From a young age, Gabriele Donati was encouraged to work hard, and pursue his dreams and passions, all of which have held him in good stead and these are the exact same values he plans to pass on to his now six-year-old son. Originally from Lugano, Switzerland, Donati started his life as a musician playing the Electric Bass. The avid jazz lover moved to New York at age 21 to pursue music at the New School University, where he studied with big-name performers and graduated in 1999 with a B.F.A. in performing arts and music composition. He went on to recording, “All In That Sky” (ObliqSound 2005), with pianist Richie Beirach, (who performed with jazz greats Stan Getz and Chet Baker).
Donati credits immense family support for his success, first in music and now in business. “It’s extremely important to have somebody behind you, because without a partner or a family supporting your ‘crazy’ ideas, you will often find yourself alone, and it’s very hard to keep pushing when that happens.” He adds that it’s “extremely important to have a community around you that knows you well, challenges you, and supports you. At the end of the day, all of this helps you push this dream into a reality.” Fast forward to 10 years ago, Donati and longtime friend Karim Varini took their idea of an alternative online monetary system and turned it into TimeRepublik, a global phenomenon. For these formidable business leaders, the innovative company is about launching a digital platform and seeing a monumental vision to fruition. TimeRepublik uses currency called, TimeCoin, worth 15 minutes of time, which users exchange with each other for a myriad of services. TimeCoin, worth 15 minutes of time, which users exchange with each other for a myriad of services.
Gabriele, What led you to launch TimeRepublik? Tell us about TimeRepublik.
I started TimeRepublik with Karim Varini, a childhood friend back in Switzerland. The idea came about while watching a local news station where they were featuring a proto-timebank happening in a condominium. Basically, the tenants were exchanging favors and the superintendent was registering every time transaction in a book. He was also acting as a facilitator matching tenants’ needs through a rudimental sheet of I NEED and I OFFER posted on the hallway wall.
This caught our attention, because for years we’ve been talking about creating an alternative space that could value relationships rather than transactions. A place based on reciprocity and abundance rather than hoarding and scarcity. A place where money is out of the equation. We immediately knew that time banking was the solution and back then we set a fairly ambitious goal: to create the biggest time bank in the world.
FMM: So, how did it proceed?
Of course, the first thought was to go online, but unfortunately, this was before 2005. Before the social media revolution which started around 2005 when Facebook took off. So, after long discussions, we kind of gave up and forgot all about it. Now comes 2012 and the world became a very different place. We’ve seen the peak years of MySpace, Blogger, Facebook has over 1 billion users, and the sharing economy is in full bloom. People are sharing everything online, everyone is on AirB&B, everyone is taking Über, etc. That’s when we met with Karim again and we just simply said: now’s the time!
We believe money is an expensive tool, plus when you use money it is a little bit like gambling, since you are trying to estimate the value of something that most of the time loses its value right after you purchase it. With time it’s pretty different just for the fact that everyone has 24 hours a day to spend no matter who you are… that’s it; that’s what’s given to you. Also, interesting enough, time is the most scarce resource that everyone has access to. That’s the key. So, equal access to a scarce resource makes everyone rich in a way. That’s what TimeRepublik is.
FMM: TimeRepublik has over 100,000 people in more than 100 countries. Take us through the process.
It seems that we live in a society that is increasingly demanding an impossible level of competition. It seems that even for a modest position people need superhuman skills and biblical years of experience. Don’t get me wrong, competitiveness is extremely important for the advancement of the human race, that’s how we get to Mars and that’s how we cure diseases, etc. But where can we go if we just want to take it a bit easier and maybe leverage on empathy, dignity, and trust instead? Is there such a space in the current economic system?
As Edgar Cahn (the godfather of modern time banking) said: “All the current economic planning omits an economy that is much more important.” It’s called home, family, neighborhood, community, civil society that raises children, keeps neighborhoods safe and vibrant, raises strong families, takes care of the elderly, gets involved in things like elections, tries to make democracy work, holds officials accountable, fights for social justice and tries to keep the planet sustainable.
This is a long introduction to explain why TimeRpeublik is gaining momentum, and why all around the world people are looking for complementary solutions. I feel that people are craving a place where they can exchange what they really love to do, their passions!
When you register on TimeRepublik you don’t need to be Mark Twain to teach English, because there are thousand people around the world that just want to converse an hour a week with someone that speaks English. That’s what we mean when we say that everyone has a talent and everyone can find purpose.
Once you sign up and you fill out your profile, the system will automatically gift you 20 TimeCoins (which it’s just a fancy way to call time. 1 TimeCoin=15min). And with that you can immediately post a request for whatever you need. Once you do that every person that has the skill you are looking for is notified. Multiple people will answer to your request, so now it’s up to you to choose your favorite person (by looking at their profile and history) and start the exchange. After the exchange is done the system will automatically credit the provider and debit the requester.
FMM: With so many people across the globe economically impacted by the pandemic, is this platform a way to give back and to build confidence?
I definitely see TimeRepublik as a wonderful tool to help cash-strapped people, and we see it every day. There are plenty of people that are finding resources that are not available anywhere else if you don’t have money. People that need to fix their computer, or they need a logo or a website to launch their new business. But to be perfectly honest, this is not the reason why we’ve created it.
TimeRepublik’s goal is to generate more trust among people. This was more urgent for us, because once you are able to create trust with another person, only then do you see the spectrum of possibilities opening up. Once I trust you, I will suddenly open many more doors for you, I will go the extra mile to help you. TimeRepublik is trying to recreate what is already happening in healthy communities, in circles of friends, and in healthy families. Places where reciprocity and mutual help are happening organically.
The reality is that everyone sees TimeRepublik differently, and that’s beautiful. Once you abandon the monetary mindset you start to realize that new worlds are possible.
What happens when money isn’t a motivator?
You suddenly become human. You realize that we can still relate to one another without the “I need to win” mentality. You suddenly become more caring, attentive, grateful, and you take more time to communicate. The first time someone helps you and you don’t need to pay that person money, it’s a bit shocking, and you might think: “Ok, where is the catch?”. And once you realize there is no catch you switch into good-human mode. An average message on TimeRepublik is 3 times the word count than other social networks. This is mostly because people are going the extra mile to thank you, or to express their gratitude, or to better explain their need, and carefully explain how to solve a problem. It all comes down to realizing you are in a safer space, where you are appreciated for what you truly are. All this might sound New-Agy, but this is what really happens on TimeRepublik.
FMM: Tell us about the community. How is it building friendships across the globe?
TimeRepublik might look like a typical service-exchange platform but the service-exchange is just the beginning rather than the goal. The service-exchange part is the ice breaker that usually leads to a more meaningful interaction. Once this happens you might experience a “Faith in humanity restored” moment (to put it in an internet meme-like way). By providing a fertile ground for those types of interactions you automatically provide ways to build community and friendships. To be perfectly clear I am not saying that every exchange leads to that, but once you have a glimpse of its potential you’ll quickly change your approach towards human interaction.
FMM: You were quoted as saying, “TimeRepublik’s services exchange could be related to the “Green Pill” in the Matrix.” Expound on this idea.
The idea is to take a pill that allows you to see a world of possibilities invisible before.
Quick story: I once posted a request for a translation (I live in NYC). A person 6000 miles away (in Italy) helped me with it. During the exchange, we started chatting and I discovered, among other things, that he was a renowned scientist. Needless to say, the translation was impeccable and I “paid” him with 4 TimeCoins (1 hour) and left positive feedback. After a few months, he contacted me again, asking me if I wanted to meet in person for a coffee, because he was on his way to Canada and had a layover in New York City. I obviously agreed. Fast forward 4 years… Now every time he comes to NYC we invite him to stay at our place and we have the best time.
What happened there is what I expressed before: once you are able to build trust with people the spectrum of possibilities become almost endless and a new reality–or at least a world full of potential–reveals itself to you. As I said, while TimeRepublik will not enable you to dodge bullets and triumph in jujitsu over thousands of computer-generated foes, but it does create a world of trusted networks that would have been hard to imagine before.
FMM: What are the services bartered on this platform?
We have about 150 types of skills that people are sharing. From dog-walking to translation, from all sorts of design work to yoga teaching, legal advice, tutoring, etc. Unfortunately, during the pandemic we’ve seen a decrease of physical exchanges, so for the past year, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in online services.
The most exchanged categories of all times are:
Languages & Translations
Therapy Assistance
Computer Support
Photography/Video Production
Graphic/Web Designer
Writer/Proofreader
Dog Walking
General Tutoring
Child Care & Babysitting
Programmer
FMM: What surprises you the most?
I can’t help by being surprised every time I see two strangers helping each other. Every interaction big or small is just magical for me, because it’s a vision, a dream materializing before my eyes. I am not talking metaphorically.
No matter if it’s Sean in New York who is practicing French with Julie in Paris, or Kate that got her bike fixed in Brooklyn. The 65-year-old graphic designer in San Francisco that designed a business card for a 17-year-old tour guide in Casablanca, Morocco, or us as TimeRepublik that needed legal advice and got it from a lawyer that was just driving back from a 50th reunion at Harvard. Or that successful film director in Italy that through TimeRepublik was able to produce a full-length documentary that won many awards. That’s when I know we are on the right path, and that we’ve created something valuable, because these exchanges simply weren’t happening before TimeRepublik.
FMM: Please share your vision for TimeRepublik.
I would like for TimeRepublik to be the most valuable complementary system on the market. I don’t want it to be an alternative, nor to start a revolution. I want to offer a different operating system and hopefully, people will realize that for many things it is a superior one.
There is a great quote by Buckminster Fuller that has stayed with me throughout the years that sums up the vision I have for TimeRepublik: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
I would like to accomplish that, which is rather ambitious, but it’s too late to go back!
