In the beginning, Centscere’s business operated at a two-by-four-foot coffee table in the dining room of a house that three friends shared. In the next room over, a PlayStation was always hooked up to a TV bigger than what the company called its desk.

The workspace was too unprofessional, the business partners said.

The winter that the team was accepted into the Tech Garden’s startup accelerator program changed that. The three Syracuse University 20-somethings first received $20,000 in seed funding. They then moved into the Garden’s office space at 235 Harrison St.

“I can say, ‘come to my office,’ rather than my living room where we would have talked with investors while playing NHL,” said Mike Smith, a Centscere co-founder.

Now they’re competing for an extra $150,000 in investments from Tech Garden for their charitable company, and the winner will be announced in April.

Centscere, a social media donation platform, gives new meaning to the phrase, “a penny for your thoughts.” The service lets users donate money to charity through different social media actions. The average donation is 10 cents for every like or post on Facebook and 25 cents for every tweet, but there is no minimum pledge. All the money is tracked on the company’s myCENTS service and then sent to the selected charities.

As the company grows, the Centscere team, composed of SU graduate students Smith, Ian Dickerson and Frank Taylor, has been busy securing investments and donations for new projects.

Before spring break, the team will announce an ongoing Syracuse beautification project with the Central New York Community Foundation and the Connective Corridor. Syracuse residents will be invited to donate to a fund through Centscere. After break, the team is going to North Carolina for a student startup competition.

“We never stop,” Smith said. “It frustrates me more than anything, but I also love it more than anything.”

Centscere emerged from the failed Pocket Change Lottery, a project the three partners called a “stupid” attempt to give shoppers’ change to charity. The concept was similar to what they do now: collect small amounts of money and donate it often. But mall kiosks were expensive and physical shopping was outdated. The plan wasn’t feasible, they said.

In December 2012, the teammates took a new mobile idea to Startup Weekend, a two-day long competition during which small teams start small businesses. That’s when the company officially became Centscere — a combination of the words “cents” and “sincere.” They were forced to go for a class and had no intention of winning — but they did.

Centscere’s creators saw the philanthropic potential of social media, and they measure it with their Social Impact Calculator.

Donating a nickel with each tweet, someone’s 1,000th could be enough to buy five malaria nets. Or, if every Twitter user worldwide donated one cent to a charity, they would collectively raise more than $8.8 million: enough money to build more than 86 Habitat for Humanity houses or to provide Red Cross measles vaccinations to about 8,000 developing villages.

Your next 140-character epiphany could be worth something to one of the 19 charities Centscere has partnered with, said Frank Taylor, the team’s designer. “Social media can turn into something very tangible,” he said.

Since January, the service has grown from 10 users to 180, and has raised about $300. Ian Dickerson, the company’s CEO, projects those numbers will grow thanks to today’s habitual social media use — 58 million tweets are published daily and the average Facebook user spends about 15.5 hours on the site monthly.

“We’re turning everyday behavior into charitable moments,” Dickerson said.

Until their company received its first funds, Dickerson, Smith and Taylor never expected to work for a startup. But Dickerson submitted when he realized he didn’t want to work for someone else. Smith wanted to be a doctor but struggled too much with Chemistry 101. Taylor saw himself as a star on the SU track team, but said he was stretched too thin.

Now Centscere is almost the only thing on their minds. It’s all Dickerson talked about with his girlfriend for months.

“I have to imagine she got pretty sick of it,” he said.

But his tendency to get lost in the work helps the company grow, Dickerson said. In June, the partners plan to move to New York City where they will try to replicate the startup culture they established in Syracuse: simple, professional and flexible.

Published on March 4, 2014 at 1:00 am

Contact Joe: jtinfant@syr.edu | @joeinfantino