startupi

I found an interesting service recently and it could be useful for all of us who participate in a pool to buy gifts for friends or colleagues. I’m talking about Vakinha, an application set up to organize funds for that weekend BBQ or anniversary gift for a colleague. It was launched in December.

It’s possible to create as many pools as you desire, and invite people via Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo Mail. One of the problems I found was the system is slow to send the invitations. I did a test and even after an hour, I saw no sign that the invitation had been received. And no, it wasn’t in the spam folder.

The service uses the payment platform PagSeguro (*) to manage the fund, taxes and forms for various types of payment. Because it uses PagSeguro, UOL invited Vakinha to be hosted with them. That said, the tools were not developed by them, nor are they controlled by them, but rather by Squid, a business in Porto Alegre.

It’s possible to create both open and private pools. Open ones can be used to collect donations. I’ve seen many sites for donations using PayPal, and this could be a solution using a Brazilian product instead. The private ones are used by inviting friends or colleagues to donate, and controlling the collection in the control panel.

It’s a simple service and a useful one, resolving the problem of managing funds that always ends up in someone’s hands. Now it’s easy to organize and there’s no risk of losing track of who contributed or not.

(*) Full disclosure: PagSeguro is a supporter of Startupi