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Steve Poland launches democratized startup
By Dan | March 26, 2007
Steve Poland, Techcrunch contributor and author of business idea brainstorming blog Techquila Shots, has announced that he is going to lead and launch Ringside Startup, a company funded and managed by everyone (well, everyone that contributes $10 to the cause).
Poland is looking to raise $20,000 over the next 60 days, and you can contribute a minimum of $10 to have a vote in decisions made in the company. Your voting power will be proportionate to what percentage of the $20k that you donate.
Votes on decisions such as what the company will do, the programming and layout choices, and basic management issues will occur. Poland says that the first vote will be to choose one of his 50 or so ideas from Techquila Shots as the concept for the business.
Although your contribution won’t give you equity ownership, Poland says ‘I will blog about this entire journey as openly as I can — taking you through the entire start-up process’. This should be a great opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship and the startup process for any aspiring young entrepreneur, and for only $10.
Additionally, Poland has a list of advisors that will provide input and comments as needed. The list includes 5 VCs, 2 entrepreneurs, and a lawyer.
It will definitely be an interesting project to watch as the company moves from concept to development to launch. If its a success, it could prove to be another business model that works to seed early stage startups, such as YCombinator. Of course, there are pitfalls, such as no equity ownership. What if the company becomes a huge success, then how will the contributors feel when they get no equity return? How will the intellectual property issues be divided, say, if a contributor provides novel concepts, do they still own the IP? Also, if this idea gets serious and requires more capital input from VCs, how will the VC’s feel about letting contributors vote on business decisions?
If you’re interested in participating, checkout his site and drop him $10, and you’re in. I think this is an innovative model and could prove to be a worthwhile experience for everyone involved.
