1. BASICS
2. PRODUCT
3. BUSINESS MODEL
4. FINANCING
5. PROGRESS
6. THE IDEA
7. MARKET
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Humania Inc. – Delaware, US
Life Experience Market & Mentor Network Platform
To Solve Human Isolation & Loneliness
Humania is a marketplace aggregating human experiences like Aibnb did beds, but with a twist – we also enable people to organise local mentoring groups and to invest mentoring into mentees for an agreed upon % from the mentee’s mentoring income. Our team is experienced, GTM is EU first, US second – except if our VC can help us go US first. We incorporated in Delaware, develop from Hungary, have raised a first round from 8 angels, built MVP, are live, have users and early revenue.
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We are Airbnb for human experiences.
The fundamental idea behind Humania is exactly like Airbnb. But instead of beds we enable people to bring their life experiences to market.
Humania is about finding and contacting real people you should know.
Instagram has your photos, Facebook your posts, LinkedIn your CV, YouTube your videos – Humania is the place for your life experiences, that you are open to offer to others!
Society is focused on experts… but talking to an other real person, who has successfully solved a similar situation in the past often is the best help.
Humania enables people to
Humans need each other to be happy.
The best way to connect is to show vulnerability.
Talking to other people who have already solved similar situation has been the best help to cope with challenges for millennia. We all need mentors, we all need community – the world now needs Humania.
CURRENT version of Humania (MVP 2.0) enables people to
Thus people can
All this is currently for free.
Except if you are a community organiser who is empowering people to launch groups and add them to your network (and thus want to collect recurring subscription fees from the members of your community): we keep 14% of the membership fees.
Other than sharing experience cards: there is No posting in Humania.
Other than validating experiences: No comments. No reactions.
Our „base unit” is (1) the Experience Card. (2) Users „are formed by” a collection of experiences they have, (3) Groups are a collection of users, and their experiences, (4) Communities a collection of Groups (the member Users and the Exp. thereof).
Our MVP: humania.io
I.
Experience feed is coming as a separate main view, to show experience cards of users as they show up, and to play the game of validating others „with our heart”. (Launched on 31st of May.)
II.
Humania Plus is coming, that will add additional features for users for USD 10 / month membership fee (more than 12 experience cards, more than 2 groups, hide profile, only show profile to logged in users / people I am in the same group with, etc.)
III.
Multilingual App is coming (language handling for English as well as all the regional markets we aim to target first: PL, DE, AT, RO, SK, etc.)
IV.
A „visual mentor tree” map is coming, to navigate members based on their mentoring relationships (based on mentor/mentee relations + group & community memberships)
V.
A „professional methods” section is coming to the user profiles (to better serve coaches and other personal development professionals to stand out)
VI.
We will be able to collect mentoring fees on behalf of users (handle one off transactions and keep transaction fees thereof)
VII.
Mentors and Mentees will be able to agree on a revenue share towards Mentor from Mentee’s incomes on the platform (thus one can „invest mentoring” into others)
VIII.
Leaders will be able to connect their Communities (a membership in one also gives access to the other, smaller community pays % of their fee to the parent)
IX.
A white label service is under consideration (a local branch office of a multinational corporation operating in Hungary seems interested to trial a specially branded version of Humania to facilitate experience sharing IRL groups).
X.
We may add AI based assistant for users to consult the aggregated experiences amassed on the Humania platform.
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I.
Humania has a freemium model: all services are free on the platform for individuals who just want to learn – but features for power users (who make real money helping others) will be only accessible to „Humania Plus” subscribers for a monthly fee of USD 10.
II.
We keep a 14% fee from the transactions that flow through our platform.
Similar to Airbnb.
Same as Airbnb. Or maybe more. We open up a huge new market of mentoring with experiences as an alternative / expansion to professional consulting services. Same as Airbnb brought private beds to market instead of hotels.
We want to serve 1 billion people.
The world now needs a tool to connect strangers – to REconnect humanity – and Humania seeks to become the platform to do it.
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USD 32 000
Private individuals (first time angel investors).
SAFE note by YC.
We are in the process of raising a 500K to 1M seed round.
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Yes
Yes
We (soft) launched Humania 19th of May, 2024, with about 70 people, that we invited via targeted comms… they like it very much, use it as intended: posting experience cards (3-5 per person, who participate) and setting prices for access (about 50% is free).
Feedback form is live, interviews are ongoing – about 4-5 a day presently. There is a lot to optimise… features as well as wording (based on the feedback).
After the roadblocks are cleared we go back to our interested B2B partners – an influencer, a personal development school, a FB community admin – to onboard first round of existing communities. We look ahead to much interviewing and much learning.
Our present goal is product market fit. Our present experience with our users is that wording seems very important, people do consider „mentor” to be a larger then life person (not them), while „talking about experiences with others” seems fine for most people.
Design is not yet very fancy, and the UI is HUN for our pilot market: Hungary. (Sorry for the inconvenience, it is an MVP.)
The product has virality built in (invite others to validate your experience cards, invite others so that they also can help and/or make money with experiences, invite others to join your groups, etc.) – & we do count on the virality of the product.
Yet we also feel that a direct push towards other influencers and community leaders like Istvan is necessary to kickstart our growth. Our initial GTM therefore is B2B, we onboard hubs first (influencers), who move communities. We have a list of 30 in Hungary, who know István well, and are/should be interested, for they have similar problems like he did.
B2B partner personas:
1. personal development schools (to administer mentoring within their community)
2. influencer with large following but no community, to launch a community using our product
3. opinion leaders unable to handle incoming request for advice to show personal mentees
4. facebook group admins seeking a revenue stream from their members/following
We want to corner our Pilot Market before moving on to the EU or the US (a decision that is also depending on the location and network of our VCs.) .
Before MVP 2.0 we did MVP 1.0 (right after we then incorporated in early 2023) – after building it we soon realised that our MVP version also needs to manage groups & have experience cards – thus MVP 2.0 came around.
Before MVP 1.0 we first ran a proof of concept with over 1000 people to validate the fundamental idea that strangers can become credible enough for each other by just sharing experiences honestly to also pay money for consulting.
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I, Istvan Joos (see: stevejoos.com)
1. was very successful .com entrepreneur in my 20s
2. f…ed up my private life, crashed at 29
3. started writing about it
4. strangers came to me to talk
5. they started giving me money for my time
6. became an expert in the field of personal development
7. am now somewhat of a celebrity people recognise on the street
I want other people to discover their worth. Through honesty. That everybody has something, some valuable experience they can give to others. IF they can be honest.
Also: I needed Humania myself to show my Mentees, and to manage my Groups and Community.
Our mission is to fight human isolation by empowering people to offer their attention and experiences to strangers easily and safely, while also earning some money.
We envision a future where everybody is easily accessible to strangers, and all people help each other with their experiences.
We have a strong feeling that this exactly is what humanity now most needs. Loneliness-isolation is one of the greatest challenges of our age, and we need to help – & incentivise – people to connect each other more.
We ran a pilot community (using Mighty Networks) to see if people became credible for each other based on just sharing experiences. Would they give money to talk to a non-expert stranger, who „just” has experience. It was a resounding success.–
After I sold my first startup (an eCMS company) I became disoriented, started a blog, then held a TEDx talk and went on to consult over 1000 people in crisis, who came to me for my experiences. I eventually wrote two books, made 700+ videos, and became an expert in mid-life crisis.
Humania is a solution to my past and present problems – an avenue to open up my own journey, so that more people start helping each other with their experiences.
Past problems it solves:
1.
How can I start offering my experiences? Should I charge money? How do I build a personal sales site for consulting me, where I can also show who I am? Can I charge money?
2.
How could I approach this total stranger who has never heard of me for his/her mentoring help? What could I offer them in return?
3.
How could I show off my mentor? How could I access his/her network so that people paying attention to him/her would find me for a much lower price?
Present problems it solves:
4.
My following is large, and it is humanly impossible for me to serve everybody personally. What can I do? How could I provide mentoring, show credible mentors to them?
5.
How could I show and legitimize my mentees so that people would turn to them instead of me?
6.
Is there a way for me to earn some humble return from my investment of time, attention and experience into my mentees?
I never picked this idea. The idea picked me on our honeymoon in 2015, and has been “refining itself” (chewing away at me) ever since.
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We understand the power of nakedness.
Most people try to get what they want by force. We understand that if one is „just” brave enough to strip down to the bones and be honest: other people will want to connect.
Radical honesty is irresistible.
We can help people discover this.
Radical honesty regarding one’s life (not just success, but our human challenges) results in rock solid credibility, that entices other people to want to connect. Thriving despite our fundamental flawed/imperfect nature is the bedrock of our humanity.
We stand out by being contrarian to the expert culture of the day, and go back to relying on experiences.
We do not compete with Facebook & Twitter.
We are the link you want to post on your FB/X profile.
Other than sharing experiences: there is no posting in Humania.
Other than validating experiences: No comments. No reactions.
1.
People trust experts, but experiences are often more valuable.
Our “unfair advantage” is what I learned in the past 10 years consulting over 1000 people in crisis: (1) The experiences of another person who has solved similar situation is often more valuable then talking to an expert, (2) Every human has experience that would be of value to others – we just need to create the right incentive structure for people to share these and connect.
In our opinion: everybody is a mentor. People just don’t know it yet.
2.
Creators, SME leaders and Civil leaders are in great need of mentoring – they should be able to easily access each other (and successful corporate guys wanting to “pay it forward to society”) for mentoring.
3.
Most people mentor for free but it is our experience that this is not effective. We believe that (1) while one should start mentoring for free – asking for money really is a self defence mechanism one must use to select people who can use one’s help, (2) asking for money is a ladder people will climb after they start, as they become more credible.
[Take my example… To work with me as a mentor today one has to pay USD 350 to 3000, depending on the package – but I started for free. Because I had no paper (right) to be a mentor (I was not an expert, just a somewhat arrogant guy with lots of experience), and was surprised and delighted anybody is interested in my advice at all. Then sy offered to pay my coffee. Then sy wanted to give me money. Then I had enough of doing it for free and started asking for money. Then I felt the barrier was too low, and I raised my price. Then I kept raising it. Then I no longer “wanted” to mentor people and started to promote my mentees so that there also is service for lower prices, and people go to them.]
Conclusion: offering experiences one starts for free (e.g. on Twitter) but anybody in demand will have enough of that soon, and they quit mentoring (turn DMs off) if there is no monetary reward. (Which is bad for them, because they no longer feel their worth sharing. And bad for society, because they are no longer accessible for help.) Middle ground is to ask for money transparently.
IN SUM: Asking for money for our time is the best way of being accessible to strangers enthusiastically and safely – thus serve others & Society on the long term.
4.
Most people would need mentoring for their personal and/or professional challenges – but this relationship should not just be a favor, but regulated transparently (% from income of the mentee does this). It is also much easier to approach a stranger as my mentor if conditions are transparent, and I can also offer sg in return (the % from my earnings).
[Look back in time: mentoring has always worked this way. The master smith had a mentee who would work in their shop (for free!) until he/she finished his studies and set up his personal practice independently. Same in ancient China.]
5.
The most knowledgeable people are in high demand, but in many cases it would be enough to talk to a mentee of such a person (for a much lower price).
6.
Wise people, community leaders, social superstar and famous educators are unable to personally serve their following (for a lack of time). They need to have mentees to help them do this: a network of mentees = a mentor network. Same as I do.
7.
Mentees are eager to show affiliation with mentor so that people can discover them more easily and trust them much more.
We want to solve human isolation & disconnection – the „Loneliness Epidemic” –, that we feel is one of the greatest challenges of our modern, individualistic times.
Social isolation is a danger on a global level.
We have to stop further atomization of society.
Humans need each other, we need to re-connect.
The best way to do this is around things we share.
The Future of Health is Being Well.
The Future of Mental Health is Humania.
Istvan Joos
Team Humania
Contact: hello@humania.io