Show HN: Launched my side project: Goalfinch

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.

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.

Cf. http://www.stickk.com/

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...

Clickable: http://goalfinch.com

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!

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.

I can think of some pretty ironic goal/charities:

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

Incorporate twitter login or some other OpenID provider.

cool idea. good luck!

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

Good Luck.