Funding Ideas

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Project List Workshopped in May 2013 Meetings

Please add your name next to projects that you are already working on or are interested in working on Food

• Cottage Food Law
• Shared Kitchens/Gardens
• Sudo Mate - Max & Ray
• Iced, carbonated, DELICIOUS mate soda beverage (exquisite, yum!)
• Sudo Beer (Subiir) - Morten & Marc
• Sudo Gravy (marinara sauce) - Ray - Last week's $40 went to Sudo Room rent. Sold all 4 pints (all that was left after dinner) Yay!
• Sudo Lunch / Grab-n-go option - ? [DOES NOT YET EXIST]
• Rusty's "Savior Bars"!
• Eddie's "Dope" Popcorn

Schwag

• 3D printed stuff
  • magnets - Jordan
  • bike mounting accessories (easy to print, can adapt to any device mounting!) -hol
  • jewelry
  • on-demand
  • other 3D printers
  • 3d printed exoskeleton
  • DIY handheld 3D printer pen based on a hot glue gun Cheap as hell
  • "Captain crunch whistles" - Le Oficial Ray
  • Bike beverage holders
• T-shirts - Dan Finlay (already an action item)
• Buttons (moar)
  • Dependent upon logo
• LED cubes - hol??????????

Membership dues

• sliding-scale, voluntary (current)
• better advertisement
  • --> Scrounging for MOAR
  • Flyers, put things around the area, galleries, cafes, etc.
  • Could be extremely effective
  • Could do a bike-about
  • better price-]points (concrete options beyond general $60 discussion)
  • will be informed by member survey (already an action item)
  • Do we accept BITCOIN????????????
  • Automatic reminders

Repair & Other Services

• Fix-it clinic style (especially electronics, etc)
• Could also do custom bike stuff, bike repair!
  • Specifically could get $ from burners
• Internet security services (in NY times two days ago)
• Not necessarily easy while in our current, less-developed state

Donated equipment

• Repair and sell, e.g. on Ebay - suggestion by Eddan
• Re-use and sell or sell as services
  • Similar potential to http://spokeland.org/

DIY ISP ++

• a la http://ranchwifi.com/
  • Laci Videmsky has offered to host a workshop on how to do this, like he and his business partner did with Ranch Wifi

Kits

• electronics - (i won't be at the meeting tonight but if we come up with a few and order the components in bulk and package individually together, we can sell at events - Hol)
• Home PCs for cheapz
• Art kits
• Writing kits
• Kits of kits :D ^.^ ^.^
• Kits of 3D printers that create other kits

Non-profit status

• Tax-deductable Donations as a 501(c)3
  • Noisebridge and School Factory have offered to provide fiscal sponsorship
  • School Factory has a lot more experience than NB in fiscal sponsorship
• Grants

Regular events

• Raves
• Speaker events - of particular relevance to our projects
• Covers? No covers?

Grants

• Burning man projects, Black Rock Arts
  • Awesome opportunity to meld arts and the sciences, for fun, but also to communicate and make scientific knowledge accessible.

Crowd-funding

Most Important things for a Project

1. Pitch video
   • Depends on what you're doing, but it needs to be clean.
   • "Cool" cause buzz, maybe viral marketing. Present images of the kind of thing going on.
     • We host events, doing things that would show up in the space.
2. Media ready, e.g. photos, logos, external website, social media, press release, blog roll.
   • Work the connections, reddit, techcrunch, boingboing, gizmodo.
3. Setting a goal, and an accurate budget. More about being clear.
   • If you reach your goal, you're likely to exceed it 31%, shoot a bit lower!
4. People need to like your cause, they can be involved and feel like they supported something substantial.
5. Need some seeders, even encouraged!
6. Gauge your goals based on your network, and how big it is.
   • Build heuristics for how much you can get (e.g. $40 / person).
   • Average is $75
7. Need to have good perks (read ideas below)
   • $25, $100 are the most important price points, in that order.
8. Keep posting media after campaign launches --> you earn 81% more money!
9. If you're working with a team, you raise 80% more money.

Perk Ideas

• Sponsor a square-foot-month (actually write their names on the square feet)!
  • e.g. $25 gets you a 1 sq. ft. for 6 mo.
• Groups using the space for meetings, a big amount!

Links

• http://kickstarter.com/
• http://indiegogo.com/

Fundraising

The main concept here is to get the word out, publicize, find opportunities for major support, while also bringing in a bit of money for the space. Should be fun, fairly easy, valuable to supporters and above all: do-able.

Item Ideas

• Some useful little gadget
• Stickers
  • "Hacking is Not a Crime"
  • "This Machine Kills Fascists"
  • Official seal / support sticker (e.g. like "police support" stickers that get you out of traffic tickets)

Service Ideas

• Some sort of web hosting / application service.
• Something cute like a "free consultation"
• Personalize services to a range of skills members have.

Other

• General Business Development notes from Len

   * from a business standpoint there are two different funding mechanisms at play here: one is internal funding, the other is coming from external sources. You can also look at things as "products" or "not products" the technology may or may not be there. Examine the who / what / where / when / why, and the time / effort involved. examining this will rule most of the options in the brainstorm out.