Tag Archives: investment

The way the cookie crumbles – Day 135/139

Posted on June 24, 2010 | Leave a comment

The seed funding round for FinderBase was finally launched yesterday. Most of my active readers have received the investor letter. If you haven’t but would like to see it, just contact me directly.

So it all comes down to this.

Due to the tight schedule of this project, the funding round will be closed already next Monday at 4 pm Finnish time. This weekend is the Midsummer so I bet people have better things to worry about than our investment round.

At this point we have about 20,000 € worth of commitments to invest so we’re at least 80,000 € short to make this happen. It all comes down to the last day of my project on Monday. However, if we do get investments during the weekend, I’m happy to report the updated status here.

Happy Midsummer everyone!

Have fun and do things you like most.

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Investment proposal – Day 122/139

Posted on June 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

To get this project to its goal, we need to see if we have been able to create measurable value in the eyes of investors. With investors I mean anyone who has some money and wants to put it to a good cause.

According to the recent poll, there are at least 34 people who are interested in hearing our investment proposal. So if you want to receive the FinderBase investor brochure, please leave your contact information to this

FinderBase seed funding mailing list.

The investor brochure will be in Finnish. If you’re interested in investing and don’t speak the language, please contact me.

There are no specific rights or any obligations to joining this mailing list.

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Money talks – Day 106/139

Posted on May 26, 2010 | 3 comments

Today, I had the opportunity to present FinderBase to a couple of professional investors. Much of our talk was around the business potential of our service.

People tend to over-complicate the talk about money.

I will argue that there is only one right way to talk about money.

  • It is not the way of worshiping the money. You shouldn’t respect big numbers more than small ones.
  • It is neither the way of disrespect. You should respect the people with money just like you respect anybody else.
  • The right way is the neutral way. Money is just money. Numbers on the bank.

So we opened the discussion with the obvious. I said our company is worth 1,8 M€.

Considering that FinderBase.com has only had a handful of paying customers and has less than 300 registered users, the price might sound a bit extreme.

But they listened to what I had to say.

They had good suggestions on what we’d need to do next, most of which we already had executed. They asked whether we allowed bigger investments from a single party and I told them that was negotiable.

This is the way I’d like investor meetings to go.

Neutral about money. Passionate about business.

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Abetti’s pizza principle – Day 100/139

Posted on May 20, 2010 | 3 comments

I have been now writing this blog for 100 days. There have been ups and downs but my project is still standing.

But where is the money?

For some weird reason people keep asking me this. To show where the money is, I’ll quote my favorite professor Pier A. Abetti:

Think of companies like pizzas. Your startup is a whole mini pizza that you own. When you sell a part of it, the pizza becomes bigger. Would you rather own a whole mini pizza or a slice of the bigger pizza?

The lesson here is that the small slice of a bigger company tends to be worth more than the whole smaller company.

So the plan is this:

  • We have founded a company FinderBase Oyj that owns the FinderBase.com service.
  • We will arrange an issue of shares for FinderBase Oyj.
  • We will offer the shares to people who trust us and want to be a part in building a big phenomenon.
  • This will dilute our own ownership but will grow the company.

Would you be interested in getting our investor brochure?

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Money maker’s dilemma – Day 99/139

Posted on May 19, 2010 | Leave a comment

Making money is really easy. Like the saying goes:

The easiest way to become a millionaire is to start with two million and buy an airline company.

The truth is that money tends go where there is money already. Making your first million is undoubtedly more difficult than making your second one.

But it isn’t just money that money is after.

Let’s assume that we have two equally skilled businessmen who would like you to invest your money in their new venture:

  1. The first one is broke.
  2. The second one is not only broke but he has a million in debt.

Which investment offer is more credible?

I will argue that a history of huge losses is more credible than a history of small profits.

The numbers don’t lie. People do.

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Status update 7 – Day 81/139

Posted on May 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

Now that we’ve taken things a few steps further, it’s time for a status update.

We have founded a company, so now all we need is its valuation.

FinderBase Corporation is a public limited company with 8,000,000 shares. I’m the majority shareholder with 5,500,000 shares. I’ve spent 55,000 € of my own savings to buy these shares so my project is on the negative side with the same amount (plus some peanuts to go with it).

My challenge was to make my personal ownership worth $1,000,000. This adds up to  $1,073,000 as the investment must be also covered. This means that I’ve successfully completed my project if we issue a credible number of shares to an external investor at a price of $0.20/share or 0.15 €/share.

It remains to be seen whether that is the correct price per share in our company.

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The rocky road to businessangelhood – Day 20/139

Posted on March 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

Today, I met a man who wants to be a business angel. He has made his money playing Internet poker and aims to retire as a business angel. He will fail.

Why are most business angels experienced entrepreneurs?

It’s easy for people to think that being a business angel is all about the money. I will argue that it is in fact everything but the money.

First of all, money is just money. Money has never done any work by itself. In wise hands, money can work for you. In foolish hands, it can work against you. A good business angel can tell from experience whether the entrepreneurial team can use the money or not.

Secondly, if the team has a great idea why would they need an angel? Let’s assume an idea is so simple that the entrepreneurs themselves understand what they are doing. Why would they exchange a part of that fortune for money?

In real world, only the people with bad to mediocre ideas contact the business angels in search of money. The business angel is an expert in spotting the best of the bunch.

Who is qualified to invest in your ideas?

I’ve said openly that I will be looking for a business angel to invest in my ideas and my team through the end of this project. But the dilemma is here:

  1. The ideas get constantly better when developed with people.
  2. Making the ideas happen doesn’t really need that much money when you already have the people who believe in them.
  3. The investors should have an increasing amount of knowledge to really contribute to the things we do.

But even so, the thought of getting a real business angel interested in what we do is fascinating.

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Bring in the money – Day 13/139

Posted on February 22, 2010 | 2 comments

I spent some time today to present my first subproject (the one I pitched last week) to the Tuli people. After a fair bit of discussion I’m quite positive that we’re getting the first funding to get things rolling!

In the first stage we’re talking about 5000 € (less than $7000) that can only be spent on goods and services that directly support the project. That is exactly what I’m going to do. I will launch an alpha version of a social media web service in about a month from now. I presented some people I need to get it done in my entry on Day 11.

This is how I’ve planned to spend the 5000 €

  1. Website interaction design & wire-frames, about 15 views, 1000 € (50 % complete)
  2. Website graphical design and layout, about 1000 €
  3. Development weekend with a small dedicated core team, about 3000 €.

There are still openings in the core team. People won’t join the team for the money but since this money doesn’t directly count towards my goal it’s best to invest it to things that do.

What else

I had so many lively discussions around my project today that I’m just thrilled with excitement. Great things will be accomplished with you people!

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