CityHeroes startup idea born

I enjoy winter, but most people in Belarus don’t. And the only reason for that is snow. People spend loads of money on warm coats and jackets, gloves and boots to protect their bodies from freezing snowflakes. These little icy terrorists attack you without warning as soon as you open the door. Snow appears from nowhere, and after a while every inch of earth is covered with it. One needs to breeze slowly and move carefully to not get frozen or injured.

People look desperate, “Winter? Again?”.

There is a particular “snow haters” group — drivers. In winter it’s barely possible to open a car or at least to approach it, apart from starting the engine. Once you are on the move, you have to tensely stare at the screen trying to see anything in front of the vehicle. After billions of snowdrifts you are arriving to the destination. You think the journey is nearing its end, but surprisingly there is no parking place left. Oh wait, they have a spot for you, unused but covered with tones of god damn snow!

Not to mention terrible traffic jams that are so easily formed when it barely starts snowing. You should know how people feel about traffic jams.

And please don’t forget that car owners need to spend money on winter wheels, new windscreen wipers, a brush and a scraper. No fun at all.

People start asking for help from the City Council. “Hey, there! It’s high time to do something, isn`t it?” Though the City Council expects snowstorms and deep snow only in late January. So please be patient and wait till January and they will be happy to help and serve you.

Who to call a scapegoat when you’re stuck in a snowdrift or a jam — government, your mom or Santa Clause? I assume, most people start blaming snow and winter. How about car drivers themselves? Why don’t they clean parking places and roads on their own? I guess most of them have very good “I`d love to, but…”-reasons for not doing that. “I’d love to, but I don’t have a shuffle”, “Sorry buddy, I don’t have time for this” and my favorite “I have a four-wheel drive car, I can park my car everywhere”. They are nothing but lack of motivation for helping people. People think it’s either too complicated or too long or even pretty stupid.

The way I see it, being cooperative is as risky and challenging as outstanding. And yes — I love snow. I really do! It takes me back to my childhood when winter has been a joy. All I had done those days brought me so much fun and happiness — skating, skiing, snowball fights… Even an ordinary football game used to turn into the most exciting sports activity ever! In winter everything is an adventure and a challenge.

With these thoughts in mind I decided to share my winter happiness with other people. Being in a good mood and having no plans for the evening, I took a cheap but effective shuffle from the nearest gas station and went out. There was a number of covered with deep snow parking places in the backyard. It was not the type of snow I love, fresh and white, but a terrible mixture of salt, ice and sand. I realized that cleaning those parking places would be a much more complicated task than I`d expected. But as I had made a decision I could not turn around and give up.

After several hours I got really tired. I treated it as a real battle. Me vs snow? Not really. Enthusiasm vs Laziness! Altruism vs Egoism! Care vs Indifference! It made me very excited and motivated! I worked really hard. When I had finished I felt totally exhausted. As a result, six additional parking places, clean from snow and ready to serve the need, appeared in the backyard. I returned home excited and proud of myself.

The other day I saw my neighbors parking their cars at those places. No, I neither saw smiles on their faces nor got any gratitude. But I felt great! I was an anonymous hero who had helped the strangers. It reminded me of a movie I had seen before. It has a pretty simple but unexpected plot – usual guy wears a costume and patrols streets of a night city in order to help other people. Moreover he’s a superhero with no superpower and he calls himself Kickass.

Next weekend I saw a group of people cooperated to clean other parking places from snow. It didn’t look as they had been paid for that. I joined them. After we had finished I asked their ‘leader’ what the motivation for that movement was. The man told me his story that impressed me deeply.

Three days before, tired and exhausted, he was driving home late at night. The very thought of no parking place in the yard terrified him and put in despair. He could not blame local authorities thus he started to blame winter and snow and car owners and all other people around. But he entered the yard and saw a number of parking places he could use. It was a miracle! Though he knew that no miracle happens with no people involved. And he decided to do something in response. So what did he do? He asked his neighbors to come, join him and clean the rest of the yard from snow. His call for action was so strong that other people were glad to help him. It was like a wave, a wave of good deeds and it was fun.

That winter we didn’t have any problems with parking places in the yard no matter how much snow had fallen. There were people who took the initiative and cleaned some space that one could simply use.

What have I learned from that? I’ve learned three pretty simple lessons:

1. Everyone needs help. No matter how strong, rich or clever he is. You might not realize it beforehand but you’ll be pleased to see the result of someone’s simple actions that turn into great (or small) help in a difficult or rather common situation.
2. People hesitate to ask for help and usually don’t have enough motivation to help other people. They might see no good examples in real life. And most of modern movies don’t look realistic enough to bring any motivation. Let’s leave Kickass and some of the others as a good exception.
3. Sometimes positive feedback or gratitude for your help (even if you don’t expect it) is the best motivation that you might get.
   And here comes the idea that burns my brain from that cold and challenging winter. What if I create a service that helps people cooperate for good deeds? And what if we call them heroes with no superpower? Everyone could come up with a short note (a story) about what he/she has done and why he/she thinks it is good or even heroic. I’m not talking about stuff like saving the world from Silver Surfer, and not even about saving a single human life (these are obvious deeds, right?). A story might be about you bringing kind words to your colleagues, friends or someone in the street.

If you hesitate to tell your story from your name – choose a nickname (batman, catwoman, batcat, – whatever) and become an anonymous hero. Other people will read your story (that’s for sure) and if they like it they’ll give you stars (from 1 to 5). Depending on how much exploits you have and the amount of stars for each of them you’ll gain virtual karma… According to your karma you can see yourself in a rating list of other heroes from your city, your country, around the world.
Sounds great, eh?