Stickk.com is a site designed to help people keep commitments to lose weight, quit smoking, exercise regularly or maintain their weight. These are the standard commitments listed by the site – users can create a custom commitment for almost any task or goal. The user makes a contract with the site to keep the commitment, and can optionally bet money on the fact that they will keep the commitment. The brainchild of 3 Yale University economists, the site is designed to provide an incentive for helping people to keep commitments. There is an active user community, which the user can interact with in helping them to keep their commitment.
The site offers profiles, friends, messaging and communities (groups). There are communities built around Career, Diet and Healthy Eating, Education and Knowledge, Exercise and Fitness, Family and Relationships, Green Initiatives, Health and Lifestyle, Money and Finance, Quite Smoking, Sport, Hobby and Recreation and Weight Loss. The site also offers a service to corporations for helping employees achieve their corporate goals. Users create a commitment by stating a goal, setting a timeframe, determining the stakes, choosing a Referee, who will monitor their progress towards their goal, and choosing a support system (which can be either a community, other users on the site or any other individuals).
New York, NY-based Stickk.com was founded in January 2007 by Ian Ayres and Dean Karlan. Jordan Goldberg is President and CEO of the site.
Competition to Stickk.com comes from sites such as Mindtools.com. Mindtools.com offers help primarily in achieving career goals, and does not offer the contract aspect of commitment offered by Stickk.com. Stickk.com appears to be unique in the contract approach to achieving commitments.
The Stickk.com site has a very clean and uncluttered look and feel. The site is quite responsive, and page loads happen quickly. The social networking features work well, and the site is easy to use. Navigation is intuitive, with a convenient top menu bar with dropdowns shown on all pages of the site. Tabs on the menu bar include My Profile, Messages, Communities, About Us, FAQ and Contact Us. There is no advertising displayed on the Stickk.com site.
Registration to Stickk.com is free and is required to use the site. The registration process asks for first and last name, email address, phone (optional), screen name, password, country, zip code and date of birth. Confirmation of the email address is not required.
Premium services are available to corporate users. The site accepts Mastercard, Visa and American Express as payment for bets made on contracts. In the event of a failed commitment, the amount bet goes to charity or to a person designated by the user.
The Stickk.com site is recommended to anyone who needs accountability in trying to achieve a difficult goal in their life. The site offers a good support community, and the contract commitment is an added incentive to achieving the goal. The fact that bets can be made is a good incentive as well. Many people have used the site to successfully achieve a goal.