Three Coins

https://www.startus.cc/company/three-coins

c/o Impact HUB Vienna, Lindengasse 56/18-19

c/o Impact HUB Zürich, Viaduktstrasse 93-95

1070 Vienna

Austria

Website

http://facebook.com/threecoin3

https://twitter.com/Three_Coins

General information:

Three Coins pioneers a new educational technology to enable behavior-based learning about money. Our first product is a mobile game (CURE Runners) that works with adventure stories, mystery and metaphors, as opposed to being openly educational.

Shockingly, both in the US and in Europe, the age group 20-29 records the fastest and most substantial growth rates of private indebtedness. In Austria, every fifth client in debt counseling is under 30 with an average of 32,000 EUR in debt. Young people find it increasingly difficult to deal with their own money responsibly, resist spending incentives, and understand how money decisions today will affect their future.

At age 13-18 teenagers develop long-term patterns of dealing with money. The challenge: increasing teenagers' knowledge about financial concepts does not translate into improving their actual behavior with money. Yet, most financial literacy programs focus on teaching knowledge, instead of training behavior.

We develop our solution by inviting all relevant stakeholders to the table: debt-counselors, teachers, behavioral economists, finance experts, youth workers, teenagers and game designers collaborate with us to create games, apps and workshop formats that nudge young people to train the basics of smart money management.

Our core focus groups are young people from low social backgrounds, as well as migrant families, since these are the most vulnerable groups (75% of debt counseling clients have finished school at 15 and 70% of private bankruptcies in Vienna are filed by people with migrant backgrounds).

The launch of our first pilot product, the mobile game CURE Runners, has reached about 25,000 Austrian teenagers to date. Tracking data show a significant learning curve of players. We now work on integrating the game into an interactive workshop format for youth workers and we apply the market feedback from the game to our product development of a financial behavior app and a financial literacy lab.

We are scaling our program to Switzerland at the moment.

Company information:

Company type:

Startup

Industry:

Education

Founded when:

Friday, 1 June, 2012

Startup stage:

Development and Testing stage

Funding needs:

Angel / Incubator / Public funding

Types of jobs in the company:

Education / Training

Total numbers of employees:

Products and Services:

TOOLS

Product category:

B2B

CURE Runners came to life with the help of Austrian-born Doris Rusch, prize-winning GAME DESIGNER at Massachussetts Insitute of Technology (MIT) and Professor at DePaul Universität Chicagoand the Team at ovos media.

The story line follows a series of scenarios and “quests” on a fictional misterious island. In this post-apocalyptic setting, “CURE” represents a limited resource that is key to the PLAYER’s survival but controlled and distributed by the somewhat evil Raynecoat Corperation. In the course of the game, PLAYERS are required to take decisions that affect their status, their health and financial situation and ultimately the course of the game.

Dealing with “CURE” addresses complex matters such as intuitive behavior, status, individual value systems and stress that affect our decisions when handling our own finances.

The learning content woven into the game includes:

- Making A Budget
- Meeting Savings Goals
- Saving Up For Rainy Days
- Reflecting On Spending Behavior – Avoiding Debt Traps
- Learning Business Competence
- Sticking To A Budget
- Prioritizing The Right PAYMENTS
- Withstanding Consumer Pressure

Any gameplay decision is being tracked by a FinLit Score, which correlates with financially responsible behavior in the game. This enables us to track the game‘s learning effects individually (and anonymously): The higher the FinLit Score, the more responsible does a player handle CURE.

Our first evaluation of game data proves the project’s key assumption: The longer the game is being PLAYED, the higher the FinLit Score and the more financially responsible the players’ decisions.

Our game launched in Austrian App STORES in March 2014.
Check out www.cure-runners.at, facebook.com/curerunners and https://twitter.com/curerunners.

WORKSHOPS

Product category:

B2B

Learning how to deal with money, in a playful way. CURE Runners trains young people in keeping track of their finances, making consumption and investment choices and meeting savings goals. The game appears as a freetime adventure game, but the deep learning content that is woven into the game unfolds while playing and can be taken up by teachers and youth workers in a didactic setting.

Together with the prevention department KLARTEXT and the other prevention departments of the Austrian debt counseling services (funded by the Ministry of Social Affairs) we developed a concept for workshops that make the game applicable in class rooms and youth groups. These workshops were developed from summer 2013-2014 and piloted in June 2014 in Vienna and Upper Austria.

CONCEPTS

Product category:

B2B

BUDGET APP (IN DEVELOPMENT):

Through an user-orientierted budget app we create sustainable and personal added value to cashless payments: a new overview of each individual payment.

Helping your personal financial management, the app makes it easy to keep track and plan into the future. We make it possible to challenge yourself and reach your own benchmarks.

CONSULTING

Product category:

Consulting services

Within few years, financial education content will be a key component of any financial sector-related activity. We support private, public, as well as not-for-profit actors in integrating effective financial education agendas into their activities by consulting, co-developing ideas, as well as prototyping products.