idealboy

Seedling is bringing the experience of in-person gifting online by enabling friends, families and communities to co-create an interactive gifting experience.

Online gifting today solves the transaction, but fails to deliver the personal connection of in-person gifting. But we don't gift to transfer assets, we gift to strengthen existing relationships and help build new ones. And research shows nothing does that better than shared experience.

Plant a Seedling for a loved one and invite others to help it grow. They add a video or image message and an optional fund contribution. On harvest day, it's all combined into a unique gifting experience and delivered to the beneficiary.

We have an early prototype, and planted a Seedling for YC as part of our application: https://www.giveseedling.com/#/grow?token=d357781b6feade82a17200e36ae2d66e

There's no fund in this Seedling - just messages. We've asked YC alumni we know to add video and image messages, which will be combined this Friday and privately shared with YC and everyone that contributes.

Now we'd like to open it up to the entire HN community.

If you'd like to add a message to the YC Seedling, just email me at luke@giveseedling.com and I'll send you an invite. What kind of message can you add? Whatever you want. Just make sure you're okay with YC seeing it!

Some prompts to get you thinking:

1) I read Hacker News because...

2) I applied to YC because...

3) The biggest issue facing tech right now is...

4) In the next 10 years, I'm most excited about..

I'm reading a book entitled "Slicing Pie" that outlines a dynamic equity sharing model that the author calls "grunt funds" for use in early stage start ups. I'm intrigued, but curious if anyone on HN has tried this model? If so, was it a positive or negative experience? Thanks for any input.