Trusper – Life Tips You’ll Wonder How You Lived Without!

The estimated reading time for this post is 7 minutes

Update: Trusper is no longer available, much like other tech that has become extinct.

Everyone cherishes that trusted friend or family member who has the best tips for life. Whether it’s helpful hints for the house, beauty tips, or cooking advice, words from the wise hold a special place in our hearts. When they tell us that a concoction of mayonnaise, white vinegar, and lemon juice will make our hair extra shiny while making our salads taste better, we head to the fridge and start blending without question.

Imagine having thousands of trusted advisors giving you helpful tips that save you time and money while you learn how to do things better. That’s the concept of Trusper, a website and app that collects tips from people and shares them with others. I recently spoke with Jack Jia, CEO of Trusper, about the service he launched last year.

About Trusper

The name “Trusper” is short for “trusted helper” according to Jia. He pointed out that a valuable tip can save people time and money. “Tips can be a tipping point for a person or a business, no pun intended. They can be transformational,” he said, describing Trusper as “Pinterest with a purpose.”

Jia compares Trusper tips to articles that you might find in magazines such as Cosmopolitan, In Style, Real Simple, or Marie Claire. “It’s like a series of cover stories. There are all sorts of beauty, fashion, and relationship tips nicely blended in.” Many tips are more than one page, some have images or video while others are solely text.

Jia gave the example of a tip to make a personalized color of lipstick out of children’s crayons. “I didn’t know you could do that but it was fascinating and one of the most popular tips that we have.”  See, Trusper Tip DIY Crayon Lipstick:

“Everyone can share their secrets, their unique ways of doing things,” said Jia.

Trusper’s Birth and Remarkable Growth

When Trusper launched in June 2013, the topics were limited to Home and Garden, Jia’s personal passion, and Beauty, a topic Jia confesses he knows nothing about. He realized that the audience for garden tips was significantly smaller than that for beauty tips. “It became obvious that beauty was the topic to bootstrap the community. Beauty is instantly engaging and obviously subjective.”

When Trusper launched, the service had about 2000 users, one month later it had 20,000 users, the next month 50,000. By September Trusper had 250,000 users and by January this year the service grew to 5 million users. “It quickly became viral, not only on the user front but on the topic front as well,” said Jia.

As the number of users grew, so did the number of topics. Beauty gained sub-topics such as hair, skin care, nails, and eyelashes. The tips included not only outer beauty but inner beauty as well. Health and fitness were shared, then DIY tips for home design and decor.

“It’s a great way to share knowledge.” Jia also pointed out that businesses can share tips about their products without the readers feeling as if they’re being bombarded by ads. Readers vote on the tips they like best and can buy products they like by clicking through the tip.

Jia describes himself as a serial entrepreneur, Trusper is the fourth company he has founded. The previous three companies were Internet related but Trusper is the first consumer app/website he has launched.

Using Trusper

Trusper is both a website and an app to help you simplify your daily life. You can join Trusper by signing up for an account with your email address or Facebook account. You can connect with friends to see their tips and share your favorite tips.

You can use Trusper to discover and share helpful tips on topics such as:

• Fashion and Beauty
• Health and Fitness
• Home and Garden
• Family and Relationships
• Food and Drink
• Technology
• And More

Additional categories are planned for the future, including new ones that will be introduced in April, May and June. Jia pointed out that users can post tips about anything so Trusper analyzes the tips to see where there is demand for a new category. “The categories expand naturally.”

You can browse through tips to find your favorites. When you find a tip you like, you can give it a thumbs up, leave a comment, save it as a favorite, and/or share it with others using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Trusper.

Finding the Best Tips

Jia realizes that the volume of shared tips can quickly become overwhelming. “When you crowd source tips there are a lot of good ones but there are bad ones too. How do you bury the bad ones and how do you surface the good ones?”

Trusper organizes the service to help you find the best useful tips. You can search for tips by topic or keywords or you can find the most popular tips. You can also read the comments of other users and see how many people liked the tip.

Jia explained how Trusper utilizes user behavior to rate the tips for usefulness and how engaging the content is. “Trusper uses the wisdom of invisible crowds to change navigation and search results, and make personal recommendations.”

Creating Tips

Because Trusper is accessible as both a website and as an app you can use resources from your computer and mobile device in creating tips. “The typical process of creating a tip is anywhere from 30 seconds to a few minutes. It’s very quick,” said Jia.

Some people prefer to create their tips using their phones and tablets while others like to use their computers. “With a mobile phone it’s very easy to take pictures and add them to your tip,” said Jia. He added that power tippers will often use Trusper’s website to publish tips, taking advantage of a physical keyboard and a larger screen.

Sample Tips

Trusper can quickly become addictive. You can easily spend hours browsing through helpful tips, both on the website and the app. Some of my favorites I found:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

→ How to Fake Clean a House — No need to panic when you get last-minute notice that guests are headed to your place. Follow these tips to make your home appear tidy.

→ 10 Simple Ways To Save Yourself From Messing Up Your Life –> Go! — Get advice to help avoid the pitfalls of life.

→ DIY Disco Ball — Turn any room into a party room with a handmade disco ball!

→ Make Your Lashes Look Lush! — Is there any woman who has too many beauty tips?

→ How to Massage a Baby’s Foot — If you’re a new mom, don’t miss the many tips about babies, including this one to help you soothe your infant.

Rewarding Tippers

Trusper rewards its top tippers with points they can redeem for prizes. You might think that sharing your wisdom with others would be a reward in and of itself, but Trusper goes a step farther and gives its best tippers prizes from Sephora, Starbucks, Amazon and other retailers.

You earn points for sharing tips and for having your tips liked and shared by others. You can also earn points by sharing a tip to Facebook. You can then redeem those points for products and gift cards.

“There’s an inherent need to share good tips and to read good tips. But we layer that with a status level and points for good tips,” said Jia. You earn status levels for sharing tips and having them liked by others. You start as a Fan, then earn Tipper, Pro, Star and finally achieve the highest level: Trusper, trusted helper.

You get more capabilities with each level you achieve, such as getting increased visibility for your tip when you post it. The thinking is that tips that come from popular tippers should be seen by more people.

That Awkward Moment

In December Trusper partnered with the producers of a Zac Efron movie, That Awkward Moment about dating relationships, for the launch of the Relationships topic. That topic was already planned when the producers approached Trusper.

The Relationships topic began at the same time as a profile for the movie was created to share important dating tips, such as “Never Let Her Leave Without Reminding Her She’s Beautiful.”

The Relationship topic grew quickly and now has 30-40,000 tips, according to Jia.

Availability

Trusper is available free as a website at trusper.com and as an app for:

iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch

Android

There are no ads or in-app purchases. “It’s definitely going to be free forever,” said Jia.

Your Thoughts

Do you enjoy discovering and sharing tips with others? Are you excited about a resource for finding popular tips? Have you tried Trusper? Let us know in the Comments section below!