Hey Will,
An alternative option is to look at equity funding, by selling your shares to your users, instead of a VC.
This is called equity crowdfunding. Say you need to raise $1M in exchange for 20% . Reach out to 100 users who can put in $10k each for a fraction of your company. You will create a new company for this.
* Company A remains as Damus - funded by grants.
Damus is a people attracting magnet. 100% open source. No Ads. No VCs.
* Company B - Here, you can create a separate entity purely for the business/productivity suite or a valuable “other stuff” that the market needs. Single/dual class share. This will have equity investors, starting with the 100 angels for seed investment.
**Under company B**
1. Open source at least 50% , until you can build the branding and market penetration. It will eventually become 100% open source
2. Outsource marketing and design as separate cluster entities (like how design is independent - this could work the same for PR, for marketing).
Its a modular technique - what it does is, it removes a lot of operating expenses esp at early stages and your gross will be closer to net profit - this is a massive investor attraction.
3. Work with your 100 investors - for every person your investor brings into your productivity suite, investors earn sales commission on top of the investment returns.
Early investors who are your users and fans of Damus will be very interested in making this business profitable. Imagine having 100 sales arms if you get 100 investors.
4. You need to work on branding, strategy and growth. After a while, maybe in a year, whether it is patented or open source will become irrelevant (99% of the time) once branding picks up. This is the same everywhere, all the time.
5. The $1M fund is your seed funds. Company B can eventually fund raise Series A through VCs if you want to, because you will have strong revenue. Your 100 investors can sell their shares at higher value or remain.
Most importantly, Damus is standalone - undisturbed - no center point of failure. Maybe Damus purple can have exclusive access to certain things that other people can’t have in company B etc
That's one possibility
There are many ways and many solutions, let your creativity go wild. You are a smart guy. You can even create some form of smart contract for these types of investment, gather investor input etc, it will be another new innovation for you.
The options are endless. Problems = solutions = opportunity.
** Some thoughts :
1. No matter what you build, make sure the market wants it. You can spend shit loads of effort building it and it will go nowhere if market doesn't want it.
2. Identify target market - where are you going to find the first 100 users for your new innovation ? First 1000 users?
3. Open source entrepreneurship is diff from traditional entrepreneurship.
If you can make open source entrepreneurship work successfully, then you would be a pioneer who has set up an open source entrepreneurship network.
** On a personal note,
1. Passive aggressiveness is a put off. Channel your good people energy in attracting people, not dividing them
2. @jack is the good guy. He welcomed you to his home, he funded the initiative, he has supported you from the get go, he has been here lifting everyone up. I hope you didn't burn the bridge entirely and can still make amends.
3. You can take the pisser on Miljan over his VC funding. Someone else can take a pisser on you on your first mover advantage. Negativity breeds negativity. OR - You can build solutions that can solve your problems and everyone else's problems
** On an additional note
I did a brief cap table for you . If you raise $1M for 20%, your company post valuation would be 5M, assuming 1.5 years is a good enough time to develop, sell, get user feedback, rinse and repeat until product is a bit stable.
And once you raise in 1.5 years at series A, your 100 investors could see a 9x return.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bsouYOU1quGIDxdi6TGX-rVPZfBIzbQTNKz0eaifIgk/edit
I hope this helps you move forward and on a positive path.
Good luck
Great food for thought.
Pam Head of Nostr Strategy!
let's save that role for better qualified people. I'll go with the title "some random crazy girl with random crazy ideas" =)
Sounds like me too. Rando crazy thinking outside the box … sometimes way out… rarely in target … but always more rando crazy to try again.
> Passive aggressiveness is a put off. Channel your good people energy in attracting people, not dividing them
thats nice, i’m not going to self censor my true feelings on certain topics. If people make up some straw man interpretation of me because of that I can’t help it. if this burns bridges then oh well. I am only here to contribute to a censorship free communication network for the future that doesn’t repeat all the mistakes of the past. What people think of me is not interesting or important. If people find me so offputting that its affecting the success of nostr then I will go work on something else.
There’s a story in the book emotional intelligence by Daniel Goleman. This couple was fighting and out of rage, she broke a painting they had. Many years later, she didn’t regret the breakup, but she missed the painting. That momentary spur and rage may not be the best indicator of life directions.
My boss gave me this book in my first engineering job and I told him it was a great book to put me to sleep. He didn't give up, he told me, ‘Pam IQ got you here, EQ will take you all the way’. I told him, ‘I am my own person and if people can’t handle it that’s their problem’. In another conversation, I told him I am emotional and sensitive and he said, that’s a great thing because you can understand how people feel and react accordingly. I realised then, that I never saw things that way. I read the book - and understood it wasn’t about changing who I was, but about self awareness. When I left the company, it wasn't the awards that I remember but the people who came to my farewell, beyond engineers and managers, were the cleaners, the security guards, the factory workers. It may not be much to someone else, but to me, that was my success story.
I genuinely want to see you succeed. Everyone here wants to see you succeed. You have a lot of potential Will. But you have to overcome this self limitation and learned helplessness. And you can. Take a break, go for a walk, read the book, take a nap, feel better and start over.
Now, on the actual 99% content of the previous note, having users as your partners and investors might be a great way to help you move forward, and you can build this solution for many other open source entrepreneurs. If you don’t like this idea, you can brainstorm many other ideas. The goal of the note is to encourage creative solutions.
I don’t know much, I don't have much, but I hope anything that I have provided here will help you move forward. Good luck, Will.
I mean nostr isn’t the first place i would go to find high eq people across the board to be fair. I am not perfect and i don’t expect perfection from anyone on here either. You’re not wrong of course. Everything you post tends to be spot on 😅
Damn. Everyone needs a Pam.
I think you meant "high IQ"?
I disagree. IMHO anyone who can navigate out of Mainstream Social Media and take up nostr is a high functioning individual.
Dude. You are such a champion for “what Nostr is” … but you miss out on “what Nostr has made”.
If emotional intelligence is to be found anywhere online, Nostr has it.
As a Nostr developer, if this is not the “first” place you look for EI, it should certainly be the third (after family and god).
If Nostr is a sanctuary … if you want it.
its ok, took much eq is boring =) the burn out, the jadedness, the mental stress etc is real. the financial stress sucks the living hell out of you. But you are super smart, don't forget that. You can and you will find many better ways, and pave the way for others.
> emotional intelligence by Daniel Goleman
It's a real inspiring book!
Nahhhhh. Say what you want. We don’t want no BITCH ASS devs around here 💩
#makedevsgangsteragain
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