This site is quite possibly the first ever crowd-sourced, advertising supported risk capital fund (if we are wrong about this please don’t let us know because we prefer the self deluded glory). We want to connect businesses with entrepreneurs, financiers with entrepreneurs, web-developers with entrepreneurs, educators with entrepreneurs, lawyers with entrepreneurs, psychologists with entrepreneurs, politicians with entrepreneurs, parents, grandparents, uncles and cousins with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs with entrepreneurs. Why? Because we are entrepreneurs/dreamers and because we believe that entrepreneurial activity can help change the world for the better.
Great you say, ‘not only are you the self-proclaimed first ever crowd-sourced, advertising supported venture capital fund but you are also the first to use the word ‘entrepreneurs’ ten times in a single sentence! Stop rambling on and tell us how this all works!’
We had a think about 3 connections that are essential to the success of any entrepreneur (financing, marketing and networking) and who needs them the most. Being students, each trying to bootstrap our first venture the immediate answer was us! But then we watched being the socially minded people we are, we thought a bit deeper and decided to start at the bottom of the pyramid and work our way up.
Who needs financing the most? Entrepreneurs in the developing world. Thankfully, we don’t have to think of a way to finance them - Nobel Peace prize winner Muhammad Yunas has already come up with the concept of micro-financing. Nor do we have to think of a platform for efficiently leveraging the web to help provide micro-finance loans, Matt and Jessica Flannery of Kiva.org have already come up with a brilliant way to do this. So, what we have done is create the 273connectivity lending team and are going to leverage our social networks (we count you too dear reader) to crowd-source a venture capital fund devoted to securing as many loans as possible for the entrepreneurs at Kiva.org. We and our readers are also in the privileged position of having had access to excellent education throughout our lives and would love to share this education in anyway possible to support our newly found business partners in the developing world.
Who needs marketing the most? Start-up companies, hopefully one day this will be us but until then, we would love to help other entrepreneurs starting a venture by offering them a viable way to bootstrap their marketing costs. We ask start-up companies to loan $100 to an entrepreneur in the developing world, through Kiva and in return we will publish their press release on our blog, give them a permanent advertising space on our ‘Start-ups helping Start-ups’ page and the three of us will spend our day promoting them on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and more than likely have a few words about them to anyone that will listen to us in the pub (we will also give these start-ups the option of donating to us to help pay for some beers).
Who needs networking the most? Everyone! By participating in the 273 team you are automatically extending your network by connecting with someone in the developing world through a business relationship and you are connecting with many like minded individuals from around the world with a variety of backgrounds and expertise.
Now, we understand that, especially during these financially difficult times, investors would like some sort of security and return on their investments so here it is: Kiva.org cannot guarantee repayment of your loan and does not provide any financial return on your loan. Although we can tell you that over 99% of loans through Kiva are repaid (it’s an investment there has to be some risk otherwise it’s no fun). Second, 273 will do everything in its power to help our investment team arrange a meeting with our entrepreneurs should they ever be in the area. Finally, 273 will scour the web, climb mountains, meet with celebs and flirt with anyone and everyone in order to bring you the 3 most interesting and inspiring tales of innovation, entrepreneurship and personal determination you could possibly hope for each week (if you are inspired by one of our stories or think they’re crap - we sincerely encourage you to submit your own stories for publication on this page). Don’t worry, we are pretty sure that we are not the best writers and researchers on the web but we reckon we can find them and we will keep you posted by linking to their latest thoughts.
What is more, we would like to reward our crowd-sourced VCs at 273 for investing Kiva.org entrepreneurs as part of the 273 team and will therefore pay out 50% of the advertising profits (revenue minus our bills - don’t worry we will be very transparent about this) as dividends, proportionately according to how much you have invested in Kiva.org entrepreneurs as part of the 273 team. Of course we would encourage you to reinvest these dividends in other Kiva.org entrepreneurs but there is no obligation to do this, it is completely up to you.
Wow! You say, ‘you guys seem to be the most generous, clever and handsome people we have ever come across… What’s in it for you’ the more shrewd amongst you say ‘clearly they’re making a profit on 50% of the advertising revenue’. The shrewd are right and we are going to use this money to buy things like food, shelter and beer for ourselves whilst we continue to work on our own new ventures. In, the future, assuming success, we hope to loan all this money to Kiva.org.
The 273 Team.
