A month since launch — status report

About a month ago we launched the first public version of AidHedge. Since the launch we have not only had a lot of visitors online, but we also traveled to Rwanda to talk to users. Now its time to sum up a bit what has happened since the launch, and the feedback we have gotten so far. We are also going to describe a bit where we are going from here.

There has actually been quite a lot of visits

So far we have had about 5 000 visits since the launch, about 1 000–1 200 per week. Its a huge increase from before the launch, and we are absolutely thrilled! Its quite crazy really.

When we look at all these visits we notice that quite a large group are reaching the site because we are becoming a more and more relevant site in search engine results on currency risk and aid finance related searches. So perhaps not looking for our specific services, but hopefully we can inform some of them since they do come!

About 400 have so far either tried the service, checked out our demo project or read up on the service. Not bad at all!

Visits are coming from… everywhere

So far we have had visits from 176 countries. (Yes, 176! We actually had to check how many there are, there are a few more in the World but not that many!) Breaking it down and looking from where all these visits are coming we see that Japan, India, Mongolia, Sweden and Germany in the top five.

• Sweden is a no-brainer, since we are located here and have a lot of contacts checking our work out.
• Japan is one of the worlds largest ODA donors, and have substantial currency fluctuations in the last few years. But still, we need to dig deeper to understand what that is all about.
• India is interesting, and we have not only a lot of actual users but only users reaching out to tell us about it (very rewarding!). Seems that with a volatile rupie we have filled a gap really felt by Indian NGOs.
• Mongolia has seen continuing currency devaluation and economic recession, so our work should be very relevant there.
• Germany: We don’t know yet, but will look into it!

We are planning on doing a series of special in-depth analyses, looking at the situations in Mongolia and India from a recipient perspective. And one from a donor perspective looking at Japan.

We will also try to figure out why we do not have a single visit from our neighboring country Finland! Is AidHedge perhaps a naughty word in Finnish..? We will investigate this further :)

The visit to Rwanda

In mid February we visited Rwanda to discuss the service with a number of organisations, doing analyses on real projects and getting feedback on the first version of the service. We met with a number of representatives from both donors, Government, local and international NGOs. Projects analysed ranged from smaller one donor one organisation projects to large multi-donor programmes. We did a similar trip in January, before the launch, getting feedback on an earlier beta version. Then we visited Ethiopia and Zambia. It was really exiting to see the improvements after that trip were implemented, and meeting new users.

Lessons learned so far, from the launch and the visit to Rwanda

Based on how people use the service, and the feedback received both from online users and those we have met Rwanda, we have learned a lot.

• For once it is clear that users are very interested in getting an outcome analysis. What is the currency result from those transactions that have been carried out since the project start. User, both organisations and donors, are very eager on this.
• Getting a report that fits different kinds of users. It is very clear that financial managers want something different from users working with project management/implementation. The latter want more of an overview while the former what more detailed data.
• Inputing stuff is a bore! People what the information to be “there” already, and any input must be really logical, simple and user friendly.
• We have a lot of visits from mobile plattforms, which is something that we did not expect.
• Low bandwidth can be a restricting factor in some locations.
• Users want continuous updates and analysis on things that could affect their projects. How have rates moved, what is the previsions for the upcoming transactions?

And in the next version we will…

Now we are working on the next version of the service. We are planning on a number of updates that will begin to handle some of the input from the current version.

• We are for one including an outcome analysis, that will show users what has happened since the project start. How has rates developed, and what does that mean for the risk analysis. And perhaps more importantly, what has been the effect on completed transactions?
• We will build in a connection to IATI, so that you can get all the data about your projects directly into AidHedge. Should help with the input!
• The report will be divided into an executive summary for management and those implementing projects and a full report for financial managers and staff.

Launch is planned for end of April. If you have ideas of suggestions for the next version, get in touch with us!!

Originally published at www.aidhedge.org.