This morning I walked into Coral Tree Cafe in Brentwood, California about 7 minutes late for my meeting with a startup, typical. I ran in, ordered a mocha and took a seat in the booth across from one of the founders of Swipegood.
Steli Efti, 28, Greek by nationality, moved to Germany for high school and dropped out to start his first company. After starting his second company, Supercool School, an online learning platform, now in 30 countries and 3000 schools, he knew he had the bug. He wanted to be an entrepreneur. He sold everything he owned in Germany, and moved across the ocean to San Francisco in hopes of getting into the world of tech. 10 weeks ago he started Swipegood, his 3rd company (officially launched 2 weeks ago) with Anthony Nemitz and Thomas Steinacher: They’re already developing revenue, closing their first round of angel funding and soon to be a known name when it comes to non profits.
The three started their company after having a conversation about ‘giving’. “We decided giving was too hard,” Efti shared. “The timing, the amount to give, what charity to give to…by the time all of these decisions are made, people have lost interest .” It makes sense. Thus, they used the popular idea of rounding up to the nearest dollar, a commonly used system at grocery stores and other organizations, when raising money for a particular cause.
Working with Blippy (co-founder Philip Kaplan is an advisor), the well known credit card related social network, they built an application off of Blippy’s API (currently the number one app on the website). In order to test their beta, they timorously asked family members for their credit cards, the borrowing of the credit card…always an amusing conversation with family.
Now, if you’re going to write an article about a credit card related company, you want to make sure it isn’t a scam. Blippy certainly isn’t a scam, but they did have some issues earlier this year with credit card information becoming searchable through Google which has since been fixed. Efti assured me that they don’t store any of their customers credit card information so their is no room for swipe slips.
A difference with Swipegood is that you sign up, CHOOSE the charity you want to give to (they are adding new charities daily), and, if you like, set a limit on the amount you would like to give, Swipegood taked 5% and there you have it. Every charge you make, they round up to the nearest dollar. They charge your credit card at the end of every month (so as not to run up your bills at the bank with fees). They also keep you posted on where your money goes. Often when you give a dollar to charity, you don’t know what happens to it. They send you notifications after you have given a certain amount as to what that paid for which keeps you involved with your charity. They also give you the option of switching charities at a moments notice and soon will help you to browse by type so you might encounter a charity you hadn’t heard of previously but that supports a cause you believe in.
The user experience has had very positive reviews, some users have asked to give MORE and double their donation, some have asked to only round up to the nearest dollar on guilty pleasures such as their alcohol or shopping spree purchases, a funny idea, if you are splurging on yourself, you should give to a cause as well.
Yesterday, they launched their Christmas promotion, suggesting people ask for donations to their favorite charity through Swipegood as opposed to gifts.
SO…swipegood swipe it real good.
