Loading...
Supporting developers, startups, and full-fledged companies building on Stellar and Soroban
© 2025 Stellar Development Foundation
Subscribe to the Newsletter
By Tip me
Connecting people of both ends of the global supply chain
tip me
The next time you buy a t-shirt, you can tip the garment workers who made it. 100% of your tip is sent directly to the workers’ individual bank or mobile money accounts be it in Pakistan, Vietnam, or Kenya. Like this, consumers can directly impact the lives of the people who made their products. In only 30 min, brands can implement our tipping solution as a widget in their online shops. By using tip me, brands improve their customer loyalty, retention rates, and long-term revenue.
tip me creates a win-win-win situation for all stakeholders involved: On average, workers receive an additional income equivalent to a 13th monthly income. For the first time, they receive feedback from the end-customers who value their work. This changes not only their income but also their self-esteem. Consumers can give back directly and effectively, knowing that 100% of donations go where they should. They learn about the origin of a product. Companies can position themselves as responsible brands. Because of the unique emotional experience, consumers connect stronger with the brand and the products. This directly translates into higher revenue as the retention rates, shopping cart values, and referrals increase because of tip me.
In 2019, we launched our first pilots. From day one, our solution proved to be very attractive and successful both to consumers and our partner brands. The most important parts of the system have now been automated: we can onboard and administer thousands of workers effectively. Installing our solution into new online shops is fast and convenient. The bottleneck for us to reach millions of workers worldwide is the traditional banking sector. The high transfer fees, the administration overhead, and low transparency of the old system are big main pain points.
As Stellar has specialized in cross-border money transfer, it is the most attractive blockchain network available for our use case. The possibilities of the Stellar network, especially with its instant payments at an extremely low cost and high transparency, would be a breakthrough for the scalability of our mission. The automation of payments will decrease our administration overhead significantly.
Stellar will reduce the transaction cost of tip me by 90%. In our business model, brands pay these transfer fees. Especially for corporate brands with over 100,000 workers, these transaction costs from tip me amount to millions of USD per year. Stellar reduces them to a minimum. This new pricing made possible by Stellar will make the tip me product an absolute no-brainer for large brands looking for impact and marketing.
By reducing our administration overhead, tip me can reach 2x more workers with the same team size. Thanks to the inherent transparency of blockchain transactions, we can create a donation/tipping experience where consumers, workers, and brands can trace their impact in real-time. They can see proof that 100% of their tips have been sent to the wallets in question, instead of blindly trusting our organization.
The SCF grant will enable us to move the global tipping solution onto the Stellar network. Thanks to the blockchain capabilities, we can create truly borderless donations directly to individuals, safe and transparent. This investment creates another powerful real-world Stellar use case. It shows how Stellar enables new business models and donation solutions that would not be possible in the old banking system. It shows the potential of microtransactions and borderless payments by creating direct social impact for garment workers around the globe. It enables tip me to scale our impact to millions of workers.
$145.0K
Helen Deacon
No other submissions.