Show HN: Thankbox – collect messages and cash for team occasions
thankbox.co
thankbox.co
Thankbox is idea I started working on last year but had to park due to other commitments. At the start of March, when I realized that everyone is going to be working remotely, I decided to dedicate to it completely and get it out for teams to use.
The idea is super simple - it's a better, online alternative to the paper card + envelope collection that you'd have for a team member occasion. It's also great for remote groups of friends.
In 2 minutes you create a Thankbox for someone, share a link to your team to add messages, gifs & (optional) money contributions. Once it's done you pop in the recipients email and they get a secure link where they can see all the messages and claim any money as a gift card to whatever merchant they want.
On a technical note, this product has forced me to learn frontend coding, as I've been a pure native mobile engineer for ages. I've done this all in Vue.js (with Laravel in the backend) and have been having so much fun. Definitely more enjoyable than working on apps - the iteration cycle alone is incredible.
One thing that often happens when folk move on is that they pass out their contact details - usually email address to enable people to keep in touch with them - does thankbox allow the recipient to send a message to all those that contributed? This would allow them to express thanks (should they want to!) and possibly share contact details.
Yeah, so anyone that adds a message to a Thankbox can leave their email in order to get a link to edit their message before the box is sent. This is optional - I really only aim to collect data that's necessary.
I'm currently working on a feature to allow the recipient to respond to everyone who contributed (if they left their email) which I think would address what you mention.