New UK startup MyMission2 works like a dating site to get people who want to do things matched up with people who want to help them do it. The site launched this week.
Former Jiglu CEO Nigel Cannings has left (profiled here) to join MyMission2. He retains a stake in Jiglu. Steve Hebditch, the original founder, re-enters the CEO chair of Jiglu. David Ashford is CEO MyMission2’s CEO.
MyMission2 lets users, known as “missioners”, publish their own ‘missions’. Users then also help to fulfill missions that other people have published.
Now, at first I thought this was a cute idea. It’s a bit like LetsBuyIt for aspirational goals.
But in fact MyMission2 feels more like a fantasists paradise. I found one guy who wants to become a French teacher, a “leading” HRM consultant and a “leading microblog expert”, whatever that is. The practical upshot of posting a “mission” seems to be that the site turns into a bulletin board where people respond with comments like on a blog. Where is the bidding engine or the crowd-sourcing innovation? If it’s here then I don’t see it.
And there are some quirky things about this site. I registered to run the London Marathon (yeah, right). But to publish my mission, the site asks me to put in marital status, occupation…. like this has anything to do with anything? And after filling out a pretty long form for the mission I was then presented with another form. Dull guys, dull.
MyMission2 also seems like vaguely more complex version of a UK site which has been around for a long time, PledgeBank, a government-back initiative to get people more interested in local communities. At least here there is more of a ‘system’ where you pledge something so long as X number of people join you.