Agile Business on the Web (long)

[Mr. Now]

I sketch the broad contours of the structure, above. Specific details of actual final structure go out to the senders if I receive email from 200 or more individuals by November 1.

[farang0]

I doubt 200 people are going to email you. I dont even think that 200 people have looked in this thread.

You need to focus on getting less investors with more cash each like Degen previously mentioned. You can just get hundreds of people to throw in small amounts because communicating a project to 200 different owners is going to be a feat in iteself.

[Mr. Now]

I receive about 3 emails a day on this. Yesterday I receive 6 of them.

There are 41 days to go.

Mr. Now looks forward to November 1st.

Either it is viral, or it ain't. Certainly those who email me tell others. It is interesting to track the thread-views.

[img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[calmB4storm]

[ QUOTE ]
I doubt 200 people are going to email you. I dont even think that 200 people have looked in this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quickly approaching 1,000 views.

[ QUOTE ]
You need to focus on getting less investors with more cash each like Degen previously mentioned. You can just get hundreds of people to throw in small amounts because communicating a project to 200 different owners is going to be a feat in iteself.

[/ QUOTE ]

100 owners...and it sounds like he has a decent plan for communication. I think it's inevitable that some people involved will grow inactive, so as long as you plan on this happening, I think at least this part of the operation should work smoothly.

[Dept. of Justice]

Thanks for the heads up Scorpion Man.

Mr. Now, a general solicitation for investors is illegal. One may not solicit an investment in the fund by any form of "general solicitation" or "general advertising." This includes any advertisement, article, notice or other communication published in any newspaper, magazine, the Internet or similar media or broadcast over television or radio, and any seminar or meeting whose attendees have been invited by any general solicitation or general advertising.

Therefore, my brethren at the SEC would likely find this post to be illegal.

In order for it not to be a "general solicitation" you must have had a pre-existing relationship with the investor you are soliciting, and you must contact them individually to determine their interest. The fact that you initiated this with a general solicitation to determine interest likely makes this whole scheme illegal.

[elus2]

DOJ,

You might want to check out the other sections of this forum. I hear that some of them might be gambling online!

Awful gimmick account btw.

[Sifmole]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the heads up Scorpion Man.

Mr. Now, a general solicitation for investors is illegal. One may not solicit an investment in the fund by any form of "general solicitation" or "general advertising." This includes any advertisement, article, notice or other communication published in any newspaper, magazine, the Internet or similar media or broadcast over television or radio, and any seminar or meeting whose attendees have been invited by any general solicitation or general advertising.

Therefore, my brethren at the SEC would likely find this post to be illegal.

In order for it not to be a "general solicitation" you must have had a pre-existing relationship with the investor you are soliciting, and you must contact them individually to determine their interest. The fact that you initiated this with a general solicitation to determine interest likely makes this whole scheme illegal.

[/ QUOTE ]

He is not soliciting investors -- he is soliciting statements of interest. There is a significant difference.

[Dept. of Justice]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the heads up Scorpion Man.

Mr. Now, a general solicitation for investors is illegal. One may not solicit an investment in the fund by any form of "general solicitation" or "general advertising." This includes any advertisement, article, notice or other communication published in any newspaper, magazine, the Internet or similar media or broadcast over television or radio, and any seminar or meeting whose attendees have been invited by any general solicitation or general advertising.

Therefore, my brethren at the SEC would likely find this post to be illegal.

In order for it not to be a "general solicitation" you must have had a pre-existing relationship with the investor you are soliciting, and you must contact them individually to determine their interest. The fact that you initiated this with a general solicitation to determine interest likely makes this whole scheme illegal.

[/ QUOTE ]

He is not soliciting investors -- he is soliciting statements of interest. There is a significant difference.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, and also illegal. Please re-read the post. It's similar to an investment partnership. You can't advertise it. Most hedge funds don't have websites for this very reason. Before you can even go about obtaining an indication of interest, you have to have a pre-established relationship. It's possible Mr. Now gets out from under some of these constraints because he's asking his investors to participate in management of the partnership, but I doubt it.

[CrayZee]

[ QUOTE ]
Thank you for your post here. I do agree with all of it, except:

"You don't necessarily need a bunch of people for that, even to come up w/ some reasonable ideas. "

The world we live in now is amplifying crowd behavior via the web. This is seen in the stock market for example. Other forms of web-based crowd contagion include viral marketing, hoaxes and most forms of popular "culture" spread.

If you have done any experimentation with what catches on, you find that the "formula" is very hard to pin down. What catches on is difficult to know. The viral aspect (catching the attention of the crowd) is very elusive in terms of what works 'now'.

Therefore, a great many players invested with some skin in the game, colluding and collaborating and getting consensus on the next shot makes total sense. It is a form of crowd polling that probably increases EV and reduces risk.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I agree that you can harness the "power of the cloud/crowd" to do interesting things. However, from an origin of a business idea I disagree with. Perhaps this is due to my perspective of resources available.

The members that will benefit most from a "think tank approach" will be the ones that contribute least to the generation of great, viable ideas. This is not to say that these people won't be able to help refine (due to common sense, etc.). Basically, the weak links will benefit from a small handful of strong links and not so much vice versa.

If your problem is an inability to find an initial good team, then I can see this being a reasonable idea. You could basically recruit a lot of people and sieve to find the good ones.

As an aside: Efficient/effective, unbiased/non-agenda-based, consensus is a lot more difficult than it appears. I would also imagine that C(100,2), albeit much less for inactive members, makes for a lot noise and missed signals. Less active members will probably be the ones less experienced and knowledgable in IT and thus effectively be 0 EV project contributors.

[OpenWheel]

Well, yes it's illegal. That was pointed out in other threads when Mr. Now suggested raising money via the forum. But I think others have their answer about why larger amounts aren't being solicited. Flying under the radar approach, so to speak.

Myself, I wouldn't do business with someone who ignored the law in the earliest stages. However, others here are more familar with the man (pre-existing relationship argument) and would feel differently.

The only real risk is that if it doesn't succeed that some disgruntled investor uses the solicitation method to sue, since I suspect if law enforcement complains then you just withraw the offer. But that's another reason for the low amounts sought I think since investors aren't risking enough to sue later.

My own view is that I strongly disagree with the nanny-state that led to the laws against such public solicitation. So I hope the venture succeeds wildly.