Permacultural investment

Reading "Exit to communitiy" article by Megan Rose Dickey - get insight that this rezonate with my #postventure approach - Permacultural investment.

The modern venture capitalist aims to select the “best” teams, and there are, by definition, few of them. And the strange game of venture investors - "hunting for a unicorn" - leads to the fact that projects, instead of focusing on their uniqueness, its development and growth, try to mimic, "mow" like "unicorns".

The ongoing shutdown of the venture business all over the world is a good reason to rethink whether it is even necessary to run there.

A huge leap forward in the economy of mankind was the transition from hunting and gathering to the cultivation and breeding of domesticated crops and animals. The scale of the change is illustrated - that for each family it took several tens of km2 to hunt. That is, the territory of modern London could feed about 20 (!) Families - about 100-150 people.

Likewise, from “hunting and gathering” in the start-up market, we need to move to “growing and breeding” - this is where the multiplier for post-venture growth is laid.

Here, an approach to creating complete ecosystems seems to be promising, when projects complement each other. This approach is similar to the permaculture farming of Z. Holzer and allows much more efficient use of resources, building a complete ecosystem.

What does this mean from a market position? The fact that the consumer of such an ecosystem buys the whole range of services and goods from one supplier, and this is much more profitable for everyone, oddly enough. Does it remind you of something familiar? Steve Jobs was a genius in that ... :-)

But this presupposes a strong change in the mindset of both current ex-venture investors and the startups raised by them in the "world of pitches."

HOW TO DO STARTUPS IN Permacultural approach

In 1951  Eric Frank Russell created the novel ". . . And Then There Were None" which brilliantly described ideas of "Obligation" economy. You can enjoy the original. We just cited some here:

“Now,” explained Baines, “you’ve done something for me. That means you’ve planted an ob on me. I don’t thank you for what you’ve done. There’s no need to. All I have to do is get rid of the ob.”

“Ob?”

“Obligation. Why use a long word when a short one is good enough? An obligation is an ob. I shift it this way: Seth Warburton, next door but one, has got half a dozen of my obs saddled on him. So I get rid of mine to you and relieve him of one of his to me by sending you around for a meal.” He scribbled briefly on a slip of paper. “Give him this.”

Harrison stared at it. In casual scrawl, it read, “Feed this bum. Jeff Baines.”

... And how to start up new business...

...You start a farm. A handful of local folks help you build a house. They dump heavy obs on you. The carpenter wants farm produce for his family for the next couple of years. You give it, thus killing that ob. You continue giving it for a couple of extra years, thus planting an ob on him. The first time you want fences mending, or some other suitable task doing, along he comes to kill that ob. And so with all the rest, including the people who supply your raw materials, your seeds, and machinery, or do your trucking for you.”

“They won’t all want milk and potatoes,” Gleed pointed out.

“Don’t know what you mean by potatoes. Never heard of them.”

“How can I square up with someone who may be getting all the farm produce he wants from elsewhere?”

“Easy,” said Seth. “A tinsmith supplies you with several churns. He doesn’t want food. He’s getting all he needs from another source. His wife and three daughters are overweight and dieting. The mere thought of a load from your farm gives them the horrors.”

“Well?”

“But this tinsmith’s tailor, or his cobbler, have got obs on him which he hasn’t had the chance to kill. So he transfers them to you. As soon as you’re able, you give the tailor or cobbler what they need to satisfy the obs, thus doing the tinsmith’s killing along with your own.” He gave his usual half-smile, and added, 

“And everyone is happy.”

… And How to Use obligations as tokens practically For… real Startups - IOU/CN Token

IOU/CN token is a decentralized application in which the founder can issue his tokens - like IOUs (IOU - I Owe yUo) and CN (convertible notes) of the project, on the blockchain. It realized at www.iou.bz. That is, all contributions to the project are fixed from the very beginning, and the founder can pay them, for example, to designers, consultants, and coaches. This allows startups to go through the "valley of death" with a significantly lower need for investment money, which increases the sustainability and survival of projects.

Then, when the project “ripens”, these tokens can be converted into real shares in the project under a legal agreement or redeemed from the “earliest” investors. 

And since everything is transparent on the blockchain, the incoming investor immediately sees how much people have already invested in the project with their work. 

IOU tokens are made compatible with regular Ethereum tokens. That is, they can be transferred, sold, and traded on the DEX exchange.