Some thoughts, in case other effective altruists, want to try something similar.
If you are more interested in changing the world than becoming a tech startup entrepreneur, it make make sense to partner up with a company doing something similar, and just offer them the idea (and expertise).
In this case a reasonable fit could be e.g. the team of developers behind Dailyio, or behind Sleep as an Android, Twilight, Mindroid, etc. Their apps seem to be some of the more useful happiness interventions on Android Market, have millions of downloads, and plausibly big part of their users are the sample people who would be interested in your app.
it make make sense to partner up with a company doing something similar, and just offer them the idea (and expertise
FWIW, I considered this and it didn’t seem like a good idea. If I’d walked over and said “hey, here are some ideas, take them for free” I doubt they’d have taken them seriously and, if they had, I would have had no control over what they’d done with the ideas or their product and wouldn’t have made any money if they’d be successful.
It might work if they’d given me equity in their company in exchange, but it would be crazy, I stress, for a company to hand over equity to a stranger on the vague promise of some good ideas!
I could have offered myself to those other companies as a consultant, but I doubt they’d be interested either (“um, who are you?”).
What might work would be to build my own app, get a bunch of users, then try to partner with other people on that basis. That strikes me as maybe useful and is something i would have considered had we succeeded.
It’s a good story, thanks!
Some thoughts, in case other effective altruists, want to try something similar.
If you are more interested in changing the world than becoming a tech startup entrepreneur, it make make sense to partner up with a company doing something similar, and just offer them the idea (and expertise). In this case a reasonable fit could be e.g. the team of developers behind Dailyio, or behind Sleep as an Android, Twilight, Mindroid, etc. Their apps seem to be some of the more useful happiness interventions on Android Market, have millions of downloads, and plausibly big part of their users are the sample people who would be interested in your app.
FWIW, I considered this and it didn’t seem like a good idea. If I’d walked over and said “hey, here are some ideas, take them for free” I doubt they’d have taken them seriously and, if they had, I would have had no control over what they’d done with the ideas or their product and wouldn’t have made any money if they’d be successful.
It might work if they’d given me equity in their company in exchange, but it would be crazy, I stress, for a company to hand over equity to a stranger on the vague promise of some good ideas!
I could have offered myself to those other companies as a consultant, but I doubt they’d be interested either (“um, who are you?”).
What might work would be to build my own app, get a bunch of users, then try to partner with other people on that basis. That strikes me as maybe useful and is something i would have considered had we succeeded.