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Janine Shea

How Mosaic brings cleantech investing to the masses | GreenBiz.com - 0 views

www.greenbiz.com/...ngs-cleantech-investing-masses

GroundUp Validation Crowdfunding Crowdsourcing Clean_Energy SEC Socially_Responsible_Investing

shared by Janine Shea on 10 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Invest as little as $25, or as much as you want, in clean-energy projects. Earn a princely 6.38 percent interest annually for the next five years. Make the world a better place.
  • Mosaic, based in Oakland, Calif., has figured out how to crowdsource solar projects in a way that seems to be a win-win for everyone. For each project, it seeks investors — smaller fries, like you and me — to fund a given project, promising a respectable rate of return. As loans get repaid, investors can roll the proceeds back into new projects, or take the money and run. Think of it as Kickstarter for clean energy.
  • He dropped out of Yale in 2002 to help build a youth movement for climate solutions.
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • “30 under 30” in energy by Forbes.
  • Their company started slowly, garnering interest-free investments from individuals to fund solar installations on five community projects. They range from homes on a Navajo reservation in Arizona to the Asian Resource Center in Oakland. All are smallish installations
  • I invested $100 in the Asian Resource Center installation in 2011, in equal parts to support the fledgling company as well as a social-service organization in my hometown
  • Those first projects were funded using a zero-interest investment model similar to Kiva, where investors get their principal back over time but no interest. This allowed Mosaic to avoid federal regulation and to go to market, learn the business, get feedback, and show traction for the idea. At the same time, it launched into the process of registering with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that governs investment firms.
  • More recently, the company started raising money for projects in which it would pay interest. It can do this while waiting for SEC approval thanks to something called Regulation D, which exempts from regulatory oversight the offer and sale of up to $1 million of securities in a 12-month period.
  • A small group of investors was invited to put in as little as $25 and have been promised a return of 6.38 percent over five years.
  • The project is projected to save the youth center more than $160,000 through reduced electricity costs.
  • I invested $200 in this project as part of Mosaic’s private “beta” investment round
  • nlike investing in CDs, there are risks in Mosaic’s projects. The solar-installation customer could default on its monthly payments. The solar anels or installation could be faulty, tying the project up with repairs, negotiations, or worse.
  • If I want, I can reinvest the earned interest and repaid principal in other Mosaic projects with the click of a button.
  • “As an asset class, the default rates on solar leases and power purchase agreements are extremely low,”
  • There are a lot of unknowns: the number of people willing to invest sums, small or large, in energy projects offered by a start-up with a very short track record; the cost of attracting and servicing these investors; the number of available investment-quality energy projects; the actual performance of those projects during the life of the investments;
  • Together with a $2 million grant from the Department of Energy
  • , the company aims to scale its offerings, including geographically, to get millions of Americans involved with funding clean-energy projects.
  • It’s a bold idea: Raise money from the masses in order to bring solar to the masses, providing value to everyone along the way.
  • Having proved the concept, Parish and Rosen are now ready to kick things into high gear, throwing open the doors to all qualified investors.
  • “The economics of solar have begun to make sense in more places, and online investing and peer-to-peer finance are becoming widespread. Those are the two big forces that we’re a part of.”
  • I asked him why no one had done this before. “It’s a really difficult set of skills and competencies that you need to pull together on one team to make this business model work,” he explained. “You need the securities law expertise. You need the solar project finance expertise. You need the technology expertise to build the online investment platform, and you need the marketing expertise to get people to invest in the projects.”
  • For each project, Mosaic provides the underwriting and due diligence. “If we like it and it meets our investment committee’s criteria, we make a loan offer to the project developer or the project owner, and negotiate a loan to them.” Mosaic takes a servicing fee (the difference between the interest rate charged the developer and the rate pays investors) and an origination fee of between 3 and 5 percent of the loan, which the developer pays. Mosaic doesn’t do the installation itself — it contracts that out.
  • Clearly, not yet a pathway to riches. What’s needed is volume.
  • “Our goal is to be doing billions of dollars of investments a year in clean-energy projects,
  • “We have already had a lot of developers coming to us," he says. "We’re interested in offering high-quality, clean-energy projects for people to invest in.
  • We believe clean energy is good in and of itself and is a great asset class for investment. So we’re looking at all kinds of projects.”
  • It’s not just solar. Parish and Rosen are looking at a broader category of projects to finance — what they call clean-energy infrastructure. That includes other forms energy as well as energy-efficiency projects and electric-vehicle infrastructure.
  • All told, 51 investors ponied up $40,000 for the 106-panel installation; the whole project got funded in just six days. I’ve already received my first interest payment.
  • However it plays out, it’s a compelling and potentially disruptive business model. Allowing smaller investors to participate in clean-energy investments is an exciting possibility. And the relatively predictable returns of solar
  • can make these investments a safer bet than many traditional Wall Street investment vehicles.
  • And not for just small guys. Imagine if larger mission-driven investors, including pension funds and university endowments, started pouring money into Mosaic. The expanding investment pools could rapidly accelerate the growth of renewable energy and efficiency projects in the marketplace.
  • “I think a lot of people are just excited about the model,” says Parish, “and have been wanting to find a place that they can feel good about investing, that they can also generate pretty good yield from. And that’s what we’re trying to do.”
  • Parish makes a point: Some of this is an exercise in feel-good investing. But that’s nontrivial: How many of your investments do you feel good about? Even some of the so-called socially responsible funds hold stocks of fossil-fuel companies and other corporate nasties in their portfolios. If the nascent trend of disinvestment in fossil-fuel companies takes off among climate-minded investors, where will they next put their money? If Parish and Rosen have their way, there will be a new generation of cleaner investment alternatives to be found — perhaps, like me, right in your own community.
Janine Shea

Bootstrapping a $10M Creative Marketplace: Envato Founder Couple Collis and Cyan Ta'eed... - 0 views

www.sramanamitra.com/...e-collis-and-cyan-taeed-part-3

marketplace GroundUp Validation Marketing blog Social_Media

shared by Janine Shea on 29 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • It took us six months to build the site. The first night we sold $10. I was disappointed at the time, but looking back I am impressed that we sold something our first day.
  • We had a lot more people who had joined the site as members but did not transact. There is a group of active users and passive users, and it is interesting to look at that ratio
  • In 2007 we did a lot to grow our customer base. Some of it was organic growth. The thing about a marketplace model is that buyers stimulate the seller economy, which stimulates authors which in turn stimulates buyers. We also engaged in grassroots marketing, and we tried social media. We started talking about running competitions.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • At that time we started up FreelanceSwitch where we could put our lessons learned. We also started a tutorial blog. Those sites today receive close to 10 million visits a month. They have grown a lot over the years. The company today comprises two parts. We have the market places and 12 tutorial sites that cover everything from game development to making music sound like a DJ.
Janine Shea

Why scaling up sustainable urban growth is critical for the planet | GreenBiz.com - 0 views

www.greenbiz.com/...aling-sustainable-urban-growth

GroundUp Sustainability Validation Urbanism Corporate_Sponsors Community-Level

shared by Janine Shea on 30 Nov 12 - No Cached
    • Janine Shea
      Janine Shea on 30 Nov 12
       
      Love this quote
  • “We cannot apply the same approach for both.”
  • As UTC’s Sisson put it, “When we see cities stepping up and making policies and strategies in support of energy efficiency, that is a clear signal to us.” He also pointed out that city visions can vary dramatically, so it’s important to understand their objectives.
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  • Like other transactional aspects of sustainability, most notably supply chain issues, getting the incentives right allows for greater transparency, better decision-making, and more “sustainable” sustainability solutions.
  • NGOs and civil society organizations can develop credible standards, decipher local issues, and create the environment that supports sustainable urban growth.
  • Business can deploy systems that address real social and environmental challenges — along with the partnership of government and civil society
  • Government policies can create income distribution, economic and social mobility, the right incentives for the private sector to invest, space for truly engaged discussion, and a commitment to longer-term sustainability strategies.
  • City-focused initiatives, lead by NGOs and the private sector, are drawing more attention to the clear opportunities, but the results are still lagging behind the pace of the growing challenges. While innovation is important for developing sustainability solutions, technologies and infrastructure systems that will help achieve sustainable growth already exist. Companies that provide infrastructure systems and components for energy, buildings, and transportation, must push fast-forward to deploy these technologies faster. They can start by collectively understanding the challenges and the role that each stakeholder sector can play in support of sustainable growth:
  • At BSR, we know that when business engages stakeholders proactively, the insights gained will lead to more informed decision-making, more valuable collaboration, and more inspired business models. The challenges are large, but the quiet and unstoppable megatrends are larger. The sooner meaningful engagement is at the forefront of the sustainable urban infrastructure agenda, the sooner we can hit fast-forward and have a chance at truly sustainable growth.
  • Per capita economic activity increases 10 percent with every 5-percentage-point increase in urban population.
  • Just like in corporations, setting goals and having a vision proves to be an essential start for cities that want to engage business. The WBCSD Urban Infrastructure Initiative (UII)
  • “Cities are looking at sustainability as their strategy,”
  • The global infrastructure and technology firm Siemens also entered the fray with its Green City Index, which ranks more than 120 global cities on a variety of environmental dimensions. Cities at the bottom have the greatest opportunities, and the ones at the top have the most lessons to offer
  • “I talk to cities about their strategy and goals just like I would with a company. City CSOs are making the same decisions as companies and have very similar challenges with internal engagement.
  • Matthew Lynch, the project lead, said one of the main success factors is the opportunity for direct and open dialogue. “The companies in the UII are engaging collaboratively with cities upstream in the planning process, demonstrating the value of the early involvement of business and showing how a multisector group of leading companies can help cities find integrated solutions to interconnected challenges,”
  • encourage the idea that it was business, not just individual companies working with cities.
  • The WBCSD expects that companies will use the landscape reports to refine their own approaches to working with these cities, targeting specific challenges and opportunities.
  • Kate Brass, GE Energy’s ecomagination program manager, said there’s a “need for better coordination and understanding among governments, industries, and NGOs so that cities holistically plan for and build the infrastructure of tomorrow rather than create an infrastructure of mismatched components and potentially stranded assets."
Janine Shea

How to Get Startup Ideas - 0 views

www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html

GroundUp Start-up Founders blog Paul_Graham

shared by Janine Shea on 05 Dec 12 - No Cached
    • Janine Shea
      Janine Shea on 05 Dec 12
       
      Colleges ~ cities 
  • Live in the future, then build what's missing.
  • They grew out of things their founders built because there seemed a gap in the world.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • When you have an idea for a startup, ask yourself: who wants this right now? Who wants this so much that they'll use it even when it's a crappy version one made by a two-person startup they've never heard of? If you can't answer that, the idea is probably bad.
  • In practice the link between depth and narrowness is so strong that it's a good sign when you know that an idea will appeal strongly to a specific group or type of user.
  • it's not a sufficient one
  • Facebook was a good idea because it started with a small market there was a fast path out of. Colleges are similar enough that if you build a facebook that works at Harvard, it will work at any college. So you spread rapidly through all the colleges. Once you have all the college students, you get everyone else simply by letting them in.
  • When you find the right sort of problem, you should probably be able to describe it as obvious, at least to you.
  • Live in the future and build what seems interesting.
  • For some reason, the more a project has to count as research, the less likely it is to be something that could be turned into a startup.
  • gravitate toward solving users' problems
  • Worrying that you're late is one of the signs of a good idea.
  • It's exceptionally rare for startups to be killed by competitors—so rare that you can almost discount the possibility.
  • if the beachhead consists of people doing something lots more people will be doing in the future, then it's probably big enough no matter how small it is.
Janine Shea

Bootstrapping a $10M Creative Marketplace: Envato Founder Couple Collis and Cyan Ta'eed... - 0 views

www.sramanamitra.com/...e-collis-and-cyan-taeed-part-2

marketplace GroundUp Validation Marketing blog Social_Media

shared by Janine Shea on 19 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Today our largest marketplaces are for website templates as well as Adobe After Effects templates. When you go to the movies and see cool trailers, you are probably watching something that was made in Adobe After Effects. We also have background music marketplaces which is often used in advertising. The marketplaces are very much an exchange. We branched out from Flash into several design marketplaces.
  • chicken-and-egg
  • Our approach was to do a grassroots marketing campaign. We started with content we created ourselves, and we commissioned a little bit of content ourselves. Based on that content, we went over to other sites and started chatting with people to get them to check us out.
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  • The first challenge is to get initial momentum, and then the second challenge is to ramp that up. A few months later we rolled out a strategy where we gave away thousands of dollars of free money on the marketplace. That stimulated sales for sellers and helped buyers see how they could use the site. Four weeks later we had reached a thousand dollars of revenue per week.
  • That was essentially your business idea being validated.
Janine Shea

2013: What's In Store For Crowdfunding And Angel Investors - Forbes - 0 views

www.forbes.com/...owdfunding-and-angel-investors

GroundUp Crowdfunding Regulation SEC

shared by Janine Shea on 02 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • evolve into best practices and common leadership – this will accelerate the crowdfunding phenomena towards the $1 trillion market we predict it to be by 2020.  The investor democratization and customer communication involvement crowdfunding allows will trigger widespread corporate implementation by Q4, 2013.
  • mainly angels at this point – are in for the long haul
  • and not necessarily for a return on capital.
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  • Symbid confirms that their investors want to live vicariously through the efforts and innovation of the issuers.  Their Angel investors frequently roll over their investments.  The investor communication tool allows for investors to easily be updated and even vote on board members and larger decisions with the founders.
  • “In Europe, there will be increasing fusion between crowdfunding and angel networks. The notion that they are two entirely distinct concepts is an artificial one, and we will begin seeing more and more investors using both online (crowdfunding platforms) and offline (angel networks) methods to make their investments.”
  • However, US Angel networks will embrace crowdfunding more when
  • prediction
  • crowdfunding for equity becomes legal in the US in 2014.
  • er dealers that will emerge in 2013 as crowdfunding for equity is delayed. 
  • The exception will be the new brok
  • Leading crowdfunding for equity players like Chance Barnett at CrowdFunder and Candace Klein at SoMoLend are getting licensed as brokers and will start engaging leading angel networks in the US.  SecondMarket’s partnership with Angelist is a recent direction how the landscape is changing.  Angelist had $12 million plus in transaction by angels into start ups in December 2012.
  • The new angel network ‘upstart’ FundingPost
  • While content is king, distribution is king kong
Janine Shea

The Challenges of Living Large: Scaling Up Sustainable Urban Growth | BSR Insight | BSR - 0 views

www.bsr.org/...ng-up-sustainable-urban-growth

shared by Janine Shea on 07 Dec 12 - No Cached
    • Janine Shea
      Janine Shea on 07 Dec 12
       
      Get city departments talking to each other - breaking out of their silos! More accessible ways to communicate with each other - CASUAL, i.e. social network
  • Just like in corporations, setting goals and having a vision proves to be an essential start for cities that want to engage business.
  • Matthew Lynch, the project lead, said one of the main success factors is the opportunity for direct and open dialogue. “
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The companies in the UII are engaging collaboratively with cities upstream in the planning process, demonstrating the value of the early involvement of business and showing how a multisector group of leading companies can help cities find integrated solutions to interconnected challenges,” he said.
  • The “solution landscape” presents a menu of potential options for cities to address their key sustainability challenges. Lynch said one of the main success factors is the opportunity for direct and open dialogue. “Business adds value by being involved in the beginning, looking at the big plan, and looking at the issues landscape and challenges,” he said. WBCSD decided to work with multiple companies as opposed to a more ad hoc engagement to encourage the idea that it was business, not just individual companies working with cities.
  • The WBCSD expects that companies will use the landscape reports to refine their own approaches to working with these cities, targeting specific challenges and opportunities.
  • One significant challenge with deploying sustainable infrastructure solutions in cities is the vastly different time cycles used by business and government.
  • “Our experience is that building trust is critical.
  • there’s a “need for better coordination and understanding among governments, industries, and NGOs so that cities holistically plan for and build the infrastructure of tomorrow rather than create an infrastructure of mismatched components and potentially stranded assets.
  • “The aging population is the fastest-growing cohort, yet most of our cities are designed by men for young men in commerce,” he noted. How will women, children, and the elderly thrive in those cities?
  • At BSR, we know that when business engages stakeholders proactively, the insights gained will lead to more informed decision-making, more valuable collaboration, and more inspired business models.
  • The sooner meaningful engagement is at the forefront of the sustainable urban infrastructure agenda, the sooner we can hit fast-forward and have a chance at truly sustainable growth.
Janine Shea

Is Crowdsourcing The Right Choice For Your Business? | Fast Company - 0 views

www.fastcompany.com/...ing-right-choice-your-business

GroundUp Validation Crowdfunding Crowdsourcing

shared by Janine Shea on 06 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • “Crowdsourcing is the process by which the power of the many can be leveraged to accomplish feats that were once the province of a specialized few.” And a lot more will change, very quickly.
  • In Europe, equity-based crowdfunding allows people buy an ownership stake in your business. That practice is illegal in the U.S., but will likely gain steam in a global marketplace where individuals can use platforms like Symbid to help propel an interesting new business into the marketplace. Social lending sites like LendingClub or Prosper permit you to legally crowdfund your for-profit startup in the U.S., but you’ll have to start paying it back immediately, and you could be left liable for the loan if the business fails.
  • Crowdsourcing will only grow, and it’s up to you to weigh the risks and benefits of using it to extend your enterprise. It may serve a single, specific purpose, or support a key component of your operating blueprint across your organization, or it may not be the right choice--at least not yet.
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  • Harnessing the power of crowdsourcing, viral branding, and service outreach
  • "extended enterprise"
  • the necessities to extend collaborative relationships between internal and external organizations.
  • BMW is crowdsourcing designs for a 2025 version of the BMW and MINI.
  • the global giant knows the public offers direct insight into what consumers want.
  • Participants made suggestions in a structured multimedia environment, where they could view, evaluate and build upon proposals made by other participants.
  • Remember it’s intelligence you’re interested in, not just information.
  • Face it, Facebook isn’t for everyone and it’s certainly not right for every business.
  • get a pulse of the quickly evolving consumer base.
Janine Shea

How the Experts Would Fix Cities (part 1) - Businessweek - 0 views

www.businessweek.com/...w-the-experts-would-fix-cities

GroundUp Validation Community-Level Rise_of_the_CC Creatives Urbanism Richard_Florida

shared by Janine Shea on 29 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • What role are public-private partnerships going to have in funding development in cities? Is that just happy talk or is there reality to it? Hsu-Chen: It’s very real talk. And we’re getting smarter and better at it. Right now a lot of the incentives the city offers are around getting the right density at transit nodes. Kate and I worked together on a project just a couple years ago—Kate in the private sector, I in the public—to deliver a new state-of-the-art skyscraper right across the street from Pennsylvania Station.
  • The world has become increasingly urban—more than 50 percent of the globe’s population now live in cities. How can we make them more sustainable, efficient, and prosperous?
  • We don’t have a strong central government. We have a federal system.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • In Europe you have a strong central government that can come in and work with the private sector to deliver something locally. Here it’s up to the municipalities to figure out how to use those public-private partnerships at the local level to deliver the types of benefits that Edith was talking about.
    • Janine Shea
      Janine Shea on 29 Nov 12
       
      Work with cities and investors to facilitate public-private partnerships at the LOCAL LEVEL
    • Janine Shea
      Janine Shea on 29 Nov 12
       
      Corroborates Richard Florida's research - Rise of the Creative Class
  • Generally, cities are very good at talking to each other. Mayors talk to mayors. City officials talk to city officials. The lessons that are starting to really take root are that there’s safety in numbers.
  • We’ve also gravitated toward the idea that economic development is really the result of creating a city where people want to live. It’s the attraction of human capital. If you can attract highly educated people from other parts of the country and keep your own best and brightest, chances are the job creators are going to be successful. And people no longer chase jobs. Jobs chase people.
  • At a time when some technologists talk about telecommuting, what makes you so sure that cities will continue to grow at the kind of pace that we’re talking about? Hoornweg: Well, people want to be with other people. Entrepreneurs want to be with other entrepreneurs. The idea that they could live anywhere is very much available to them. But they’re not choosing to.Ascher: It’s not just on a neighborhood level. It’s also on a business level. You want to interact with your business counterparts face to face. The physicality of a city is still so important.
  • What kind of people are going to live in these cities that will be growing so quickly the next couple decades? Will retirees want to be in them? Families? Or will they have to flee because they won’t be able to afford them? Hoornweg: All of the above. With good city management, a city is attractive to everybody. There are really interesting studies coming out of the Santa Fe institution that basically say that if there were no externalities for traffic or whatever, the human population would like to live in one city, because we really like being with each other.
  • Janine Shea on 29 Nov 12
     
    Corroborates 'Rise of the Creative Class'!   Public-private partnerships at the LOCAL level
Janine Shea

Ed Norton's Crowdrise Brings Fundraising (And Fun) To The Masses | Co.Exist: World chan... - 0 views

www.fastcoexist.com/...draising-and-fun-to-the-masses

GroundUp Validation Crowdfunding Non-Profit Community-Level Competition

shared by Janine Shea on 10 Dec 12 - No Cached
    • Janine Shea
      Janine Shea on 10 Dec 12
       
      "GroundUp is a personal narrative platform where you anchor your local life." Envision a future where folks are as closely identified with their 'local community personas' as they are with their broader 'second lives' on Facebook and Twitter
  • There’s a new era of social networking that’s taking shape around charitable giving. Younger people are rapidly adopting these new tools, and learning to use them in more and more substantive ways, to go beyond mere socializing and make these tools extremely productive. We’re seeing the sphere of social networking mature in a way that’s very exciting. People who continue to dismiss these social platforms as "a waste of time" or "just social chatter" are missing the boat. This is how people interact with each other and get things done. They share their personal and professional lives online. It should be no different when it comes to their philanthropic lives. More and more, we’re seeing the Crowdrise community share their charitable efforts with their social networks, both as a way to highlight their own commitment to a cause and as a very efficient way to turn their friends and family into new supporters.
  • They say “time is money,” but time is also an irreplaceable and personal connection to a cause.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • that time binds you to the mission of an organization in a way money cannot.
  • I like to give my time because it feels good to connect personally with a cause. If you’re someone who is fortunate enough to be able to commit both time and money to a cause you care about, well that’s double the happiness.
  • I realized there needed to be a way for people, including myself, to give and fundraise money for causes in an easy and fun way.
  • I think generosity can take many forms … financial, effort, emotional … but at its core it’s rooted in the realization that you get a good feeling from seeing happiness bloom in someone else
  • healthy environment
  • All the young people I see using Crowdrise every day, putting their creativity and effort into making a positive impact on the world. 
  • United Airlines committed to match every dollar up to $100,000
  • ountless Crowdrise users have started their own campaigns to support relief efforts in affected communities.
  • hat tends to be through peer-to-peer fundraising, and Crowdrise enables people to get the word out quickly to their networks and raise as much money as possible in a short period of time.
  • It’s a platform to allow anyone to fundraise for a cause, and it does it with a laid-back and funny attitude that undermines the self-seriousness of a lot of philanthropy.
  • I think people like our voice because it’s authentic. We believe giving should be easy and fun. People like engaging with something that is real, not some generic text.
  • Crowdrise is based on an idea of "sponsored volunteerism."
  • cultivated a new generation of young activists who manage not to take themselves too seriously in the process.
  • Why does the Crowdrise brand of irreverence and humor work?
  • We’ve found the more off the wall the incentives, the higher the engagement
  • there’s truth to our saying
  • “If you don’t give, no one will like you.”
  • You have called Crowdrise a “personal narrative platform where you anchor your activist life." Do you envision a future where folks are as closely identified with their "giving back personas" as they are with their “second lives” on Facebook and Twitter?
ccfath

Crowdfunding for Small Business Is Still an Unclear Path - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-is-still-an-unclear-path.html

CircleUp SoMoLend crowdfunding small business

shared by ccfath on 08 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • That big issue caused Mr. Caldbeck to leave his job to start CircleUp, a company that aims to connect up-and-coming consumer products companies with investors.
  • crowdfunding is a way for capital-starved entrepreneurs to receive financing that neither big investors nor lenders are willing or able to provide. To others, it represents a potential minefield that could help bad businesses get off the ground before they eventually fail, and in some cases could even ensnare unsophisticated investors in outright fraud.
  • SoMoLend, which lends money to small, Main Street-type businesses that typically wouldn’t interest private investors.
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