Seedling is bringing the experience of in-person gifting online by enabling friends, families and communities to co-create an interactive gifting experience.<p>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.<p>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.<p>We have an early prototype, and planted a Seedling for YC as part of our application: https://www.giveseedling.com/#/grow?token=d357781b6feade82a17200e36ae2d66e<p>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.<p>Now we'd like to open it up to the entire HN community.<p>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!<p>Some prompts to get you thinking:<p>1) I read Hacker News because...<p>2) I applied to YC because...<p>3) The biggest issue facing tech right now is...<p>4) In the next 10 years, I'm most excited about..
Nice idea guys! I would love to receive a "gifting experience" like this for a birthday or graduation. It definitely beats a dull card in the mail or even some piece of junk I will probably never use. Quick question: Any idea how you would turn this into a business? Would you take a percentage of the contributions? I think that would be a bit odd. Would you make the original "seedling" planter pay?
I think this is an interesting idea. I would be concerned that a lot of people give gifts as a way to sidestep having to actually express your feelings for somebody. That may be my introverted male perspective.