funding startups (I myself might want to do this with android apps)

[giszmo]

Hi,

right now I'm in Chile. I came here to found a company and I'm well connected with many start-ups of the same incubator that seek funding for their respective projects. I'm pretty sure none of them tried funding through GLBSE.
I myself never spent much time on GLBSE and was not involved seeking investments in my project at all. I'm a techie.

I quit my project back in April and am still here in Chile working on various own projects alone.
My savings allow me to stay here 2 or 3 more months without any income but I assume it's a bad idea to ask for money on short notice without planning, so I want to at least explore a bit how this would work if none of my projects takes off in time.

I have various project ideas and projects with prototypes running. I could start one of these early stage projects or sell shares of my more successful - yet not profitable older projects.

Most likely investors would want as much information as possible but I wonder if it would add confidence to grant access to my project planning tools and closed beta access to the product? If this should be coupled with a certain investment and an NDA? If I should rather aim for faster development at the cost of hiring developers (I know many that would be available if I had the money).

If I were to program the next angry birds (some of my projects are games) and can convince investors that with 3 additional people we can release a stunning game in 2 months, how would I value the venture? Would that be a million dollar project with a 3% in shares sold to finance the initial release? Would I have to value it to 100k and offer 30% in shares right from the start? I have no experience how to handle that.

Lastly I wonder if people here are interested investing in software projects with rather long term goals when they get promised 8% per week with all the other investments. Are there any traditional projects other than mining operations on GLBSE?

[1715452248]

1715452248

[Stephen Gornick]

Are there any traditional projects other than mining operations on GLBSE?

There have been.   Feedzebirds is one kind of similar to what you are describing, for instance.   

Here's another:
 - https://glbse.com/ipo/144

One problem is with how the value of bitcoin keeps increasing, so if your startup earns fiat income (or even earns bitcoins but the price is pegged to a fiat equivalent), the price of each share drops at a proportionate level.   i.e., investors are looking to gain more bitcoins, not just value compared to dollars.

I don't know the secret.  Nobody is using GLBSE in a way that it can be used.

Perhaps, ... offer shares with very short term deliverables perhaps. 

So you start out with something like 10000 shares, and offer 500 shares the first week. There is no minimum, whatever bids are there, that's the price they are sold at.  So you have a two week target.  In two weeks you show that you've met the goal (or not) and you pitch for the next round, where the next 500 shares (or whatever) are sold.  Again, these hit whatever bids are there.   And so on until you have sold 50% of the shares issued (or whatever amount of equity you were willing to offer).   If you finish early, you hold more shares.   If you don't finish with success, that's the risk.

I've not thought this through, but it is one way I can think of how someone with only sweat equity to contribute can get funding on a long shot idea.   It is easier to raise $500 with a two week deliverable than it is to raise $5,000 with a three month deliverable.  Anyone investing knows these generally have a 90% chance of failure.    But If it goes well after a few weeks (deliverables are met) the funds can be raised easier and at a greater valuation.

[bitcoinbear]

Lastly I wonder if people here are interested investing in software projects with rather long term goals when they get promised 8% per week with all the other investments. Are there any traditional projects other than mining operations on GLBSE?

Yes, there are a few GLBSE companies which are not mining or Pirate or just holding funds. Having a detailed business plan (and an actual describable business for that matter) is a great way to attract investors. Many GLBSE investors are looking for something less risky than the Pirate pass through to balance their portfolio.

Do you have any complete projects you could provide as examples of your work?

[puffn]

No, I don't think this would go over too well. In order to invest in your company, I would need to know enough to be able to predict your revenue streams. In order to do this, I would need to know enough that someone with a different skillset than I would be able to steal your idea and make a competing product. So in the end, getting me to invest with you would only shoot you in the foot.

In the real world, you would be able to create a company with products that already exist as a proof of concept. Since this is more of a venture capital system, this is unfeasible.

[Bitcoin Oz]

Invest some funds in bitcoin dividend paying companies and some in your company then any dividends you make pay some out to shareholders and keep some to finance the growth of your business. One of the issues with a depreciating currency is this very thing - it strangles investment in companies which was one of the reasons the economy moved off the gold standard in the first place.

[giszmo]

Many thanks for all replies so far

Are there any traditional projects other than mining operations on GLBSE?

There have been.   Feedzebirds is one kind of similar to what you are describing, for instance.   

"Retweet for Bitcoins" has clear bitcoin-promotion-incentives for investors. I wouldn't consider that similar to my projects. My only bitcoin related project is a wallet for facebook that I could easily make better than the 3 existing Facebook wallets but I really don't feel capable of handling other people's bitcoin savings securely so if I don't get any bitcoin-security expert on board, I see no way of going live with that one. I did it for fun and might just as well open source it for reference for others.

Here's another:
 - https://glbse.com/ipo/144

So this guy "generated" 10.000 shares each representing 0.01% of his project of selling stuff at EBay. Initially got 90BTC but where do I see how many shares that was? I see the price graph starts as 0.01BTC, so 90/0.01=9k. So he only holds 10% of his own project? For 900$ raised capital? Am I reading things wrongly or is this just because the venture is not speculative in nature at all? Ok, bought one share to see how that looks from within

One problem is with how the value of bitcoin keeps increasing, so if your startup earns fiat income (or even earns bitcoins but the price is pegged to a fiat equivalent), the price of each share drops at a proportionate level.   i.e., investors are looking to gain more bitcoins, not just value compared to dollars.

Well, yes, if I had tons of money, I would speculate on Bitcoin itself, too but not with all my money. After all speculating on papers that promise to outperform the bitcoin by 100% is slightly crazy.

I don't know the secret.  Nobody is using GLBSE in a way that it can be used.

Perhaps, ... offer shares with very short term deliverables perhaps. 

So you start out with something like 10000 shares, and offer 500 shares the first week. There is no minimum, whatever bids are there, that's the price they are sold at.  So you have a two week target.  In two weeks you show that you've met the goal (or not) and you pitch for the next round, where the next 500 shares (or whatever) are sold.

I'm used to work using scrum so I consider it only reasonable to have something to show every two weeks and to be transparent about my commitment.
So with this approach I would make a commitment to sell x% every two weeks more or less knowing that people might not finance my first two weeks of effort but by showing progress hopefully get this project to a reasonable level in week 2 or 4.
How would I sell batches every 2 weeks? Can I sell them to holders at a discount? Would I just sell at market price like other holders would? Would I sell at "0" bitcoin filling all open offers no matter what? Can I configure in my account to sell 500 every 2 weeks automatically?

All in all it sounds reasonable. So IPO should be 4-8 weeks before I run out of money

Thanks Stephen for your valuable as always feedback

[giszmo]

Do you have any complete projects you could provide as examples of your work?

FluxCards is my most successful app in terms of downloads and rating right now. It is run under my current developer account which also lists Flux Forest that would deserve some love in my eyes but that failed for now. Flux Forest would be one of the more unlikely options to put on GLBSE. I'm sure its unique game physics makes it much more fun to play on the long run than galcon fusion but for now nobody understands this physics and the graphics is only dummy and therefore it lacks a lot of polish before it may gain traction.

My older account lists my very first 8h-idea-to-market hello world game Stress which has some potential, given shitty implementations like this reached 500k installs. Maybe working 2 weeks on "Stress" would be some nice starter to show off my capabilities as this should be really easy with some potential.

The other app is just a fork of an open source project that basically got some clean-up and landscape mode. Nothing spectacular but open source if you are interested in seeing commits.

Apart from Android, I have a long public record of activity in Globulation 2.

[giszmo]

One of the issues with a depreciating currency is this very thing - it strangles investment in companies which was one of the reasons the economy moved off the gold standard in the first place.

Interesting.
Good to know many people are skeptical about the outcome of the bitcoin experiment

[giszmo]

No, I don't think this would go over too well. In order to invest in your company, I would need to know enough to be able to predict your revenue streams. In order to do this, I would need to know enough that someone with a different skillset than I would be able to steal your idea and make a competing product. So in the end, getting me to invest with you would only shoot you in the foot.

I'm not too afraid of people steeling my ideas. At least not for some of my ideas.
Most of my ideas have a working prototype, so one-man-shows trying to hit the market before me would have a hard time doing so and big companies might code faster but take longer to get started, too. The most promising in this category would involve 2 partners with a quite successful game on the market, so in this case it would not even be a one man show (in case they want to share with you guys ).
One of my projects would be a server part to my FluxCards. The details might be worth copying for some but my experience with FluxCards would put me ahead of the wave. This project would actually be the one I see most potential on the long run.

[Stephen Gornick]

So he only holds 10% of his own project?

Ya, it looks like he didn't structure that so that he holds majority or any equity.  There were a few red flags for me with this one (e.g., no ID / verification) but I think it is a fantastic example of how this person was able to get funding for the inventory to make a living selling on eBay.

There's no way a bank would have loaned the money, nor any chance of angel funding, etc,

And who knows maybe he charges selling costs to the project so that his time is compensated for, instead of a share of profit.

One of my projects would be a server part to my FluxCards. The details might be worth copying for some but my experience with FluxCards would put me ahead of the wave. This project would actually be the one I see most potential on the long run.

Like you mentioned, projects which expand the adoption of bitcoin (such as FeedZeBirds) are valued by GLBSE investors.

Now I've been completely drunk on the bitcoin Kool-aid coming up on two years now and everywhere I look I see a market ripe for disruption due to bitcoin.

Within ten seconds of seeing your app I was thinking ...hmm,   where does bitcoin fit.

And the first thing that came to my mind was how little incentive there is for the typical unmotivated kid to want to go through the flash card deck. Even worse, what little incentive there is for the kid to want to know the right answers.

I can picture parents or teachers laying down a bitcoin bribe by putting funds towards the kid learning through the deck.    I haven't thought through the specifics, but it could be something where the reward to the kid increases with the number of right answers.  The kid withdraws bitcoins earned then goes over to Ogrr.com and buys Diablo gold.   Boom -- you've turned the apathetic gamer kid into a motivated fluxcard deck learner.

[samadamsbeer]

I have a Bitcoin related business plan and I plan to submit to the Oct 8 deadline for Startup Chile. I'll PM you and maybe you can share more about your background with me.

[giszmo]

I have a Bitcoin related business plan and I plan to submit to the Oct 8 deadline for Startup Chile. I'll PM you and maybe you can share more about your background with me.

looking forward to your pm. Are you already in Chile, too?

[giszmo]

ok, so GLBSE defaulted well before I actually sent them my money although I already had some forms filled out to advance this plan of co-funding.

Meanwhile FluxCards did quite well with 1000 new active installs per month and currently 8,657 active installs and 24,000 total downloads. The just recently released premium key sold 12 times@5€ in its first week which is about a tiny fraction of what I had hoped for.
To really make money with it, these numbers have to go up by one or two orders of magnitude but I'm optimistic that with facebook, it will get there.

So with GLBSE gone, what would be the best plan of action to offer this to potentially anonymous share holders? Anybody interested to directly buy a share at certain conditions? Any thought on how to proceed from here would be appreciated.

[Stephen Gornick]

what would be the best plan of action to offer this to potentially anonymous share holders?

BitFunder, I believe.

 - https://bitfunder.com

[giszmo]

what would be the best plan of action to offer this to potentially anonymous share holders?

BitFunder, I believe.

 - https://bitfunder.com

Hmm ... thanx. I will look into it. Looks interesting but low traffic.

[MPOE-PR]

ok, so GLBSE defaulted well before I actually sent them my money although I already had some forms filled out to advance this plan of co-funding.

Meanwhile FluxCards did quite well with 1000 new active installs per month and currently 8,657 active installs and 24,000 total downloads. The just recently released premium key sold 12 times@5€ in its first week which is about a tiny fraction of what I had hoped for.
To really make money with it, these numbers have to go up by one or two orders of magnitude but I'm optimistic that with facebook, it will get there.

So with GLBSE gone, what would be the best plan of action to offer this to potentially anonymous share holders? Anybody interested to directly buy a share at certain conditions? Any thought on how to proceed from here would be appreciated.

Do you have an OTC rating?

[giszmo]

Do you have an OTC rating?

No. Never traded via OTC. But my real life identity is verifiable easily I guess. Would you still consider it worth getting an OTC rating?
Most people I sold coins to were first-timers without OTC so I guess I would maybe get some 3 ratings there quickly if those 3 with an account there react when I mail them now. I bought my coins at Gox.

[MPOE-PR]

Would you still consider it worth getting an OTC rating?

Yes, absolutely. Being in the OTC is the cornerstone of being involved in BTC finance. Also, see here.

[giszmo]

Would you still consider it worth getting an OTC rating?

Yes, absolutely. Being in the OTC is the cornerstone of being involved in BTC finance. Also, see here.

Well, a WoT for me is a thing that allows to build up a pseudonym that still can be trusted. If some "Giszmo" made transactions to the benefit of 50 counterparts, it is very likely he will not run with some $200. If he acted to the benefit of 5000 people, most likely running with $10000 wouldn't be worth the pain loosing the great standing in this big community.

But … I'm Giszmo=Leo Wandersleb with a registered business, zillions of ways to contact me etc. If I want to get to the point where people give me $10000, going through the OTC and *trade* is pointless. I don't trade, I write software and OTC is a trading platform so I will mostly find traders there and changing 1.01Ƀ for 1Ƀ to gain ratings is kind of stupid and mostly done be scammers, don't you think so?

[MPOE-PR]

But … I'm Giszmo=Leo Wandersleb with a registered business, zillions of ways to contact me etc. If I want to get to the point where people give me $10000, going through the OTC and *trade* is pointless. I don't trade, I write software and OTC is a trading platform so I will mostly find traders there and changing 1.01Ƀ for 1Ƀ to gain ratings is kind of stupid and mostly done be scammers, don't you think so?

There's a few important points here. One is that having a GPG signature of record means that we can identify it was in fact you, =Leo Wandersleb, that said something. That's not often important, but when it is then it's very important.

Another is that the WOT isn't just used for trading bitcoins OTC. In order to list a security on MPEx you have to be in the WOT, for instance. In order for people to sue you through the ROTA you have to be in the WOT. Your entire existence pretty much is that WOT handle - nobody cares you've got a registered business; it costs fifty bucks to register an LLC and you usually can't productively sue one anyway (hence the LLC in the name). Nobody cares you can be contacted a zillion ways, I can pick up the phone book and contact a zillion people right now, what's that do.

What matters is your WOT handle. How long you've had it, who says they trust you by rating you there, who you're connected with.