Warren, yep I think just treating each round as a separate entity is absolutely the way to go! Simplicity rules.
So I'm trying to keep the momentum on this going and evolve something as dead simple as possible, without it falling into a whole or differing opinions. 1. 500 shares at $500. People can buy multiple shares but I think we should cap it it at say 5 or 10 shares 2. That money is invested in a number of start-ups for up to 10 per cent equity. I've changed my mind and think 1 batch would be best. Standard legal agreements, etc need to be employed to keep down the overview. I'd suggest to use a Digg-style voting site that allows people to pick the companies that are invested in 3. Have 2 to 3 low-key networking events per year to update shareholders on progress of start-ups and provide networking benefit. Also use social media/email to provide on-going discussion/advice/mentoring 4. We'll need a small board with people who commit to investing a bit of sweat. As I've said I'm happy to do so on the publicity/marketing side of things, but we really need someone or organisation to put their hands up to do the legal work. And a coder/development company who could whip up a few of the webside things that would automate the crowd-sourcing aspect of this. Someone with financial knowledge. Someone with good links into the angel community 5. The organisation is positioned as a way to get companies from seed to angel funding. To provide them with an automatic network of assistance, guidance and links to investors. 6. As an orgnisation we're able to cut deals with partner companies so our start-ups get either free or cheap services. eg. Web hosting. I reckon I could go to my community of IT PR companies with an "adopt a start-up" proposal. Please keep evolving this but for me the perfect analogy for this is Racehorse Syndication. People invest a bit of money with the idea of primarily having a bit of fun but with the feint hope that their 'investment' will turn into a superstar and they'll make a motza. On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Warren Seen <warren.s...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 4:46 PM, silky <michaelsli...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> I personally don't see the point of creating yet another VC firm, >> which is what you guys are talking about with the investment-based >> approach ... > > I'm feeling the same, I think this discussion is drifting towards a > miniature version of that model, with all of the pros and cons it > entails. At the same point in time, I think adding contrived > membership "benefits" distracts from the core of the idea, which is to > get a sufficient amount of cash to somewhere where it can have some > utility. If we go back to the example of kiva.org, people do it for > the sake of loaning the money to someone who has more use for it at > that time, not to become members of their website. > > I think this needs to work somewhat like a distributed "FFF" > fundraising, which means low cost of investment, ($500 is probably as > low as you want to go), with an equally low expectation on return. If > people want to put more in so they feel like they've got some real > skin in the game, then fine, allow multiple units to be bought up to a > sensible limit. A lot more people (particularly those of us with > families) can justify a $500 annual gamble, but $2k and upwards on a > speculative investment would be difficult to get "approved" ;-) > > I think it should also be a per-year thing, spread the risk and the > return amongst those who put their money up for a particular "round" > but don't let them be diluted by someone who comes in late to the > game. This would probably also simplify the administration of things > as you'd have fund A, B, C and people could be in/out of a particular > round as they so desired without affecting the value of their previous > investment. Managing a rotating list of members and how they > enter/exit sounds too complicated for the amounts we're talking about. > > But hey, we have 490 members on this list, shouldn't be hard to come > up with 490 different ways this could work, seems we're already > heading that way! :-) > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself: http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia/browse_thread/thread/99938a0fbc691eeb To post to this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
