How Cheengu Works

Create Your Commitment

Text Cheengu to start. You'll specify:

• • Your goal (e.g., "Exercise for 30 minutes")
• • Your judge (someone who can verify your work)
• • Commitment type (daily habit or project deadline)
• • Your stake amount (typically $20 for 7 days)
• • Penalty per failure (typically $5)

Stake Your Money

You'll receive a secure payment link via SMS. Pay your stake using a credit or debit card. This money is held by Stripe (our payment processor) and will either be refunded to you if you succeed, or transferred to your judge for each failure.

Daily Check-Ins

Every day at your chosen time, you receive an SMS:

You respond with YES or NO. That's it.

Judge Verification

After you respond, your judge immediately receives a verification request:

Your judge responds YES or NO based on what they observed or what evidence you provided them.

Automatic Penalties

The system compares your response with your judge's:

• • Both YES → Success. No penalty.
• • Both NO → You admitted failure. Penalty applied.
• • Disagreement → Judge's answer wins. Penalty applied if judge says NO.
• • No response → Defaults to failure after deadline. Penalty applied.

Each failure triggers a $5 penalty (or your custom amount) to be transferred from your stake to your judge.

Weekly Settlement

At the end of your commitment period (typically 7 days), the system:

• • Calculates total penalties
• • Transfers penalty money to your judge via Stripe
• • Refunds your remaining stake to you
• • Sends you a summary of your performance