Asking for help on Helpbuild is super easy.

You just fill a form (basically like creating a support ticket – with far fewer fields!).

On the form, you:

• pick a ‘need’ it relates to e.g. ‘Introductions and Growing Network’
• describe what specifically you need help with e.g. ‘Introduction to logistics companies in London’
• state what would count as the request being met (acceptance criteria) e.g. I consider this request met if you send me an email introducing me and the contact (who must be a C-level executive in a logistics company).
• You add a number of gratitude tokens to the request
• Pick how many helpers you want to independently work on this
• Optionally, pick a date it needs to be done by.

And then submit. It goes automatically to the project helpers that have signed up to that need e.g. Introductions.

The platform handles everything else from there. No chasing up, no nagging, no ruined friendships.

No.

Token are simply digitised gratitude.

If someone does something helpful for you, you say thank you (and you might say it deeply and many times if it was especially helpful). That is what we are trying to achieve with tokens.

They cannot be sold, traded, nor do they hold any value you can use to buy anything.

They are however very important in the system.

They are the means to 

• recognise help you have received – and can never be taken away once earned.
• remember help you got. The recipient might use the tokens they earned from you on something else,  but the record of them get earning it from you never changes.
• reciprocate help you got. Sometimes we forget we are the product of many kindnesses, with Helpbuild, we want to help people be less forgetful. Tokens help with that. So when it comes to giving back and help in return, the tokens help you know who has demonstrated their own willingness to help you.

Depends.

If you are in a managed hub – that is organised and has hub helpers primed to help, then the unmet request is automatically sent to any of the hub helpers who have signed up to help with the area that the request is about.

For example if a startup needs guidance exporting to Japan, they ask their network and no one responds (because they are too busy or just no one has the expertise), the platform would escalate it to a hub helper who has signed up to ‘Exporting rules’. Once they see the request, they can respond to it like any helper can.

If the hub is unmanaged, then the project cannot access any assistance on that request.

No.

Your network is based on relationships.

The people in your network that come to your project on Helpbuild already care about you enough to show up.

When you ask them for something they have said they would consider helping with (because they have the skill, time, resources or connections), then they must also have the bandwidth when you ask them. Sometimes they are just too busy at the time.

Remember most of what you ask for help for, you would have to sort out yourself. So it is a bonus – not an obligation when your network steps up.

No.

Helpbuild is built on the idea that projects first try to get as much help as they can from their own networks.

Usually a project’s network is emotionally closer to the project or its founders than the hub.

The platform will automatically escalate any requests that have not been met by the project’s network.

Hub helpers can also explicitly join a project as a project helper and you may ask them directly to help.

Yes – absolutely.

Tokens are the currency for help on Helpbuild.

They are not tradeable – you can only earn them.

Once you earn them, they are in your wallet. You can gift tokens from your wallet to your project and use them to reward other project helpers.

No.

Helpbuild requires that all requests are made with at least 1 gratitude token.

If you have no tokens in your wallet to make requests, you make still continue to use the platform to manage existing asks. You just won’t be able to create new asks.