Three Estonians, two of them working for Skype – Andrus Purde, Priidu Zilmer and Joonathan Mägi, have founded a funny start-up called Pledgehammer – a website, that helps you keep your promises.

The project that was launched just weeks ago allows you to make a public pledge – for example “I will stop smoking” – and decide on a deadline as well as financial incentive related to the pledge. The latter meaning that if you fail to keep your promise, you will be kindly asked to donate money to charity.

Your unsuccesful pledge will save children or pets

“This way your unsuccessful pledge may help to save the rainforest or support families in third world countries, making it not all that unsuccessful after all,” says Pledgehammer’s website.

There are over 200 pledges already made. For example, someone with the username wuxialerenard has just recently pledged ” to love Marianne Prairie with curiosity and care by Jan. 22, 2009, or I will donate 5000.00 USD to a Torture Care. ”

All kinds of pledges made

While another guy has pledged to ”learn bosnian to flirt with my girl… by Aug. 31, 2009, or I will donate 10.00 EUR to a charity.” Some other pledges:

• “… stop drinking coca cola and drink two litres of water a day by yesterday, or I will donate 100.00 USD to a charity. ” (by Anonymous)
• “… lose 10kg by June 30, 2009, or I will donate 10.00 USD to a charity. ” (by Anonymous)
• “… write a book, finally, this time, definitely, no excuses, oh no. by May 31, 2010, or I will donate 100.00 EUR to a charity. ” (by fletchy)
• “… starting from January wake up every morning and do 10 sit-ups by Jan. 5, 2009, or I will donate 7.00 USD to a charity. (by loveartist45)

Pledgehammer is not your police or mother

So how do they know if you have kept your pledge? Andrus Purde: “Currently we’re sending only one email upon the deadline of a pledge and assume that people are honest in their answers and donations – Pledgehammer is not the police or anyone’s mother. But if users ask for more reminders we’re certainly open to add that functionality in the future.”

Donations won’t just go to an abstract charity project, but to a concrete one chosen by the one who’s made a pledge.

Funding well-known charity programs

There are six options of charity programs listed by Pledgehammer:  ActionAid, PDSA (pets), ChildLine, SOS Children Village in Keila, Torture Care or The World Land Trust (rainforests). A small part of some donations will be paid back to Pledgehammer guys to cover the costs of maintaining this service.

In order for the founders to earn money with Pledgehammer – and after all, it is as much business as charity for them - a huge mass of pledges are needed. The more pledges there will be, the more of them will be unsuccesful and more money will be raised. From 50 euros paid for an unsuccessful pledge, the owners of Pledgehammer earn about 5 euros.

Interview with Andrus Purde

I have interviewed Andrus Purde (pictured) on Pledgehammer and here’s what he said:

1. How was the idea of Pledgehammer born?

The idea came without a great heureka-moment. I set goals for myself and make all sorts of resolutions throughout the year – and I sort of knew I was not the only one. I’d been pondering whether there’s something in this area that can benefit from ‘web 2.0′ but I was short of a business model. After having researched affiliate marketing got a bit closer I still had nothing more than a vague idea of making resolutions with a financial incentive and a charitable component. The present co-founders helped me shape the idea into something executable and then the real work started. And presto, some time later we launched Pledgehammer.

2. How many pledges are already given and how much money raised for the charity?

We currently have over 200 pledges. It’s not enough to start popping champagne corks but it surely shows what we’ve done resonates with an audience and that it makes sense to invest more time, energy and money into Pledgehammer.
It’s a bit too early to talk about the value of donations made, three weeks after the launch. To be honest I haven’t even checked revenues. We’re very much focused on increasing the number of visitors and pledges. If we’ll do a good job at that, donations will follow.

3. What kind of pledges are there and what’s the overall geography of people pledging?

Our number one market in terms of visitors and pledges has been the United States, and we’d like to keep it that way. UK and Estonia are fighting for bronze and silver. Hopefully the former will leapfrog the latter ie. that we’ll receive as warm a welcome in England as we’ve gotten among the people we know in our home market.

4. What the future will bring for Pledgehammer?

No man is an island, and the same goes for websites. We’re of course looking to improve usability and add features but perhaps more importantly we need to make Pledgehammer work on the facebooks, twitters, iphones and other platforms of this world.