Howzus

Business Idea Definition — structured using Business Ideas Template

Each venture in the Mycelium follows this template to define the idea before building the persuasion loop.

Persuasion Loop Status​

1. Title & One-Line Description​

• Business name: Howzus
• Domain: howzus.com
• One-liner: A third-space coordination platform that helps people find meaningful collaborators and projects through fair-trade contribution loops.

2. Problem & Why Now​

• What system is broken?

  • People with skills and goodwill struggle to find trusted collaborators outside existing social circles
  • Community tools optimize for attention and posting, not coordinated contribution
  • Projects fail because commitments, roles, and proof-of-contribution are implicit rather than structured

• Who feels the pain most?

  • Builders and creators seeking aligned partners for meaningful projects
  • Community operators trying to turn chat groups into real outcomes

• Why urgent now?

  • AI acceleration is displacing identity from jobs toward contribution-based reputation
  • Coordination across human + AI teams requires explicit trust and role systems

• Why this approach?

  • Trust compounds when contribution is visible, reciprocal, and measurable
  • Third-space design (between home and work) enables belonging without needing institutional permission

3. System Map & Opportunity​

• Universe → where we sit:

  • Universe: Community software, collaboration tools, creator ecosystems
  • Slot: Contribution-first social operating system for mycelium ventures and aligned communities

• Market size:

  • TAM: Global collaboration and community software market
  • SAM: Remote-first creators, builders, and micro-teams needing trusted coordination
  • SOM: Mycelium ecosystem + first external communities in NZ/AU

• Network:

  • Digital: Profiles, contribution graph, project matching, protocol-based collaboration
  • Physical: Meetups, studio sessions, retreats, and local third spaces

4. Solution & Product Snapshot​

• Plain-language description:

  • Howzus helps people discover who to build with, what to build next, and how to coordinate fairly with clear roles and proof of contribution.

• Primary users:

  • Builders seeking collaborators with complementary capabilities
  • Community hosts who want measurable outcomes, not just engagement

• Core job to be done:

  • "When I want to start or join a meaningful project, help me find trusted people and coordinate commitments so progress compounds."

• Key differentiator:

  • Moves from social graph to contribution graph: trust comes from completed fair trades, not follower counts.

• Tech stack:

  • Proprietary: Fair-trade loop protocol, contribution scoring, third-space matching framework
  • Leveraged: Stackmates identity, CRM/project primitives, agent-assisted matching

• Business model:

  • Free: Personal profile, project discovery, basic contribution history
  • Paid: Team coordination workspaces, matching intelligence, community analytics

5. Market & Competition Mini-Map​

• Incumbents:

  • Slack/Discord communities
  • LinkedIn professional graph

• Adjacent players:

  • Circle and Mighty Networks
  • Co-working and community membership platforms

• Why we win:

  • Fair-trade proofs make contribution and trust explicit
  • Integrated with mycelium ventures, so opportunities are real and live

Tight Five Biz Dev Idea​

Shared PRD Mycelium​

Howzus is a coordination window over shared capabilities.

6. Execution & Unit Economics​

• Current stage: Idea

• 12-month plan:

  1. Launch contributor profiles and project matching MVP
  2. Run 3 pilot communities and measure weekly collaboration outcomes
  3. Add tokenized reputation and reward experiments with explicit safeguards

• Unit economics:

  • CAC: $30-80 via founder-led community and content channels
  • LTV: $600-2,400 per paid team/year depending on tier
  • Margin: 70%+ for software layer before community facilitation costs

• Success criteria (12 months):

  • 10+ active teams running weekly coordination loops
  • 60%+ monthly retention for teams with at least one completed trade/week

7. Business Model Economics​

• Who pays: Team leads, venture operators, and communities that need reliable coordination
• Who earns: Howzus platform and contributing facilitators
• Value capture: Workspace subscriptions, optional matching fees, and premium coordination tooling

8. Team & Credibility​

• Founders: Dreamineering team
• Advisors: TBD
• Key relationships: Mycelium ventures

9. Governance, Regulatory & Risk​

• Entity: Part of Dreamineering ecosystem
• Regulatory: Standard SaaS/privacy obligations; token features require jurisdiction-aware compliance
• Key risks:
  • Empty-network cold start
  • Reputation gaming and performative contribution
  • Community moderation overhead as scale grows

10. The Ask​

• Current need: Pilot with two real communities and validate retention through completed weekly trades
• Not raising yet — proving concept first

Connection to Mycelium​

Next Actions​

1. Define MVP: profile, project board, fair-trade proof artifact
2. Run 10 discovery interviews with community operators
3. Launch pilot with one mycelium venture team and one external community
4. Measure: weekly trades completed, team retention, trust score movement

The thesis: When contribution is visible and fairly rewarded, communities stop performing belonging and start building meaningful outcomes together.

Build Spec​

How do people find trusted collaborators and meaningful projects without getting trapped in attention-first social platforms?

Job + Trigger​

Feature / Function / Outcome​

Success Criteria​

Commissioning​

Risks + Kill Signal​

Kill signal: If pilot teams do not complete at least one fair-trade artifact in week one, the core workflow is not useful enough and the product must be reframed.

Next Cycle (6 Weeks)​

1. Ship profile, project board, and first trade artifact log.
2. Run two pilot groups (one internal, one external).
3. Measure activation, completed trades, and retention.
4. Convert best-performing workflow into Stackmates template.