Remix Compilation: Ways of Making Money

Raising funds for a small business can be a daunting task for any fledgeling entrepreneur. Whether it be from friends and family or from the general public, finding investors, setting terms of the funding, assigning equity and filing compliance documents is a challenge. Enter ProFounder, a stealth startup that launches today to ensure that all entrepreneurs and small businesses have access to an easy and simple fundraising platform.

ProFounder, which has been in private beta for the past year, offers entrepreneurs two ways to raise money on the site: through a private fundraising round, and/or a public fundraising round. The private fundraising rounds allow entrepreneurs to share a percentage of their revenues with investors (their friends, family, and community) over time. Essentially, this type of fundraising round is an offering of securities, and ProFounder helps facilitate compliance with state and federal laws related to this offering.

Public fundraising rounds allow entrepreneurs to share a percentage of revenues with both investors (anyone can participate – friends, family, community, and general public too) as well as a nonprofit organization. For both public and private fundraising rounds, ProFounder has a limit of $1 million raised.

Entrepreneurs can apply to Profounder, upload a pitch to offer to potential investors and then create a term sheet with Profounder’s templated forms and compliance sheets. As stated above, the term sheets are based on a revenue-share model. ProFounder then gives businesses a page where they can invite friends, family, and investors to a destination page that allows users to make contributions and investments directly on the site.

The bonus of using ProFounder is that the platform allows unaccredited investors (i.e. friends and family as opposed to a venture firm) to participate, so anyone can be an investor. And entrepreneurs can set their own investment terms and ProFounder facilitates all of the compliance, including tracking the number of investor seats in each state where each of their investors live, making sure entrepreneurs know which compliance documents they need to file, making sure entrepreneurs know which filing fees to pay, etc.

ProFounder, which was is the brainchild of Kiva co-founder Jessica Jackley and fellow Stanford Business School alum Dana Mauriello, also manages payouts and will pull funds from the entrepreneur’s bank account every quarter to pay investors their share of the business’ revenues.

ProFounder makes money by charging a 5 percent fee (of a public raise) and/or a flat $1,000 fee for any private raises.

If a company pays out investors before the terms of the deal end, then founders can choose to donate the rest of the revenues to a non profit organization. For example, if you offer two percent of your revenues to investors over the next five years and within two years, everyone has been fully paid, then the next three years of two percent of your revenues will go to the nonprofit.

To date, ProFounder has facilitated 5 successful private fundraising rounds, raising a total of $155,000 and engaging a total of 108 investors. For example, Bronson Chang, a recent USC alumni moved back to his native Hawaii to help out with the family business—a candy shop in Honolulu. Bronson wanted to open another shop in the area and raised $54,000 from 19 community members including friends, family, and USC classmates. Bronson is also currently raising an additional $60,000 through a public investing round.

Another private beta tester, BucketFeet, is a start-up from two recent college grads that makes hand-painted sneakers. The fledgling entrepreneurs managed to raise $60,000 from 37 investors including friends, family, and classmates across the country.

ProFounder’s model is similar in some ways to Kiva’s microlending, which recently opened up its platform to American entrepreneurs. Other companies playing in the space include Kickstarter, and Prosper.

But Jackley and Mauriello say that with the 27 million new and existing small businesses in the U.S., there are plenty of opportunities to offer fundraising and investment platforms to this demographic. Eventually, ProFounder will include social networking integration and possibly a convertible debt option for term sheets, say Jackley and Mauriello. In the end, Mauriello says, it’s about making sure that small business entrepreneurs have access to much-needed resources in terms of raising money.

Now I know not every player in the league is making as much as Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. Most not even close actually. So I wanted to layout what certain players are making now and use the formula the NFL Union laid out to them and said to save their last three game checks for the possibility of a lockout next season.

As per PFT (Pro Football Talk) here is a breakdown of NFL minimum salaries for the 2010 season.

Rookies - $320,000
1 Season - $395,000
2 Seasons - $470,000
3 Seasons - $545,000
4-6 Seasons - $630,000
7-9 Seasons - $755,000
10 or more Seasons - 855,000

So let’s take a rookie at a salary of $320,000 as an example and divide it by 17 weeks (NFL season/year minus playoffs). That comes out to be $18,823 per week in those 17 weeks. The letter was said to have stated to save your last three game checks to help you through a "non income time". So three game checks would roughly be around $56,469 for a rookie.

Now, according to the US Census Bureau, the overall median personal income for all individuals over the age of 18 was $25,149 (and $32,140 for those ages 25 or above). These are individual stats not for families.

And yes I know you are not "suppose" to compare what the so called average person makes towards what a professional athlete makes. But no one is twisting these guys’ arms to buy $500,000 homes, have five cars and take tens of thousands of dollar vacations each year. They are complaining they are not going to have enough money to live on because they are not going to be making their entire salary for at least a year due to a lockout.

Give me a break.

It is hard for me to have sympathy for a guy that plays a game for 17 weeks of the year. And yes I know they train in the off-season too but the point is still they only play for 17 weeks during a season and make the sort of money they do. Then turn around and complain about it when they are told to save three game checks in case of a lock out.

Especially when a rookie making the league minimum makes pretty much double what the average American makes in one year in three weeks. It cannot be that hard to not go out and buy a new car or a new watch with diamonds all over it so you can be financial secure if there happens to be a work stoppage.

This is what normal people have to do to make ends meet. If you have bills to pay, you don’t go out and drop money in a night club or buy another car, no. You save your money so you can have a place to live or food to eat.

If it is “that” hard for them, they are in far more serious trouble than financially.

The bottom line for me is that they are more people sacrificing a heck of allot more for our protection like our military members that are not making anywhere near as much as these guys. Not to mention this is entertainment, NOT life or death.

Some will argue that their job puts more stress on their bodies or they get injured more so they need more money due to their jobs being more dangerous than mine. Or taking away a football player’s health care is just wrong as their jobs are so rough.

To me this is one of the dumbest arguments out there. I don't see fireman or police officers making six figure salaries and they put their lives on the line every time they go to work in something far more dangerous than being on a football field for 60 minutes a week. Their job is for our protection and freedom so we can go watch some guys play a game for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on Sundays.

If NFL players cannot survive on what is usually twice as much as the normal person makes in a year (based on a rookie’s salary) I actually think they have bigger issues than just the NFL lockout. They are most likely going to be broke before they are done playing in the NFL.

In this case however, both the players and owners have been so greedy for so long they both come off looking bad. As well as they should to me. Both parties have made more money in a few months or years than most of us will ever see in a life time.

So NFL players and owners, if you are looking for sympathy or compassion from some of us, you are looking in the wrong direction.

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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Ways of Making Money

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