Trooper: helping with one click

Business context

Trooper is a Belgian platform that enables users to support non-profit organisations through everyday online shopping. The initiative was created by Elisabet Lamote, who launched a prototype of the service in 2016 based on WordPress. At the outset, the platform supported only 5 associations, and it quickly became clear that amateur technological solutions were limiting further growth.

To scale the proven concept to thousands of organisations, a stable architecture, a validated business model, and reasonable operating costs were needed. Securing a technology partner became crucial — one that, beyond software development, could also provide business support within a limited budget.

The Trooper operating model is simple: the user selects the organisation they want to support, goes from its unique page on the Trooper platform to their favourite online store, and part of the purchase value goes to the selected organisation. NGOs can also create their own pages within the Trooper ecosystem and benefit from the scale effect of the entire network.

Challenge

The biggest challenge was verifying whether the adopted affiliate model would work effectively on a much larger scale than just a handful of organisations. It was necessary to confirm the business hypotheses, ensure precise tracking of purchases and settlements, and prepare for rapid growth in the number of partners and transactions.

An additional barrier was the limited budget and the starting point of a WordPress prototype, which did not guarantee performance, security, or development flexibility. A working version of the solution needed to be delivered at speed to minimise risk, gather data, and plan scaling without compromising stability.

Solution

Within three weeks of the start of the collaboration, the first working version of the solution was delivered, making it possible to quickly test the scalability of the model and move into further development. The iterative approach enabled parallel validation of business hypotheses while adapting functionalities to the needs of users and organisations.

Over the next 2.5 years, the base of supported organisations grew by more than 40,000%, and the platform reached critical mass, confirming the effectiveness of the model. As of May 2019, 4,719 organisations were active in the Trooper network, 215,508 purchases had been completed, and the total amount transferred to NGOs reached EUR 638,779. The collaboration continued for almost three years after launch, focusing on system reliability, feature expansion, and maintaining stability and scalability.

The key to success proved to be operational flexibility: in the beginning, greater emphasis was placed on rapidly confirming hypotheses and achieving product-market fit, and then on maintaining quality, functional development, and preparing the platform for long-term growth.