PeerInvest
Inspired by CommunityWikiBank, this (concept) will be (a) staging ground for what I am calling a WikiVenture.
What I/we plan on doing is raising pledges to create a fund, that will be used to construct and deploy an OpenBusiness for-profit venture, (possibly through Social Synergy enterprises). This venture will support peer-to-peer investing, and will open up parts of the administration processes of PeerInvest up to the community.
The project will unfold in several "milestones". The milestone process will be co-constructed right here.
People who pledge funds will be given shares in a for-profit Cooperative (see: Wikipedia:Cooperative)
This for-profit Cooperative will create and manage an open and secure PeerInvest market place, that will allow people to raise money, or alternative currencies. The system will also give them legal template investing agreements to use as a basis for seeking investment, to save time on legal structure researching. The system will also provide secure transaction, and a "reputation" system.
This Cooperative-maintained market place can then be a bedrock upon which open collaborative efforts can build more specified projects, such as profit-sharing "CrowdSourcing" software projects, for example. But first, a more open marketplace needs to exist that does not try to restrict how people use it.
Why is this for-profit?
The PeerInvest WikiVenture will be for-profit Cooperatve (unless a better model can be put forth) to allow people to profit from the creation of a true http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/OpenBusiness OpenBusiness] Peer to Peer investment system.
"True http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SocialSynergy/OpenBusiness OpenBusiness]" means that people who use PeerInvest to raise money totally control the IP, and only use PeerInvest as a vehicle to raise money, and pay a nominal fee to do so.
The niche that a WikiVenture, or PeerInvest hopes to fill is in the area of helping people to create a felxible, workable system of "MicroInvestment". But, instead of creating a "get rich quick scheme" environment, I hope to create a system that allows people to:
- co-create and hopefully even test their core ideas/business models/rules of organization/etc,
- when possible or applicable, attract a community of both investors, and/or co-innovators
As SunirShah is exploring with StartUpInaBox http://www.startup-in-a-box.com, it is possible to do much of this work without collecting or spending a lot of money.
People can first work on their ideas, attract an enthusiastic community, co-create their business models and agreements, market research, projections, etc in open wiki environments for little to no cost, then co-fund the idea and launch it.
Build first--->Then Invest(if investment is even needed)
As such, to give a demsontrative example, we would possibly structure the PeerInvest system to likely not allow people just to list an investment opportunity, but would only allow project that open up the processes in the way that I describe above. Although this is open for debate, too, of course.
Notes
Efforts that help people create things that create cash and resource flow and build intellectual and financial equity are wealth creating.
If it focuses them on starting and running their enterprises in a not-for-profit mode...then it is generally non-sustainable and can not attract liquid capital. That means it helps people without wealth migrate to the feudal model that is embraced by the top!
Related Pages
CommunityWiki:AlternativeCurrency, CommunityWiki:WikiMoney, CommunityWiki:CommunityWikiBank, CommunityWiki:WhatIsMoney, BarCampBank, CommunityWiki:CooperationFund, Meatball:WebOfTrust, Meatball:SoftSecurity, CommunityWiki:CorporateGoals, CommunityWiki:WhatIsEconomy, SocialsynergyWiki:OpenBusiness
eTerra: a global virtual currency of trust
P2PFoundation:Category:Business
Open Money:Community way, Ripple Project
Discussion
SamRose-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 envision building 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.
A BarCampBank project
