Lawnmower.io is a service available for coinbase customers which rounds up your purchases made with your bank accounts and converts the spare change to bitcoin. Recently, we had the pleasure of interviewing the founder of lawnmower.io, Alex Sunnaborg. We asked him a few questions regarding the startup:
One of our founders came up with Lawnmower at a Hackathon (Money20/20 2014). He had recently ran across an ad for Acorns (spare change into ETF portfolios) and decided to take the concept a step farther into bitcoin, which we’re all huge fans of.
Since currently you are working with the Coinbase API have you thought of expanding to support customers of any other services such as Circle or Bitpay?
When we were building Lawnmower we were searching for the best API to create user bitcoin wallets and initiate purchases, and Coinbase’s API seemed to be the best choice at the time. We’ve had a great experience with Coinbase and our sign up flow continues to improve for brand new users to bitcoin. We would love to support customers of other bitcoin companies, but we don’t think another integration which offers the same functionality would be the best use of our time. Many of our users actually send their bitcoin to the wallet of their choice after receiving them in their Lawnmower (Coinbase) wallet.
Do you have any plans to add any new features in the coming future?
Yes definitely – we want to add an instant buy feature to let you purchase bitcoin immediately in addition to over time, a hopeful integration with Shapeshift to allow for investing in portfolios of different cryptocurrencies, and some cool analytics to illustrate your overall investing stats.
Have you thought of adding payouts in any other coins perhaps with the use of shapeshift.io‘s API?
Yes, we’re actually exploring this right now – we’d like to be able to feature certain themed sample portfolios as well as allow you to customize your allocation between cryptocurrencies.
Is the service only available to US customers?
Currently, yes. As part of our expansion plan we are considering having recurring bitcoin purchases through Coinbase drive your saving rather than spare change on transactions. With this fact set, we should be able to expand to the 30+ countries supported by Coinbase.
Where do you see lawnmower.io in one year?
As the go-to app for investing in bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and other blockchain-tech related assets. Basically, the coolest app for the most cutting-edge investments 🙂
In hindsight was there anything you would have done differently if you could go back in time and start lawnmower.io all over again?
We wish we would have included a recurring purchase alternative to spare change so we could support other banks, countries, and currencies like we intend to do in the future.
If you are looking to diversify your portfolio and invest in bitcoin, lawmower.io is the best way to do so without putting in much effort. With the upcoming integration of shapeshift’s APIs you can now easily diversify your cryptocurrency porfolio and invest in more than just bitcoin. Even though the service is only available through Coinbase, you can easily move the coins out of the exchange and back into a wallet you fully control.
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