As a serial entrepreneur I have successfully offered sweat equity to people in the past. However, it’s very hard to execute and the person really had to buy into both the concept and myself as a person. The people providing the work in exchange for equity are taking all the risk without vetting the entrepreneur.

Let me propose a slight modification to this model. I think that with a moderator this could work. Without the moderator the crowd would quickly find that many entrepreneurs don’t have the proper skills to manage projects and are wasting their time. Here are three ways a moderator could be used.

1) The moderator could be a mentor that has start-up experience. The mentor would sit down with the entrepreneur and determine the viability of the concept. Additionally the mentor would ensure that the entrepreneur has the skills required to run the company. If the mentor likes both the concept and the person, they would then agree to take an active role in exchange for some equity. The mentor would be familiar with the best resources from the crowd. Likewise, the crowd would have already established trust with the mentor so that if he has a new project that needs work, they wouldn’t need to be “sold” on him or the idea.

2) The moderator could be a panel. We already have pitch competitions so why not develop a relationship between the crowd resources and the panel members. The panel will vet the entrepreneur and idea in a pitch competition format. For the winners, the panel would recommend the resources within the crowd for that entrepreneur to utilize. Essentially they are matchmaking the winning ideas with trusted technical resources from the crowd.

3) The moderator could be an accelerator. Again they would select the entrepreneurs that have the best chance of success based on the concept and the person. They would then set up the entrepreneur with the appropriate resources from the crowd.

The obvious advantage to using a moderator is that you wouldn’t need a reputation management tool since there would be a prior relationship between the moderator and crowd.

The next question is where do you find the technical resources that would be willing to take equity in exchange for work? I think the answer to this could be simple. What about working with local universities and their top students? The students could have multiple projects for an equity stake, which could also lead to jobs. It would look great for a university to put together a program like this because it would directly lead to job creation for their graduating students.

I know it is true now, but what I needed 10 years ago was probably a kick rather than a blog post.

To learn, I needed to first realise that I don’t know everything. My first startup experience was built with an attitude of “if someone doesn’t understand me, they must be stupid or a tech dinosaur”. It took 5 years to realise that most of their comments were valuable…

I assume (but am asking if) it is alright to share this e.g. on Facebook? It relates perfectly to some conversations on my page. (And to that-thing-we-call-life.) Thanks for a wonderful read!

Great post! Have you heard of this book? – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1577314948 . It talks about some of the same points you make about reality, existence, consciousness, etc.

Carol

Thank you for the article in today’s SP Times.

We are all in the same boat in Tampa Bay; therefore

the following challenge also includes you, your colleagues and your newspaper.

Keep up the good words, we are all in that boat in Tampa Bay – we hope they will help cut the snagged anchor lines and get us back underway ….

neil

To: All Tampa Bay Metro Market Media, editors, educators, business, political and EDC leaders, architects- engineers… citizens – what are your ten best that will take Tampa Bay to the TOP?
Re: The Clean Millennium –

Here are our Top Ten ten, please share your Top Ten.

1. Establish Super Counties: example consolidate the City of Tampa and Hillsborough County.

2. Select Transportation [Air - Sea- Land] as our Regional PRIMARY Target Industry.

3. Consolidate all transportation authorities into a Tampa Bay Ports Authority.

4. Support the start-up of University based think tanks, make them happen.

5. Start thinking in Mega Trends – see item 4 above.

6. Help – support the start-up of a National Public Newspaper [NPN] to complete the National Public Media Triad [Radio+TV+Print].

7. Help end the failing duopoly, register as a NPA voter [the goal is 33.4% NPA voters by 2012].

8. Establish a 2100 Blueprint – design what the Tampa Bay metro market will look like at the end of this century.

9. Support the 21st Century’s first global airport; the Florida Global Airport [FGA] to be built in the four corners area of West Central Florida.

10. Create a Clean Millennium BAYWORLD.

Neil Cosentino
Director, Camelot Florida
Camelot Florida@verizon.net
Camelot Florida is a public interest think tank;
our VMG vision mission goal is Florida first in quality of life.
neil.cosentino@verizon.net
813-251-4669

“Leadership fails if afraid to fail”