Hi all.
tibdit has a unique approach to solving what has been called by some 'The Micropayments Problem' - the failure for over two decades to come up with anything to replace pocket-change scale transactions online. We've launched a crowdfund on Seedrs (open to EU only, sorry -- UK taxpayers can get massive tax-offsets under the
SEIS scheme [pdf])
https://www.seedrs.com/startups/tibdit?promo_code=04RQ4MZSClick-bait headlines, advertising swamp, incessant subscription-paywall pop-ups, decent news publishers going broke even while their readership is soaring; amateur musicians can't even make and sell a few CDs any more. Buying a single edition of a newspaper used to be the easiest thing in the world! The modern online equivalents force many artists, journalists, and other creators to basically give their stuff away, or surround it on all sides with really annoying crap.
Which is pretty bizarre, because the Internet has been really great about slicing up content so you get only what you want when you want it, but slicing up money has been a real problem. So, bitcoin right?
Well, yes and no. While the transaction costs are very much a real issue, every micropayments startup for the past twenty years has had a way of managing that, but still, none have cracked the main problem, which has more to do with psychology than anything else. It's been well analysed and described, including by one of our own heroes, Nick Szabo. And yet startup after startup ignored the reality and burned through millions of investor cash re-learning the lesson.
Simply put, if something is worth only a few pennies (or cents etc) to you, you just aren't going to go through the cognitive-stress of deciding whether or not the transaction is fair –– which is an instinctive reaction not limited just to humans. Especially when something possibly as interesting, and probably free, is just a mouse click away.
To many who've followed the debate over the past twenty years, including me, this minuscule barely-conscious-anxiety seemed an insurmountable problem. But around eighteen months ago, while thinking about bitcoin tipping, and what I'd like to see, I came up with an approach that we believe short-circuits the transaction-time stresses, for both micropayments and microdonations alike. Better, it's something of an everybody wins solution.
The bitcoin angle is we pay out to recipient websites over bitcoin. This has a number of advantages - like no need for a tibdit account for recipients, at it's simplest, just host a link to tib.tibdit.com/t/[your bitcoin address] - easy huh? Forum signature lines anyone?
Payers pre-purchase a number (10 or more) micropayments, at a value they set; for now, this value can be in GBP, USD, EUR, and of course Bitcoin, using either bitcoin or their Visa or Mastercard to pay. The terrific thing here is that it opens up a vast pool of potential contributors, which provides an incentive for loads of potential recipients, who would never have otherwise considered it, to get themselves a bitcoin address/wallet. Revenue comes from 1½ pence per transaction - we estimate we need around a million users to break even; we are definitely in this for the long haul, and seriously believe we have something with vast potential.
You can check out our demo system at
http://demo.tibdit.com - only after experiencing it do you really get how significant this pre-fixed, individually-valued payment value is on the process of paying or tipping. Can you imaging using the system every day if you saw our logo on buttons on sites you visit? Incidentally, we filed a non-provisional US method-of-business patent application a year ago covering this approach -- I'm aware that might make us evil in a few peoples' opinion :-/
It's taken us a long time to this stage - we probably dodged a bullet when our plans with Havelock Investments fell through almost a year ago, and unfortunately Bank to the Future never did get their FCA approval, we had a contract with them that prevented us from moving forward with alternative funding until recently.
FTR, My personal account on here is Jaymax, hasn't been used much of late, but more history than this one. Being an FCA regulated crowdfunding site, you can be confident in who we are on the
Seedrs page.
We would love it if you were to consider buying a piece of us. Our initial target is £60,000, with 8% up for grabs, giving a pre-money valuation of £690,000. We hope for overfund to double those numbers however. You can buy as little as £10 worth of shares, and we'd love to bring as many people as we can along with us. We could really do with some larger chunks being taken as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSEXoP8Jz7wThanks all for you time if you read down to here,
--Justin Maxwell, Founder, tibdit.
