GiGe - A Case Study of the project that won many hackathons
Overview
Students often find themselves in the need of things such as books, cycles, and actually everything at an affordable price also there are students that have stuff that they don’t even use. GiGe provides a quick and simple solution to both sides by enabling the users to share their goods in exchange for Gicoins. It is basically an ecosystem that thrives on people helping each other. The coins are used to measure how much one is helping others.
Background
This idea was first thought by my team and me at Ivy Hack 2020, we managed to make a decent prototype for it, we did not win any prizes but the hackathon was fun overall.
Then at VIT Hack 2020, we improved on the prototype and added more features and functionality. We submitted the project and won 2nd Prize in Fintech Track we also qualified to Build for Bharat Hack by Binance and were among the top 100 startups in the De-fi space. Then overall 3rd place at HackWiE by IEEE MSIT.
Then instead of GiCoins we added the functionality to buy and sell using Ethereum and participated in Hackaulus where we won Best Design and at Code2Create by ACM VIT where we were in the top 20 teams.
Then again for the project for the College course — Software Engineering, my team again made the website for GiGe from scratch. So this project has been active for a long time and a lot of people were involved in the process. The team members over time — Gaurav Jain, Sampreeth Mirayala, Ritvik Gupta, Sai Teja Reddy, Tanmay Bansal, Atul Agarwal, Nipun Mahajan, Sanjiv Mohanty, and Antra Nakhasi.
Problem
There are students who need things for a short time and at affordable prices. Each student also owns some things that they don’t use a lot.
A very easy solution to this is asking your friends for their stuff and this is how it works in my college I just ask my friends for things that I dont need to buy such as books, notes, cycle, sports equipment some software or even clothes such as ties and lab coats. This solution is easy but does not always work my friend circle is limited and to be honest, not everyone is ready to lend me stuff all the time. So we plan to find a better solution to this problem.
Research
Being a college student myself I understood the problem very well but still, Research is a must, so I asked some students from my college and also from other colleges around India and I tried to cover all types of colleges, for example, field wise — Medical, Engineering and Business, and location wise — colleges in metro cities and outside cities. I interviewed around 20 students for this research but some questions out of these were asked to about 45 people just to test the basic problem and idea.
Some Interview Questions
- Do you stay at a hostel?
- How often do you and your roommates or friends share things such as books, cycles, clothes, etc?
- Who do you share your stuff with?
- Would you rent things from students from your college?
- Would you share your things with others from college?
- What if you were paid to share things with others from college?
- Are you familiar with “cryptocurrency”?
- Have you ever used an app with points or coins or rewards for tasks?
- Would you use an app where you can rent your things to earn Coins and use those coins to rent things from others?
While researching I don’t prefer sending form links to people as those types of surveys using forms usually never give accurate results and the sample size will be small if I only send to people who will answer honestly. So I prefer directly talking to users, if possible and as that was possible I took the interview and noted the results for use. And often while talking to a person you can learn more than any form or graph.
👨🏻💼 Interview Insights:
- Do you stay at a hostel?
Most college students stayed in hostels to stay close to the college building and their classmates, with some students staying at home as their college was in the same town. Some even stayed in hostels in spite of this. This question was asked to understand the environment of the student. - How often do you and your roommates or friends share things such as books, cycles, clothes, etc?
Most students who stayed in the hostel said they shared things almost always with some exceptions who only shared important things, not daily things. Some even indicated that they dont have a choice as they cannot say NO to their roommates or friends. One participant said all the good snacks are finished by their friends, and sometimes they don’t like that. - Who do you share your stuff with?
Most say they share without any doubt with their roommates and sometimes their friends. Some people said friends of friends also help them so it’s their responsibility to reciprocate that. As expected they were afraid to share things with people they did not know but if that person was from their class or college they can maybe trust them as they meet regularly. - Would you rent things from students from your college?
Most said they would not prefer to pay money to their friends as it feels weird to pay for help and also it’s not great if you ask for money before helping others. But some people complained about people who they knew that only asked for help never reciprocated that friendly gesture back at them. - Would you share your things with others from college?
All said yes they would share but not a costly thing such as a laptop or bike but for other things they can trust college peers as they might not be friends but they stay at the hostel and attend the same classes. - What if you were paid to share things with others from college?
Like with that renting stuff question students did not want to associate money with helping their friends. So most did not want to share for money but they would share stuff if they think others will help them in return. But some people were ready to rent books and notes for money. - Are you familiar with “cryptocurrency”?
All participants had heard about crypto but many admitted to not understanding the real concepts behind all that. But some were very much informed about crypto. - Have you ever used an app with points or coins or rewards for tasks? Mostly said ye sand the most common used apps were — StepSetGo, Google Opinion Rewards, Swagbucks, CRED, and other apps that pay points for doing tasks
- Would you use an app where you can rent your things to earn Coins and use those coins to rent things from others?
Most were ready to try the app but were questioning the use of those coins in the real world. A minority of participants said they would ask their friends instead of using the app to get something in college. But all found the concept interesting enough to ask more about the app.
Solution
GiGe is a platform for sharing goods and services among students using a Coin system. Coins can be purchased as well as earned. The coins have certain properties of cryptocurrencies. Students can upload “gives” and “gets” which are the way of changing points. In “get”, you spend points by getting some items, and in “give”, you earn points by giving your items to students. That item can be almost anything like books, video games, assignments, electronics, projects, cycles, sports goods, etc. The giver has to upload details about the service. It is basically an ecosystem that thrives on people helping each other. The coins are used to measure how much one is helping others. Students who “give” earn coins and can spend those coins in the app to “get” things they need.
This diagram shows how the platform works for the giver and getter.
Whenever a new account is made we give them a certain number of coins so they can start using GiGe after that they have to contribute to the GiGe ecosystem to earn coins and then spend those but they can also buy GiGe coins using real money(rupee). You can change the location from My Campus to My City to see various “gets” available in your area.
We also have a chat feature so you can chat with the person who you are giving to or getting from. The giver can set the time for which they want to lend the item, and they can also add the points they required to buy the “get” and other details. Also when you buy a “get” your points are deducted after you pick up the item from the giver. The pickup address is mentioned in the give and you can chat and get to know specifics and set the time and other things.
You can also use our app and website to transfer GiGe coins to other students by QR code or directly using their username this payment feature makes the whole GiGe ecosystem complete with people getting incentives for helping others and those who help get coins which in turn help them by using GiGe platform.
We have reviews and rating systems for the “givers” and they can ask for loans in terms of coins for the services they are providing. Not everyone will get a loan but this can help many to get things they need but don’t have enough points
We have made an app prototype and a website for the functioning of the ecosystem. The platforms have a separate currency called GiGe coins which lets you buy gets. We have added features by using those you can transfer GiGe coins to others by various methods, also you can buy GiGe coins by using a card, Paypal, Gpay, etc.
Similar Products and Inspiration
Fiverr is a platform for freelancers and people looking for freelancers. It has two modes in the product the Seller mode and the Buyer mode. I got a lot of inspiration from Fiverr for GiGe’s Give and Get mode. Also, the initial idea was also inspired by Fiverr, we wanted to make a Fiverr for our college then slowly the idea transformed into a platform for sharing goods and services using GiCoins. Here are some screenshots that helped me understand Fiverr’s product.
Get Everything You Need Starting at $5 — Fiverr
Step Set go is a very popular app that rewards its users with points for walking. And those points can be used to buy things and get discounts. This app is an excellent example of gamification and points system usage. Gicoins are inspired by SSG Coins. Gicoins are rewarded when you help a fellow by giving them a good or service, and you can use those coins for getting something you want from the app such as goods and services offered by other people.
Wireframes
A simple Digarm showing the Giver’s and Getter’s use of the platform.
High Fidelity Prototypes — App and Web
Working of the Prototype
These explain the UI elements and how features work and then you can try them on the Figma prototype below.
For the Give mode, all the interactions of Menu, Account, Messaging, and Wallet are the same. Just the Home and Analytics options are different. This video shows the app being used in Give Mode.
This is a video showing the demo of the whole app.
This is the working prototype for the app you can try the features shown in the above video here.
(you can go to Options and change it to Fit or Fill see the full app screen)
This image shows the prototype connections and functions that were made using Figma.
Conclusion
After many hackathon reviews and presentations, my team and I have made this idea a success. I really enjoyed working on this project and hope to launch this idea as a product in the real world for all college students to use. But Covid is not a good time to start a startup in sharing and renting space, but I will keep working on this idea and improving it further.
I really learned a lot while making this project. Also currently I am trying to solve the problem of theft and damage to the rented items. As the transactions are not in real money this was becoming a problem. Some solutions I had in mind were Insurance for each item, but the item themselves are very cheap also some concepts of Smart Contracts can be used here. Another solution can be well old, collecting deposits on items before renting. If you have any ideas to solve this problem you can contact me.
Final Words
Thanks for reading. Do 👏 this article if you liked it.
You can reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter in case you have any questions/feedback or just want to talk.
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