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So basically this was a 'to-do' app like you can find on any beginners tutorial (quick Google example: https://www.thepolyglotdeveloper.com/2015/03/create-todo-

by Cozumel 10y ago

So basically this was a 'to-do' app like you can find on any beginners tutorial (quick Google example: https://www.thepolyglotdeveloper.com/2015/03/create-todo-list-mobile-app-using-ionic-framework/ https://www.thepolyglotdeveloper.com/2015/03/create-todo-lis...) the only difference was banking integration which would have been trivial to add in, they could use paypal, stripe, take the payment themselves and pay the kids out in apple credits etc Somehow not only did they convince some poor sap to give them $100,000 for it, but that wasn't enough, they had to keep 'fund raising'. They had no outlay at all, just build the app and deploy. I'm really struggling to understand the mindset here, not just of the developers who didn't need any investment to write that app, but the people who actually dumped money into it.

MOARDONGZPLZ 10y ago
I agree with the sentiment of convincing someone to give them money and then continuing to fundraise without a plan, but I think this is getting downvoted because you're acting like all this integration is trivial. It's really not. There are a million little things that take much longer to build/integrate than expected. But my contention is that even if it took a while to build/integrate/"pivot", there was no rush to do this part before seeking initial funding.
ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
The app is reasonably simple, except of course it's a little more involved than a to-do list from the get go since you have to maintain user's accounts, assigned tasks with mutable states, transaction history etc etc. But yea no rocket science. Banking integration for this flow would be reasonably involved though. To get set up with a merchant account to take the funds is reasonably simple although you'd have to figure out how the payers tie their payment instruments to your system so you can actually charge them and then develop the functionality to drive that (more dev work). OK. So now you have the funds that you need to be able to move to recipient's accounts. THIS is where the fun begins. Provided that you have the registration flow for the recipients in place (which means more dev work but anyway) now you have to be able to disperse the funds to their accounts, track payment statuses, reconcile data across multiple sources so you are aware of the current state of the payment etc etc ad nauseam. And if you're touching a credit card number don't forget about PCI compliance :)

by Cozumel 10y ago

MOARDONGZPLZ 10y ago

I agree with the sentiment of convincing someone to give them money and then continuing to fundraise without a plan, but I think this is getting downvoted because you're acting like all this integration is trivial. It's really not. There are a million little things that take much longer to build/integrate than expected. But my contention is that even if it took a while to build/integrate/"pivot", there was no rush to do this part before seeking initial funding.

ChemicalWarfare 10y ago

The app is reasonably simple, except of course it's a little more involved than a to-do list from the get go since you have to maintain user's accounts, assigned tasks with mutable states, transaction history etc etc. But yea no rocket science. Banking integration for this flow would be reasonably involved though. To get set up with a merchant account to take the funds is reasonably simple although you'd have to figure out how the payers tie their payment instruments to your system so you can actually charge them and then develop the functionality to drive that (more dev work). OK. So now you have the funds that you need to be able to move to recipient's accounts. THIS is where the fun begins. Provided that you have the registration flow for the recipients in place (which means more dev work but anyway) now you have to be able to disperse the funds to their accounts, track payment statuses, reconcile data across multiple sources so you are aware of the current state of the payment etc etc ad nauseam. And if you're touching a credit card number don't forget about PCI compliance :)