Startup spotlight: The Investibles' new karma economy

This article is part of The Investibles series on BusinessZone. Check out more great startups on our sister site.

Helpfulpeeps, the self-proclaimed 'new karma economy', is a website dedicated to helping people 'pay-it-forward'.

Name: Saf Nazeer

Company: Helpfulpeeps

Website: helpfulpeeps.com

Twitter: @helpfulpeeps

1. Describe your business in one sentence

Helpfulpeeps is an online network that connects people who want help, with people who are willing to help for free.

2. How did you come up with the idea?

I decided to leave my corporate sales job last year and wanted to get involved with something that could make a social impact. I tried to identify 'problems' that needed addressing and the most obvious ones that resonated with me was that the society that we live in today is more disconnected than ever.

I also felt that there was far too much importance placed on money as the only real measure of value and I felt our time and energy was just as important.

These were the seeds from which the Helpfulpeeps idea was born and it has evolved over many months to become what it is today.

3. What have been your key challenges and how have you overcome them?

Our key challenge was in starting a tech startup with no tech background.

Neither Simon or I can write a line of code between us so it was really important that we found the right tech talent to work with on the project.

Luckily we met Erik,our rockstar developer who's based in Sweden, through a mutual friend. He understood what we were trying to do with Helpfulpeeps immediately and offered to build our minimum viable product for good karma at a substantially reduced rate as he knew that's all we could afford at the time.

4. How have you funded your start-up?

We applied to join Webstart, Bristol & Bath's internet incubator, and upon being accepted to the programme received some seed funding back in October 2014. All of this money was invested into the product, from branding through to the technical build.

5. How do you market your business?

Most of our marketing is done via social, organically through Twitter and Facebook mainly but we also have a presence on LinkedIn and Instagram. We have also been fortunate enough to be invited to speak at some events and have managed to get some local press, including the Bristol Post, Made in Bristol TV, BBC Radio Bristol, BCFM One Love Breakfast Show and Heart FM.

6. What are your plans for the future?

Our plans for the immediate future is to grow the Helpfulpeeps community in Bristol and the surrounding areas. We also have plans to keep improving the features and functionality of our platform based on user feedback.

In the medium to longer term we hope to take Helpfulpeeps global.

Our key challenge was in starting a tech startup with no tech background.

We are already present in over 40 countries which is great but the user base in many of those countries are quite sporadic so we will focus on targeting some key countries to reach a critical mass of users to maximise the likelihood that user can receive the help they require.

7. If you started again, is there anything you'd do differently?

Nope. Not really. We may do some minor things slightly better with the power of hindsight but it wouldn't really make any major difference at all.

We are happy with where we are and how much we've achieved in such a short period of time. It's all about the journey and it's been a very rewarding one.

8. What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs?

Just do it! Start! The hardest part is to get started because there's a million and one reasons not to do something.

Just begin by deciding and then take action. Once you have made a commitment to start your venture (and by this I mean going all in) I feel that you are more than half way there already.

Then it's just a matter of executing on the tactical stuff which need not be complicated if you take it one day at a time.