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Ribon

Ribon is a social impact startup which allows users to donate do Effective Altruism causes without spending money. By simply installing the app and using it once, you can provide a person in need with a day of clean drinking water or healthcare. This is possible in collaboration with four of the most effective NGOs on the planet:

All of which are listed in the The Life You Can Save’s catalog of most impactful organizations worldwide.

The app provides a daily feed of positive news, which the user has the opportunity to read and collect ribons, a digital currency used to make donations to any of the NGOs listed above. Users are also offered the opportunity to get more ribons by signing up for a monthly subscription, at very modest starting prices, or interacting with the company on social media. Money for the donations come from in-app sponsor ads.

Founded in 2016 by creators Rafael Rodeiro, Carlos Menezes and João Morais, the brazilian startup caught the attention of investors such as Cotidiano (Acellerator) and international VC Fund Redpoint eVentures. Sponsors include Malwee, Votorantim and Instituto Bancorbrás.

I joined Ribon in September 2018, as the 7th member of the team. There I learned a lot about the challenges faced by early-stage startups, and a great deal of my current development knowledge. By April 2019, Ribon had beat the 60k monthly users mark, and by September, 880 Million ribons had been donated through the platform.

My duties at Ribon varied widely - some of them more technical, others collaborative. Among others:

It is being a very enrichening experience so far - working in a diverse and quickly-changing environment with extremely skilled people (ex-Twitter, RocketChat, bxblue members), which allowed me not only to develop my technical skills a lot, but also taught me very much about soft skills and emotional intelligence. It also got in touch with the thriving dev and startup community in Brasília.