Contestant's Case to Win

When I picked up the phone I could hear her screaming, “Help! Help! Help!” and my father was frantically trying to calm her. She ran out of the house and down the street in the pouring rain, no shoes on her feet. The only thing that stopped her from being hit by a vehicle was my father tackling and restraining her until the ambulance could come. My mother, inflicted with early onset Alzheimer’s, had taken a drastic turn for the worse after eight years of quite peacefully living with this corrosive disease. We knew this day was inevitable but had thought it was long off.

Faced with the harsh reality that my father no longer could care for my mother, we then had 24 hours to find help. We were not prepared for how difficult this would be. Finding a facility equipped to handle Alzheimer’s patients and with available rooms is one thing, but feeling 100% confident she would receive the best and most compassionate attention was something entirely different. Word of mouth is difficult to obtain in such a short time period and the online resources were limited at best.

It was this event, coupled with years of frustration tying to find quality care such as doctors, daycares and orthodontists for my family, which prompted me to find a solution. I envisioned an “internet watercooler” whereby individuals can find the best personal services as defined by their neighbors and community and share their own experiences. It was then that Tinkn.com was born.

I created a site where users can rate and review local personal services, ranging from doctors and daycares, to wedding planners and tailors. What makes the site uniquely useful to our user community is its innovative scoring system that ensures the best businesses stand out, mapping features that allow users to zoom in on the best businesses closest to their workplace or home, and the clean, intuitive and uncluttered interface. You won’t see any pop-up or banner ads as I personally despise sites that bombard its visitors with solicitations.

Building Tinkn truly has been a labor of love. I have invested my personal savings to get the site up and running with faith and passion in the belief that this will help millions of people to make more informed choices about some of the most important decisions they’ll ever make. Really when you thing about it, what decisions are more important than the daycare you choose for your child or the nursing home for your spouse or parent? So being able to play an integral part in launching Tinkn, understanding the impact it will have on people’s lives, is an honor.

But none of this has been possible without the help of many others. There are too many individuals to name that have helped, and continue to help, to make the dream a reality. I truly have been fortunate and am thankful to be surrounded by such great mentors and friends who care about making a difference.

I feel that I, and Tinkn.com, should be considered as a winner of the Home-Based 100 Competition simply because Tinkn is proof that a dream can become a reality with a little perseverence, creativity, and reaching out to individuals and organizations like Startup Nation.

Thank you for your consideration.

Kristin Hartshaffer
Founder - Tinkn.com
Boise, ID