I recently started ownpath ([https://ownpath.in/](https://ownpath.in/))
because I want to build a better framework for lifelong learning.

While books and courses have their place, I think that human connection is
crucial to not feel isolated. When I'm learning something new, it feels great
to be able to bounce ideas off someone, get feedback on my work and if
possible, make some friends along the way.

My bet is that more people also feel similar things. If you have any thoughts
on the website or just want to chat, feel free to reach me at
shreyas@ownpath.in.

------
wrs
I’m cofounder/CTO at CareZone (.com). Our mission is to help people care for
themselves and their families.

The US health care system is disorganized, inefficient, and overwhelming for
patients and their families. We aren’t “solving healthcare”, but we provide
tools and services that make caregivers’ lives easier.

This matters not just for the obvious reason that so many people need help,
but because relatively little effort in the health care system goes into
helping patients and their caregivers with the responsibilities the system
dumps on them.

------
nathan_f77
I'm the founder of FormAPI [1], and my company's mission is to help developers
fill out and sign PDF documents.

It truly matters to my customers, because they're paying me money. And it
truly matters to me, because if the company continues to grow, then I'll have
lots of money and freedom. Honestly it's mostly about the money, but I really
enjoy building things and solving problems for people.

[1] [https://formapi.io](https://formapi.io)

~~~
rickycook
the truly matters part i think needs at least 1 level of “but why”... okay
they pay for it, but why do they pay for it? that’s the important thing...
okay, it pays your salary and gives freedom, but why do you care about the
product? what if it paid you nothing (but that didn’t matter); would you still
work on it? why?

i’m sure you know these answers; you wouldn’t have gotten to “paying customer
1” otherwise

~~~
nathan_f77
Sure, they pay for it because it solves a specific problem, and it saves a lot
of time. I care about the product because I put a lot of work into it, and
it's a "creative outlet". I enjoy making all the decisions and having the
freedom to work on whatever I think is important.

I'd keep working on it for a while if I didn't need to worry about money. But
I also really like the idea of a "finished product" that doesn't need any more
work. That's what I'm aiming for, although I'm probably a few years away from
that.

I wouldn't keep working on it if it failed and no-one was using it. I would
just move on to the next project.

------
Regardsyjc
Our mission is to fight period poverty. There are many women in the world and
in the USA that can't afford feminine care. Not only that but conventional
tampons and pads are disposable, highly polluting, made out of plastic, and
not that healthy.

Conventional tampons are made with regular cotton as well as rayon. Regular
cotton could have toxic residues from pesticides, dioxin from the bleaching
process, and rayon fiber can disintegrate within a woman's body, breeding
bacteria that could hurt or be dangerous like toxic shock syndrome. Disposable
pads are made from mysterious ingredients because companies don't have to
disclose ingredients to consumers in the USA. All the chemical scents,
antibacterial, plastics, those are all not disclosed which should be worrying
because there are many toxic chemicals out there.

The solution I'm working on are reusable cloth pads. The idea is simple and
has been what the world has been using before disposables came out. They are a
lot more sustainable because they are reusable. They can be customized for
each customer and come in pretty colors, shapes, and sizes.

------
seba_dos1
"Make money".

~~~
blattimwind
And it doesn't matter.

~~~
TallGuyShort
In all seriousness, most Silicon Valley "why we truly matter pitches" are just
shovels full of something.

We'd probably be making bigger differences in the world if we contented
ourselves with making a living, and then stepping away from our keyboards to
go befriend people who are going through hard times and serve our immediate
communities more directly.

Making money matters if it enables you to turn around and help other people
directly and immediately.

~~~
moneytide1
> befriend people who are going through hard times and serve our immediate
> communities more directly.

Makes me think of the insurance policy of the Amish - if someone's home burns
down, it is a guarantee that everyone in the community will come together to
build a new house for them.

------
kamyarg
I am an Engineer at Celo [https://celo.org/](https://celo.org/) \- Our mission
is to build a monetary system that creates the conditions of prosperity for
all.

We aim to give financial tools that will help people to self-actualize. Many
people in the world do not have the basic financial tools for lifting
themselves out of poverty -- a sound currency and property rights -- and we
aim to provide those. Second, we aim to create a system that connects people
to one another through the financial system; especially those that have been
disconnected from the financial system.

We have a flat & open culture and value diversity. We are hiring at our SF and
Berlin offices: [https://celo.org/jobs](https://celo.org/jobs)

More about Celo: "Hello From Celo" \- [https://medium.com/@celo.org/hello-
from-celo-34bf195cb99](https://medium.com/@celo.org/hello-from-
celo-34bf195cb99)

~~~
gHosts
> opening a bank account but for claiming various other essential services,
> such as healthcare and education.

Where such services are provided by a functioning state maybe, but if they
are, they also have a functioning currency and banking sector.

Where their isn't.... I had a Ukrainian friend who said in the worst days of
state dysfunction (now decades ago), the de facto currency was bottles of
vodka.

At least with a bottle of vodka, you can drown your sorrows if your currency
crashes.... So your zeroth challenge is "How is Celo better and cheaper and
more trustworthy than a bottle of vodka?

------
sgk284
Co-founder of Banter, [https://banter.fm](https://banter.fm). We make podcasts
easier to share and have conversations around.

We've basically built a BYOC (Bring-Your-Own-Content) social network.
Publishers host an RSS feed and remain in full control of their content. We
don't try to assert copyright or anything over it. We don't even host it. We
just enable conversations and sharing of that content (we even generate videos
for sharing on other platforms that don't support audio well:
[https://twitter.com/stevekrenzel/status/1040746982615076864](https://twitter.com/stevekrenzel/status/1040746982615076864))

Some of the best content being produced today is in podcasts. Everything from
comedy to news reporting. They're a great way to help people stay informed,
learn new things, or just get a laugh. So if that counts as "truly mattering",
then that's why it truly matters.

------
ybv
We're a small team building tools to make local government services more
accessible ([http://localgov.fyi/](http://localgov.fyi/))

relevant disco here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17516721](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17516721)

------
d0m
Fixing healthcare in the US. Sounds grandiose and having been in the industry
for 5 years I would have laughed a few years ago if someone told me that it
was their company's mission.. but there's actually a real way to fix it and
we're building that solution. Feel free to email me if interested. (Our stack
is Rust / React)

------
contingencies
At Infinite Food[0] we are automating the production and retail of
personalized meals through robotic service locations supported by modern
logistics and electronic supply-chain.

We believe this field of innovation matters because by 2050 the world
population will be 9.7 billion[1] increasingly living in high density urban
environments after loss of agricultural land and clean fresh water,
potentially less reliable yields due to climate change, increasing concerns
about pollution, and reduced biodiversity. Therefore, we urgently need the
ability to feed more humans more reliably using less resources.

[0] [http://infinite-food.com](http://infinite-food.com) [1]
[https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/Files/Key_Findings_...](https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/Files/Key_Findings_WPP_2015.pdf)

------
franze
"To make all SEO agencies - including our own - redundant!"

Why? Because SEO is the ultimate digital snake oil industry of our era.
Sucking away ressources and f###ing up websites, wasting (life)time of users
and developers alike.

[http://www.f19n.com](http://www.f19n.com)

~~~
Theodores
Tried to learn more from the link - I know you want to sell the book/courses
etc, however, I need more to go on. Is it all about web performance, speed?

~~~
quickthrower2
Wow the book seems to be physical only. No ebook!

~~~
franze
Yes, by design! Want the book on the table so that people need to talk about
it. Skim it & then read it.

But yeah, 3rd edition going to be e-book, too! On Amazon and DRM free for all
who order the physical book (also the current one).

------
quelsolaar
My mission is to make it possible for the users take back control of the
internet, and make technology work for people
([http://unravel.org](http://unravel.org)). The internet has gone from being a
technology that liberates information for everyone to something that
concentrates power and information. Everybody complains about it, but very
little is done about it. The tech industry doesn't need to disrupt the world
nearly as much as the tech industry needs disruption.

It matters that I do this because, while I may have just a small chance of
succeeding, I probably have a better chance then most. For the few of us who
have the skills, the time and the plans to do something about it, we owe it to
all who cant do something about it to at least try.

------
chriselles
The mission of Porky.co is facilitating Riders to:

“Find. Meet. Ride with your Harley-Davidson Tribe.”

It matters because I’ve spent the last 3 years as a co-founder of a Veteran
Support charity called No Duff (www.noduff.org).

Root cause data for the vast majority of the 233+ Veteran support incidents we
have responded to include a lack of belonging, community, meaning, and purpose
in Veterans’ lives post service.

Recreational motorcycling community(much like the Veterans community) is still
stuck in the pre-internet and pre-smartphone hub and spoke “siloed” club
model.

We don’t want to change the world for everyone.

But we do want to help motorcyclists find belonging, community, personal
meaning, and social purpose.

Currently in YC Startup School and applied to W2019 Batch on Day 1.

Looking for a Technical Co-Founder :)

Info@porky.co

------
tixocloud
I'm the founder of Orchestra
([http://orchestrahq.com](http://orchestrahq.com)) and our mission is to
"accelerate the world's adoption of machine learning and artificial
intelligence".

Most if not all of the machine learning models in the world never see the
light of day. They never get productionized and embedded into web and mobile
applications. We believe that web and mobile applications can be so much more
smarter with machine learning and AI capabilities. By building a platform to
make it easy to embed models into web and mobile apps, we hope that this will
drive adoption.

------
nakodari
I am the founder of Jumpshare
([https://jumpshare.com](https://jumpshare.com)).

Our mission is to make everyone more productive. When running a previous
startup with 20 people, I found that communicating effectively with them was a
challenge. To share work with them and with outside clients and collecting
feedback and ensuring everyone was on the same page took many back and forth
steps. I also noticed that everyone was facing the struggle to communicate
effectively both inside and outside the team. Thus, losing a lot of time and
overall productivity.

------
ransom1538
[https://www.opendoctor.io](https://www.opendoctor.io)

Making more data about doctors public. Their research papers, education,
accepted insurances, Medicare acceptance, etc.

------
enigmatical
I'm co-founder of Root Health. We empower patients with empathetic support and
next best actions to ease the burden of clinical trials.

[https://roothealthapp.com](https://roothealthapp.com)

It matters because there are very few people actually focusing on the patient
experience in clinical trials. Most companies building solutions in this space
see patients as the barrier to data instead of the reason why trials exist.

------
naeemtee
I run ContentFly ([http://contentfly.co](http://contentfly.co)).

Our ultimate mission is to democratize marketing so any and every small
business on Earth can use it.

~~~
profalseidol
So no democracy for the writer that gets paid flat fee?

~~~
naeemtee
We'll probably let the price hang eventually, but an open market would
actually result in the writers getting paid less.

Our biggest competitor pays writers 0.7c/word lol

------
quantisan
At [https://ingrower.com](https://ingrower.com), we provide a farm management
app with human-expert assistance for smallholder farmers in East Africa. There
are 500 million smallholder farmers in the world today. Most are operated by
women of the house in developing countries growing greens or raising chickens
in their homes. Imagine enabling some of them to generate an income with their
smallholding farms. That's what we're trying to do at InGrower.

------
vipr340
We at Initiative Zero ([http://initiativezero.com](http://initiativezero.com))
are looking provide innovative payment solutions to help students pay off
their student loans quicker, saving years off their student loan debt.

    
    
      The national student loan debt in the US is $1.5 trillion and 15% of Americans have student loan debt.

------
andrewmd5
I'm the founder of Rainway ([https://rainway.io](https://rainway.io))

Our core mission is using our innovative technology to provide gamers with
freedom and choice in how they experience their favorite games. We are
committed to building a positive community, capable of having fun anywhere.
Because if you're not having fun, what is the point of playing? We will always
put gamers first.

------
ideatostartup
At Idea To Startup ( [https://ideatostartup.org](https://ideatostartup.org) ),
our mission is to enable entrepreneurs to advance from idea to startup by
helping them create an invincible team and develop an impeccable product

------
badpun
The "mission" thing always makes me wonder... What will happen if your mission
interferes with making profit? My guess is that, for 99% of companies, mission
will be ignored (or changed). This shows that the true mission (i.e. purpose
of the company) is making profit and not what they declare.

~~~
seba_dos1
Recently I've learned that in some US states there is something called a
Social Purpose Corporation, which actually lets you profit and stick to your
mission. In a regular company, it's more than likely that putting your
"mission" above maximizing your profits will put you in legal trouble.

~~~
vfinn
Yes, the same exists in Finland (social entrepreneurship), but since we can
all agree on that there are huge differences between companies, how they
operate, and how moral they are, we can agree on that there's a lot of
playground for the execution of a good mission statement. There's on the one
hand maximization by moving your production to a third world country and by
paying the absolute minimum to your employees (which no legal entity expects
you to do AFAIK), but then there's also maximization by being decent and by
doing everything properly (to which no legal entity also has nothing to sneeze
at). So the maximization doesn't have to be the kind of grab your company by
the throat kind of maximization.

------
smithmayowa
We are Testimonly ([https://www.testimonly.com](https://www.testimonly.com))
and we want to help SaaS businesses automate their users feedback acquisition
and showcasing workflow.

------
jesuisuncaillou
The mission of most companies is just to make money, so it doesn't matter.

------
cuchoi
Ending poverty in the coffee sector by 2030. www.enveritas.org

------
walrus01
Were a mid sized regional ISP and we try every day to literally make the
internet not suck.

~~~
EliRivers
When you say _literally_ make it not suck, I have to wonder just how broken
the internet really is where you are.

------
atrilumen
Magic software.

Because we can, and you will be happier. I promise.

