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Venture story
haelp.
A social operating system that makes helping each other count.
- Role
- Founder, sole designer & builder
- Years
- 2021–2022
- Type
- Platform · community economy
- Status
- Open to partners
The spark.
Helping each other is the most valuable work we do — and the least visible.
As a volunteer paramedic with the German Red Cross, and in associations and initiatives in Berlin, I kept seeing the same thing: people who wanted to contribute, and systems that treated their help as an afterthought. Unpaid, unrecognised, hard to organise — and usually carried by the same few.
We already agree on where we want to go: the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are a shared picture of a better world. What’s missing are structures and incentives that get us there. So in September 2021 I left my job to work on this full time, funded by a philanthropic grant.
The question.
What if helping each other counted?
Not as “volunteering” on the side, but as real work — visible, trusted and rewarded. haelp was my attempt to design an operating system for that: part social network, part collaboration tool, part alternative currency.
Idea 01
Everything is a cell.
A community, a task, a skill, a discussion, a petition — in haelp they are all the same building block. Each cell is a small social contract: stewards define its purpose and what it takes to join, members decide whether to take part, and anyone can walk away.
- Cell typeTask, community, skill, discussion — one building block for everything.
- Rewardhaelp coins staked on the cell, shared by all members once its purpose is accomplished.
- TrustOther cells that vouch for this one — like a hashtag you have to earn.
- Strength matchHow well your proven strengths fit what the cell needs.
- VotesPush a cell up when it deserves more urgency.
People
You and every other member — the strongest cell in the network.
- Member
Spaces
Cells that give context and bring people together.
- Community
- Task
- Skill
- Discussion
- Message
Connections
Cells that connect the others — how you join, link and confirm.
- Join
- Link
- Confirm
Idea 02
Trust grows by doing things together.
You don’t join a cell by clicking “follow”. You join by completing a short activity — a smart social contract — and someone who is already a member confirms it. Every membership you earn is recorded as a POET — a proof-of-engagement token — and becomes a proven strength that opens the next door.
- 1AcknowledgeRead and sign the cell’s purpose
- 2ContributeAdd text or a photo as proof
- 3Peer reviewA member confirms it
- ✓Member+1 POET · a new strength
100%Sign the climate petitionJamie’s strengths match. She signs, gets confirmed, earns a POET.
→
50%Translate a campaign textLocked: it needs the skill “German C2”.
→
✓Join the skill “German C2”Through its membrane: show a language certificate.
→
100%Task unlockedNow she can help where she’s needed most.
Idea 03
A deliberately quiet network.
No algorithm guessing what keeps you scrolling. Your feed only shows cells where your proven strengths match a hundred percent — so a new member starts with an almost empty feed. That was intentional: slow technology that grows with what you’ve actually done.
Nothing here yet — and that’s on purpose.Finish your onboarding to see where you can help.Go to onboarding
Idea 04
Money, redesigned as an experiment.
Three numbers instead of one balance. POETs record what you’ve done and can’t be bought. haelp coins flow: everyone receives a small basic income and stakes it on the cells they want to see happen. And a lifetime value that can only ever grow — because why should the only number we watch be one that empties?
POETs8Proof-of-engagement tokens. Earned, peer-confirmed, never for sale. Let your actions speak for you.
haelp coins4,293 Basic income you spend or stake on cells you believe in.
Lifetime value23 Every coin you’ve ever received from others. It can only grow.
| Cell | For | When | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| haelp | Basic income | Today | +24.00 |
| haelp | Basic income | Yesterday | +24.00 |
| Bug reports | Reward shared | 2 days ago | +12.50 |
24coins a day for every member — one per hour, as a basic income
7%demurrage per year, inspired by Circles UBI, so coins keep flowing instead of being hoarded
↑a lifetime value that never shrinks — a new kind of status
Built in the open.
haelp was developed on haelp itself. Bugs, feature ideas and the roadmap were cells anyone could pick up, discuss or fund; a ride-sharing community ran on it too. Our mantra: progress over perfection.
I designed and built it solo, as a full-time job funded with €50,000 of philanthropic funding — from the first concept to a working beta with cells, trust connections, activities and a wallet paying out a daily basic income.
Where it lives on.
The questions behind haelp still drive my work. How do people find each other and do something together? That’s at the heart of mitmensch. How do people learn by doing, not by being told? That’s the Digital Builder Lab.
What I took from it.
haelp was my research lab. I went deep — a new money logic, trust as a social contract, a working app with a daily basic income, built solo for over a year.
What I underestimated: a community platform needs its community before it needs features. Today I start every venture with the people, not the system. And the core idea — trust that grows by doing things together — still feels right.
Let’s bring haelp back.
I’m looking for partners, funders and first communities to bring it back.