About two weeks ago, I was investigating payment mechanisms for the Finn Wardman World Explorer Fund. The adventure fund I co-founded with my wife Kirsten and best mate Chase.
One of the things about the fund is that it is run out of Bermuda, where Finn and I are from, and requires a Bermuda bank to work. The Bermuda banks are notoriously bad at staying with the times. Not one decade behind. Possibly two or three.
So I started to ask what it would take to just build our own donations portal, and make it free for all charities to use. Why not. It is in the spirit of the fund, and I would probably learn something.
I have an AI coach that helps me plan every day (I wrote it up earlier in the BIP, a three-part series on how to build one: part 1, part 2, part 3), and between the AI coach and my internal vibe meter, the project did not feel like drift. I allow myself a certain amount of time daily on the fund as part of the one life, one mission purpose of this project. I have been spending that time building assets, writing posts, and interviewing grantees. The trade-off to take on something this time-consuming was that I would swap the daily fund writing for two weeks and build a donations platform instead to meet the application deadline.
Earlier in the month I had heard a YC Lightcone podcast on AI agents and the shift toward B2A, business to AI agents (episode here), and the idea rattled around as a loop when I was on one of my ski tour trainings. A B2A platform for micro nonprofits and charities like the Finn Fund. The more I researched, the more the project felt aligned with a bigger mission and purpose in life. Something I could work on alongside the fund that might even pull more attention toward youth empowerment.
Through the AI coach I found a charity grant application that fit perfectly for this kind of project. Loosely: how AI can make donating easier and with less friction.
During the research, I reached out to a small UK charity working with kids through surf therapy in London. I got talking to one of the trustees, the conversation turned toward him being interested in helping, and I decided to bring him on as a consortium partner. He has the experience and contacts, including the potential to introduce me and the platform to hundreds of charities.
So with the thin harness, fat skills framework, and Claude now my AI bro in arms, we started building.
The idea first landed as a sort of Linktree, the social media tool small businesses use when they say "check link in profile." This one is more of a check-donation-link-in-profile. The platform, which I will announce next week once the grant deadline closes, handles most kinds of payments. Traditional fiat rails. Online banks like Revolut (which I absolutely love). And an AI auto-payment method using the x402 protocol, an HTTP-native standard that lets AI agents pay programmatically for services using the long-dormant "402 Payment Required" status code, usually settled in USDC.
I have heard it is not a great idea to write about these things and hand potential trade secrets to the competition. While being cognisant of that, I also want to hold true to the spirit of build in public, so this is another day in the life in that vein. The blinds are half down. The thing exists. The wrapper is visible. The shape inside is not. I'm comforted by the fact that there is little reason for anyone else to build this because I'm giving it away, literally. It's open source (my first), and there's no money in it, and no future business model. If I want the project to take off, I may need to introduce some kind of light biz model to be able to pay the partner and give him incentive for signing charities up. The idea, one of many now, is to give an optional donor tipping mechanism so that it's always free for charities.
Yesterday, after two weeks of pretty serious building, writing, testing, and conversing, I submitted the application.
After the submission, I found out that finalists may not even be selected until the end of the year. So what does that mean for the project? I am an impatient guy. When I want something done, I execute the same day. I will likely start forging ahead without grant funds, and the project will take on a totally new shape. Is that OK? It is. I will be further ahead, and the chances are only 10 to 15% that I will even win. Maybe I will reach out to other grants. If TestVentures starts to take off, I will fund it myself.
The point is, it is OK to start things you feel passionate about that have no real business model in mind, and see what comes from it. Afterall, 25 days ago, I quit everything, I had no clients, no real plan, and now, funds are coming in and franklly, I'm much better off than if I had tried to look for a job. I wouldn't even know what type of role I'd look for, and I'd probably be sucking up to some interview person in a 3rd round of interviews. If I got that job, I'd be back to working 16 hours a day, trying to prove myself for a project that really only benefitted the shareholders. Ewwww, the reality is that I never really ever gave that too much thought, because I knew where it would end up. I took a big leap, and so far it's turning out OK. I had a good feeling about this project, so I'm doing the same now.
The project now is actually turning into something I am pretty proud of. Is it my best work? No. It is something I started building two weeks ago. But it sure has been fun, it feels like the right thing to be working on, and maybe one day it will end up being the tail that wags the dog.
I hope so.
Monthly Revenues $11,800 | Clients 2 | Prospects 0, maybe I need to start thinking about that soon. And a first hire as well.