PeerInvest

[samue...@gmail.com]

I was hoping to get some constructive feedback from the Cooperation
Commons community on this idea:

http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/PeerInvest

Any thoughts?

[mdan...@gmail.com]

Interesting idea, but I would be concerned with the legal and/or
administrative side of such a project. There are very strick rules
around investments, and there is a lot of paperwork involved in
communicating with share holders. While the concept is great, I am not
sure it is practical.
Meanwhile, there may be an option if you consider looking at it from
the angle of loans. Prosper.com does peer-to-peer landing, but they do
not really cater to business or start-up projects. I could see a system
where people would do loans to star-ups, at a rate that would match the
level of risk and terms that would match the lifecycle of a start-up
project. With such a system and if you spread your loans around enough
start-ups, you may be able to make good money and projets can get
funded without getting into the equity business.

[samue...@gmail.com]

Thanks for your thoughts, Marc.

I am thinking that the purpose of the PeerInvest Cooperative is for
people to raise money under their own terms. So, PeerInvest would not
be involved in communicating with shareholders. It would not be
involved in anything other than beign a central site that allows people
to securely raise money under their own terms. So, it can be an equity
system for corporations to raise money. But it can also be an equity
system for private groups to raise money. So, a rock band might use the
system to raise 10,000.00 to produce a recording, and the terms of the
"investment" might be giving everyone who contributes a part of 33% of
the gross revenues, for instance. Or, they might want to exchange
shares in solari investment groups. Or, people might want to raise
money via an alternative currency.

Of course, from the end of PeerInvest, we would make sure that we are
in compliance with all laws. And, we'd make sure that people who
participate are in compliance as much as they can be. I am talking here
about creating a for-profit cooperative that builds this system. I
could just go ahead and create a private corporation, but I believe
that it can be co-created under a for profit internationsl cooeprative
infrastructure.

Right now, Fundable exists as a system to raise money. Fundable is
great, don't get me wrong. But, it is limited. I discussed with
Fundable the possibility of using their system to raise start up money
for a business venture. Although it is possible to do, it is very
limited. So, I see a need for an online market place that aids people
rasing money under their own legal terms. A marketplace like PeerInvest
does not have to manage anything other than the intital money-raising.
Everything else can handled by the people raising the money. Although,
we can provide wiki or other spaces to allow people to create informal
knowledge bases that help steer people in the right direction. I plan
on designing and building the whole system with the help of an
interested community.

I do agree that it would also be neat to have a Prosper-type start-up
loan system. Although, I would like to see people be able to raise
money to create businesses without having to go into debt. But, I agree
with you that there is an unfulfilled need there. I tried an experiment
recently, and used Prosper to buy a server

https://www.prosper.com/public/lend/listing.aspx?listingID=26965

I actually had a great experience, and I believe that in some cases,
Prosper could be used as it is right now for small business start up
loans. But, I like your ideas, too. I think it could be interesting to
create a community-designed, peer to peer business start up loan system
that caters specifically to the small-to-micro business market sector.

[samue...@gmail.com]

Thanks for your thoughts, Marc.

[Paul B. Hartzog]

On 9/22/06, samue...@gmail.com <samue...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am thinking that the purpose of the PeerInvest Cooperative is for
> people to raise money under their own terms. So, PeerInvest would not
> be involved in communicating with shareholders. It would not be
> involved in anything other than beign a central site that allows people
> to securely raise money under their own terms. So, it can be an equity
> system for corporations to raise money. But it can also be an equity
> system for private groups to raise money. So, a rock band might use the
> system to raise 10,000.00 to produce a recording, and the terms of the
> "investment" might be giving everyone who contributes a part of 33% of
> the gross revenues, for instance. Or, they might want to exchange
> shares in solari investment groups. Or, people might want to raise
> money via an alternative currency.

It is difficult for me to comment on this project in particular as I
am morally opposed to profit-making enterprises. :-/

Having said that, the great benefit of techology (like Macs) is that
bands no longer need to raise money to record because they don't have
to go into a studio like they used to. My band spend tens of
thousands to record our lousy CD and my home-recorded electronic music
CD "Faces" was infinitely better. In fact, same band is currently
swapping mp3 files and working on new material and we live in San
Fran, Ann Arbor, and Salt Lake City.

In an attempt to say something useful though, I don't think that the
mentality of people who want to make profit enamors them towards any
kinds of positive behavior. Making profit is almost by definition a
ruthless behavior (in my experience).

not trying to be harsh, just helpful

-p

--------------------------------------------------------
http://www.paulbhartzog.org
http://www.panarchy.com
PaulBH...@panarchy.com
PHar...@umich.edu
--------------------------------------------------------
The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
--Muriel Rukeyser
--------------------------------------------------------

[samue...@gmail.com]

Well, Paul, I can agree with you that people may not need 10,0000 just
to record an album. I, like you, spent lots of money a couple of times
on expensive albums recorded on 1 inch, and then 2 inch tape, only to
turn around and spend maybe 3000.00 one time on a good computer and
audio mixer firewire interface, Sonar, and a couple of good microphones
and microphone preamps. This produced the best recording of any that we
had made thus far (you can listen to some of it it here
http://myspace.com/wanderjahr ) Having this of course also will allow
us to produce basically as many really high quality recordings as we
want.

Also, see http://www.communitywiki.org/en/WikiMusic. The idea here is,
instead of swapping MP3's, to post a copy the multi track files from
the digital audio workstation equipment, then, to post revisions under
new page names that track the lineage.

I don't think that for profit is automatically ruthless. I think that
ideas that are created for profit ONLY might fit that description.

Here's the situation that I am looking at:

Just looking at the US,the overwhelmingly dominant paradigm is
"for-profit", but a very small amount of people make the most profit.
The majority of people are making their living working for someone
else, who is profiting off of their efforts. They usually have very
little input over the direction of the companies that they put their
efforts into.

In Michigan, and many other Mid western regions, the biggest for profit
industries/economic drivers/employers have been auto and other
manufacturing blue and white collar jobs. These jobs are fast
disappearing. And, there is no current economic driver to take their
place.

The idea that I have to replace the economic driver in these areas, and
to create a new alternative economic driver world wide, is for people
to create their own personal (micro) enterprises, and to network these
together when applicable and desireable. And, I believe that these
micro enterprises can work together with communities of people to build
different products, services, resources, entertainment/media. I believe
that the micro-entreprenuers and the communities they help foster can
co-fund and share in the profit of their work.

The focus is not on making "profit", but on making an alternative way
for people to make a living, and an alternative way for people to
create and finance systems with more bottom lines than just money.
PeerInvest could possibly be structured in a way that helps people
co-build real and sustainable systems using micro-financing and peer
production, peer-innovation, and peer-sharing of profits. People can
also co-create and co-finance businesses that work with, instead of
against the "commons", and with instead of against social equity and
the environment. I want to see people be able to make a living creating
the world that they really want to live in.

So, I saw that there is a void to be filled in the non-existence of
marketplace that allows the average person to present ideas and raise
money with low risk to the individuals investing or financing. And, I
decided to build that system, and any other systems (like education
programs) that I think need to exist to create the new economic driver
that I discuss above.

The way that I want to build PeerInvest is by creating it's framework
publicly, online, in a wiki. Once workable frameworks are created, I
want to incorporate a for-profit cooperative organization. People will
pay to join that cooperative and become voting members ("A" shares),
and then we can also sell "B" shares that give people a partial vote,
to raise money to build the system that we've co-designed. Once the
system is designed and built, then we can either charge people a
nominal fee to use it to raise money or alternative currencies, and to
access whatever tools we design into the system. These tools could be
like milestone management systems, and collaborative software platforms
for people to build their projects up to the point where they are ready
to co-invest in them.

[samue...@gmail.com]

Also, I have updated
http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/PeerInvest