Crowdfunding platform Hooandja has got off to a great start in just a few years. Rapid growth has taken us to a point, moving on from which we invite you to join along!
The Story so Far
Four years ago, when we started testing the idea of Hooandja on our friends and family, we got mainly put off, as Estonians would be too closed-up and self-centered for such a platform to work. Besides, Estonia’s too small. Despite the naysayers, during one pitch-black fall evening, the first sketches of a crowdfunding platform appeared on a napkin, and half a year later the Hooandja website was made public, hosting five brave carefully curated campaigns. Two months later, we presented one of them with a prize for the first successful project.
Fast forward four years: more than five hundred creative ideas have seen daylight, thanks to the backing of nearly sixty thousand Estonians. The 1.7 million euros raised have, among others, helped to produce 152 records, 44 shows and 17 movies, write 109 books, hold 37 festivals, build 4 boats, a genetic laboratory, a skatepark, a brewery, a cafe with cats, a rooftop to a school building, and develop female entrepreneurship in Cameroon. Hooandja itself has received much praise and the Estonian version of the term "crowdfunding" has been added to the national dictionary.
Hooandja has become the first choice of funding for the local creatives and active citizens, and a starting platform for hundreds of first-timers, whose ideas might otherwise never see daylight. But great success has also greatly increased the load on the crowdfunding platform itself.
As there was a huge question mark over its adoption, the Hooandja platform was initially carefully designed to be a fairly simple one. Reacting on feedback, we have incrementally improved it over the years, but the rudimentary framework, which requires a vast amount of manual input to function, has remained. Many functionalities that could increase backing have been left undeveloped, and the team is constantly occupied by technical trivialities, instead of engaging with more practical matters, such as promotion.
A Modern, Bigger and Personal Hooandja
Hooandja has reached a point where it has to undergo a serious redesign to move on. Loads of feedback analysed, mapped down problematic themes, four years of experience and the examples of foreign platforms have altogether given us a good input into how the new Hooandja will look like.
Modern
- A new design, that’s even more simple and practical, and also works wonders of mobile screens. Nearly 40% of all visits to Hooandja are made on smartphones, on which the site is very difficult to use at the moment;
- A new automatic project submission system, which enables the creators to build and preview their campaigns, thus making submission much faster, and freeing up work hours for the Hooandja team;
- Searching for and filtering projects by preference will become much more logical; alongside many other tweaks made according to feedback.
Bigger
- The creators will receive much improved supporting materials and guidelines, more actionable feedback during the campaign and better means to communicate with backers. We will instruct and motivate them to be more communicative both during and after campaigns;
- We will fully develop the functionality to add campaigns with several milestones, which gives creators much greater flexibility;
- More attention will be given to the creators’ profiles to increase credibility, the reward receiving mechanisms will be made more straighforward.
Personal
- Navigating the page, categories and Hooandja sister-sites will become much more logical, making it easier to find projects you might be interested in;
- If you can’t back your favourite campaigns, you can sign up for a reminder before the campaign ends;
- You get bigger control over your profile, back campaigns anonymously or even without creating and account.
All those, and other improvements have been designed to inspire even more interesting, various and higher quality campaigns, and involve more backers, more funding and more success.
Create the New Hooandja With Us!
On every successful campaign, Hooandja collects a small service fee that covers our hosting, bug fixing, project management and promotion costs.
Our dream team has all the professional skills and awesome partners to make Hooandja 2.0 happen. Yet, it will be a big undertaking that requires a sizeable investment. Thus we turn to you: join us in building a bigger, better Hooandja!
Goals
The whole amount raised will be spent to cover design and development costs. As there’s a lot of ground to cover and the potential is endless, we have divided the campaign into six goals.
- 2000€ New design. We will modernise the Hooandja design and make it work on smartphones, fix the biggest loopholes and fully develop the multiple-goal campaign functionality.
- 3000€ New project submission functionalities. We’ll add the functionalities for creators to build their own campaigns.
- 5000€ New personal functions. We’ll make Hooandja more personal by adding personalised dashboards, new campaign and favourite campaign ending notifications, and functionality to back without logging in.
- 7000€ A Smartphone app. We’ll pack the Hooandja platform into a smartphone app. This way you can always have your favourites and pledges with you, and be the first to know about great new campaigns and rewards.
- 10000€ Hooandja gift cards and campaign. We’ll conduct an awesome campaign so that all awesome ideas would reach even more backers. We’ll develop a gift card functionality, which you can use to gift others a possibility to do good.
- 20000€ Dream Big Bonus! We’ll start the Hooandja internationalisation process, to help Estonian creatives reach the wide world. Starting with our neighbouring countries.
The Team
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Henri Laupmaa - Co-founder and CEO. Runs Hooandja.
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Kairi Kase - Project Manager. Runs everyday business and manages campaigns.
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Tanel Kärp - Co-founder, CDO. Designs Hooandja’s functionality, looks and materials.
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Tuulike Mänd - Team Manager. Organizes Hooandja’s work and communicates with creators.
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Trinidad Wiseman - Development Partner. Professional development team with a long time experience.
The Rewards
You support the development of crowdfunding in Estonia. We will thank you on the new Hooandja homepage. 
You get early access to the new Hooandja. This is a good opportunity to have your say and give a helping hand in the development process.
In the spring, we will organise exclusive backer parties in Tallinn and Tartu! Entertainment for the mind, body and soul will be provided by the creatives backed by Hooandja.
In collaboration with Okeiko, we have designed unique reflectors to keep you safe in the dark Estonian winter. We will send it to you together with a lovely signed thank-you card. From the the 35€ pledge on, you’ll also be signed up to a newsletter, where we introduce you to the behind-the-scenes making of the new Hooandja. Delivery: March 2017. The picture is illustrative.
Unique and to be worn with pride — Okeiko will design Hooandja t-shirts, which we will hand-print ourselves with much love and care! We will contact you after the campaign to agree the size, cut and colour of the shirt. Delivery: April 2017. The picture is illustrative.
Your living or working space will be decorated by a drypoint technique graphic sheet by Okeiko, which you can have framed according to your own preference!
Our team will organise a big feast in your honour!
We will organise a Hooandja workshop for up to 20 people in your selected location in Estonia. Being it a school, corporation on village center, we will help all the participants to put together a successful Hooandja campaign.
You will receive a painting piece by Okeiko (acrylic on canvas), probably featuring a mysterious and kind mystical creature.
For years, we have worked towards the best crowdfunding platform possible. Hooandja has been a true surprise, a wonderful experience and success story. Our goal now is to bring it to even more people, so that even more ideas would see daylight!
