Los Angeles Startup: OffBeatr Is The Kickstarter For Porn INTERVIEW

Crowdfunding is a hot startup space. So hot in fact that Ben Tao and Eric Lai, two entrepreneurs in the adult business, have started Offbeatr.com which is a crowdfunding source for adult projects.

If you’re looking to create a new adult website, adult mobile app, adult movie, or other creative adult project, funding is usually a big obstacle. Lai and Tao are hoping that fans of these kinds of adult projects will kick in to help entrepreneurs develop them. Sure there will be projects that some may find unappealing or even sleazy but even artists and sculptors who dabble in erotic art, the kind you would find at museums in NY and Miami, can get their projects funded on Offbeatr as well.

OffBeatr is using the all or nothing Kickstarter model which means that entrepreneurs and artists that use Offbeatr would need to successfully raise all of the funds in their goal in order to receive funding.

While it’s still too early to give funding or “ownership” away in the crowdfunding space, some may find it intriguing to help get the latest erotic art or full blown porn movie off the ground.

OffBeatr has projects vetted by the community before they go on to raise funds. Offbeatr requires a non-refundable deposit to start raising funds for your project on their platform. The “voting” process before a project goes live for funding, can help the project creator determine whether or not the project will be worth persuing on the platform. There’s no fee for the voting process. Once the project receives the required votes OffBeatr has final say on the projects, and only after that do you have to pay the listing fee/deposit.

Tao tells us in the interview below, that neither he nor his partner Lai set out to become adult industry entrepreneurs at first. Tao has a degree in Industrial Engineering but he’s never done any industrial engineering. He’s been a teacher, a circuit breaker salesman and a web designer. Lai has a real computer science degree (not the Scott Thompson kind), and has done work on top secret projects including some for Boeing.

This is their third venture in the adult industry and their are hoping that the community of adult entertainment and erotic art fans can come together to breathe new life into the industry. Check out the interview below:

Tampa Startup: Citizinvestor Looks To CrowdFund Neighborhood Projects

Digital strategist turned entrepreneur Jordan Raynor of Tampa Florida is working on a new and exciting startup in the crowdfunding space. I’m sure you’re wondering how can anyone be working on something “new and exciting” in the crowdfunding space, well read on and you’ll understand.

The first thing you need to know about Raynor is that he is a realist of sorts. Check out his personal website here and you’ll see that Raynor doesn’t pull any punches and he’s not wrapped up in self loathing bull shit. Most of his career as a digital strategist has been spent solving problems in government and politics through technology, which is exactly what he’s doing with his new startup Citizinvestor.

After being tipped off about Citizinvestor it was Raynor’s description of the platform that easily brought the idea home for me. Remember those days when a neighborhood would hold a yardsale, bake sale or spaghetti dinner to get new playground equipment, street signs repainted, or trees planted? Well Citizinvestor takes those ideas and puts them on the web for 2012. In the same manner that traditional, self crowdfunding takes panhandling to the internet.

There are so many civic projects that get shelved for one reason and one reason only, and that’s because they can’t get funded. Some new data analysts needed to crunch the numbers of how many Coke bottles vs how many Pepsi bottles were recycled last month’s salary is more important than replacing that slide that’s been ripping holes in the skin of the towns children for months. (boy that was a run on sentence).

The mulch at the neighborhood entrance that hasn’t been replaced in 12 years somehow keeps ending up on the bottom of the budget list.

So Citizinvestor has a couple of really cool purposes.

1. The platform helps raise the money for the projects that really matter to the people.

2. It puts the power in the hands of the people. If people stand up and donate for the new playground equipment, the city manager can’t take that money and buy more sticky notes.

3. It empowers the people.

Of course some may be outraged by this idea for crowdfunding civic projects. They may feel that it’s the responsibility of the government using the tax money they provide to the government. With that mentality though, projects will continue to get shelved so that more “important” budget line items can use those tax dollars.

I think as far as playgrounds, parks, library books are concerned, when people use Citizinvestor for those projects they’ll take ownership of them. After the slide and the swings are replaced, the townspeople may see how easy it is to come together and get things done and that the bureaucracy, while needed, can be cut through like a large ginsu knife on a stick of melted butter, when people ban together using Citizinvestor.

Linkage:

Check out Raynor’s personal blog here, it’s actually pretty good.

Here’s the link for Citizinvestor

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Florida Startup: Sprigster, Crowdfunding For Veterans Looking To Start Franchise Businesses

There’s an alarming statistic when it comes to unemployment in our country and that is the fact that veterans who have moved from military to civilian life are one of the highest groups that are unemployed. That’s one of the reasons that TechStars just concluded their Patriot bootcamp to help and inspire veterans with ideas for startups to get started on their plans.

Sprigster, is a startup we actually heard about first back in April. Sprigster is a crowdfunding startup where several people can come together (as with any crowdfunding model) and support a franchise or business project for veterans.

CEO Mark Mohler likens crowdfunding to “Barn Raising”, back in the day towns would rally around their neighbors if one of their neighbors lost a building or had some other need. The townspeople would have a fundraiser in a barn to give money to the community member. With crowdfunding this is all done online and meant to help our military neighbors.

Ideally the platform is meant for former military who are now civilians who would like to hire themselves as the owner of a franchise business. Mohler explains why franchising is a better model for this platform than traditional startups in the interview below.

Interview With Chris West Founder of Memphis Startup: NeedRegistry

NeedRegistry is an original new idea for a startup based in Memphis TN. As you may have guessed it involves a registry, but not like any registry you may have seen before.

When someone goes through a major life changing event, like a bad illness, death in the family member, cancer, or even birth of a newborn, friends and family members inherently want to help. It’s part of human nature. Often times, the person going through the life changing event is too proud to say that they need help or to accept help. Friends and family don’t know what that person’s needs are so they resort to what Chris West, the founder of NeedRegistry, calls “death by casserole”. Friends and family members bring food, and lots of it.

Typically after the initial life changing event occurs, the person that had that event in their lives starts realizing that they do need help with even the basic and simplest of necessities. Perhaps they need someone to cut the grass, clean the house, or even clean the pool. Maybe that life changing event was a long term sickness like cancer, or an injury that has the person off their feet. These easy tasks can mount up quick.

Enter NeedRegistry.

NeedRegistry connects friends of that person with vendors of the services they need. The person that has had the life changing event happen to them can select things like lawn care, then the size of their lawn, the frequency of the lawn maintenance, and then a local service provider.

Friends can then fund the lawn maintenance and when the maintenance is performed the vendor gets paid.

It’s this direct vendor to friend connection that sets NeedRegistry apart from other crowdfunding startups that allow you to collect money for health reasons. With those types of sites you would still have to source out the work itself, get estimates and pay.

As West explains in the video interview, for the vendor its an easy sale and a no-brainer,once the service is ordered they go do the job and get paid.

West is excited about a beta launch in the coming weeks and plans on expanding the platform piece by piece over the next six months.

After the initial NeedRegistry rollout this year, he’ll expand the startup to cover two more markets and then by the end of 2013 he hopes to have a decent sized footprint across the country with a robust network of service providers.

Check out the video interview with West below:

Linakge:

Check out NeedRegistry here

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Boston Startup: Ministry Of Supply Gunning For Kickstarter Fashion Award

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer could really benefit from Ministry of Supply's shirts

A new Boston startup called Ministry of Supply is looking to break the fashion category fundraising record on crowdfunding site Kickstarter. The current record is held by a company called Flint & Tinder that makes men’s underwear. They were able to break the fashion record by raising $291,493 back in May.

At the time this story was written (late Friday evening) the Boston startup that uses space suit technology to manage moisture, sweatstains and odor, in dress shirts, had raised nearly $275,000. The best part of this story is that their initial goal was just $30,000. In what’s becoming a trend now for Kickstarter projects, Ministry of Supply quickly blew through that goal.

“After we got the word out about the Kickstarter campaign through the help of friends and family sharing the news through social media outlets, we then saw the Kickstarter community really start to embrace us,” Ministry of Supply co-founder Kevin Rustagi told the Boston Business Journal

Ministry of Supply’s Apollo shirt is sweat free and will save many business people the embarrassment of odors and big sweat stains in meetings and around the office. The Apollo shirt will come in real handy in the heatwaves we’ve been experiencing across the country.

The company’s Kickstarter campaign goes until Wednesday so it looks like they should have no problem reaching the number 1 spot, and raising close to, if not more than $300,000.

Ministry of Supply is currently working hard on their e-commerce platform and opening a brick and mortar location which will contain a showroom as well as their offices. The Boston Business Journal reports that Ministry of Supply will also participate in MassChallenge this summer.

Links, we’ve got em:

Check out Ministry of Supply here

Get in on their Kickstarter project here

Source: Boston Business Journal

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Canadian Startup Scolaris Crowdfunding Tuition

We knew this day would come, we just weren’t sure who would do it first. A startup in Toronto called Scolaris offers a crowdfunding platform for students to find funds for tuition for college.

The site allows Canadian students attending colleges and universities in Canada to setup “scholarships” for themselves. Once the scholarship is setup students can turn to friends, family and even complete strangers for funding.

We wouldn’t be surprised if some of the students who participate on Scolaris.ca tell compelling enough stories that anonymous philanthropic donors choose to fund their entire education. Stranger things have happened.

Scolaris.ca uses a Paypal interface to complete the transactions for the fundees. That allows contributors to pay via PayPal account, credit or debit card.

Scolaris founder and CEO Mark Mauleesan drew from his own hard experience raising money for medical school when coming up with the idea for Scolaris.

“Medical school wasn’t cheap. I was fortunate enough to have people apart from my parents say ‘Here’s a cheque for Mark,’” Mauleesan told itbusiness.ca “My parents helped me through medical school and now my sister’s going through law school in Ottawa. So she can raise funds for her scholarship (on Scolaris.ca) in the coming year.”

Scolaris doesn’t charge the student or the donor. To make money the company does take an 8% fee off every dollar raised, with half of that going to cover PayPal fees.

In order to raise money for tuition students must provide proof that they are actually enrolled or accepted into a post secondary education institution.

Also all funds raised on Scolaris are put in a lump sum account on the students behalf and then paid directly to the school once the student furnishes a tuition invoice.

Unlike the US an average year of tuition in Canada is around $5500 so it’s not a huge amount of money to raise.

“As long as you’re going to an accredited (school) and can prove you’re a student or are going to be a student…(there’s) no way to come to Scolaris.ca and try to scam donors to try to rip them off,” Mauleesan said.

Linkage:

For more information visit scolaris.ca

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Australian Startup: iPledj Is A Crowdfunding Platform For Just About Everything INTERVIEW

Crowdfunding is a really hot space right now. Obviously in the U.S. Kickstarter and Indiegogo were the first to the gate, funding everything from record albums to installation art projects and even startups who’ve gotten creative with their Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects.

Congress recently passed the JOBS Act that’s going to make it possible for ordinary citizens to crowd fund startups for equity up to $1 million dollars.

Overseas though, crowd funding is just starting to take off. Australian startup iPledj is a crowd funding platform for everything from creative projects to businesses. With iPledj just about anyone create a project and just about anyone can fund that same project. iPledg has no medium for crowd funding for equity, but if you’re a business looking to make money for a special project, you may find luck on the Australian site.

We got a chance to talk with iPledj co-founder Brian Vadas about Australia’s biggest crowdfunding startup. Check out that interview below:

What is ipledg?

iPledg is a broad based crowd funding platform on which those with creative, commercial, charitable or community projects can engage their networks (and beyond) to raise the required funds to achieve their initiatives. Whilst largely unheard of in Australia, crowd funding is one of the fastest browing forms of ecommerce on the planet. Since our inception, we have been engaging with governments, universities, industry bodies, businesses and individuals who see this as a efficient, low risk for of raising funds that do not involve loans that need to be repaid or the surrender of equity in the concept or company. The platform not only facilitates the process of crowd funding, but gives clear, concise, and simple guidelines and assistance to help both project creators and those who wish to support projects.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Andy Tompkins originated from the UK where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant before spending some time in South Africa and then migrating to Australia at the beginning of 2010. Andy has his own corporate advisory business in Brisbane, Lattice Capital, which was started by his colleague Trevor Cuss in 2008. Andy is also a panel member for the Queensland government’s Mentoring for Growth program, assisting small businesses deal with some of the issues facing them in day to day operations. It was on one of these panels that he met Bryan Vadas.

Even at high school, Bryan demonstrated entrepreneurial flair and a commercial astuteness beyond his years, having become the face of Young Achievers Australia in 1982. Using broad based skills he has assisted business start ups right through to multinationals who require business transformation solutions. In 2002, Bryan teamed up with Steve Flint to form Time Masters (Australia), offering project management, program management, and general management consultancy to small and large businesses, locally and abroad.

Having met Andy at a Mentoring for Growth panel meeting in 2011, Bryan initiated a coffee, at which they both discussed synergies between the businesses they were running. As they were about to leave, Andy casually mentioned to Bryan about an idea he had about starting a crowd funding site. Typical of most people who are unaware of this little known concept (at least at the time), Bryan asked “what’s crowd funding?” at which point the two resumed their seats and spent considerably more time going through the idea. At the end of their lengthy conversation Bryan told Andy “you shouldn’t have mentioned this idea in passing – you know now I’m going to push you to do it” and the rest, as they say, is history.

Both Andy and Bryan quickly recognised the “fit” between their philanthropic endeavours and the general concept of Crowd funding, and iPledg became not just a platform for commercial and business projects, but one for charitable and community endeavours.

Finally, with friends and close family involved in artistic and creative pursuits, Andy and Bryan realised that the passion around the creative space would also lend itself to Crowd Funding (this had been proven for years already and all around the world), so iPledg found its third pillar, that of being a platform for the artistic and creative to raise the funding they require for their projects.

And iPledg was born!

Where are you based?

We are based on the Gold Coast, Queensland, but have established the site as global platform, allowing anyone from anywhere in the world to post a project or pledge their support. We have already had projects and pledges from Australia, the USA, Asia, Europe, and South Africa, so we are already achieving the dream of iPledg being based not in one location, but potentially on every computer and screen around the world

What problem does iPledg solve?

Great for startup capital. Venture capitalists don’t “venture” anymore (availability of venture capital is down by 90% from the figures of 10 years ago). Venture capitalists say they find start-ups, but by nature they don’t – they require proven track record and a history of sales and profit (bringing on the argument that they perhaps should be called Development Capitalists nowadays rather than Venture Capitalists). Crowd funding allows for the funding of what is little more than a good idea, as long as “the crowd” also the crowd also believes that the idea is sound. Small business or start-ups can try crowd funding quickly, at low cost and low risk, and raise funds without taking on loans that need to be repaid or giving away equity in the idea, product or company. They can use such funding for prototyping, proof of concept, affording to bring in skills and knowledge to achieve a particular point in their progress, acquire tools and equipment, or to develop marketing collateral or deliver a product launch. A successful campaign will not only provide the required funding, but support the business with social proof of their concept, which may allow them to acquire greater, more formal funding from traditional sources. In addition, a well promoted, successful crowd funding campaign will not only give exposure to the business and product / service, but is a great way to offer the product / service to the market before getting underway. The founders of iPledg recognised (in their commercial lives prior to iPledg) that there was a yawning gap at the bottom of the funding ladder, whereby businesses with a good idea and little (or no) traction could not attract finance. Crowd funding offer a solution and now fills that gap

How did you come up with the idea?

I wish we could take credit for coming up with the idea of crowd funding, but it was successfully implemented before we came along. Andy know of it and he told me of the concept last year, thinking it would fill the gap of at the bottom of the crowd funding ladder that most of our SME clients were faced with when they went to acquire funding. We were also both heavily involved with charities, and had family and friends involved in the creative and artistic field. We recognized that crowd funding would provide a universal solution in all these areas to allow a new model for raising funds, that would be efficient and effective, and allow for a new voice in the heavily crowded funding area.

What’s your secret sauce?

Broad commercial experience. Strategic alliances with key individuals and organizations that give us reach and add to our credibility. The ability to weather the long road to establishing the critical mass and exposure needed to be a sustainable business model. An undying, never-give-up attitude. A passion for wanting to make a difference, to help small business and charitable / community groups (it is this motivation, what we see as the right motivation, that makes us different, as others are motivated by the financial returns being achieved by other, leading and successful crowd funding platforms. It is passion rather than the want for a quick buck that will see sustainability and success). And, of course, as sense of fun in all we do – we love our job!

What’s one challenge you overcame in the startup process?

As a shoestring startup, we had to get bang for our buck in every respect. We had to build the platform with minimal funding, and that gave us a base platform with which we could launch. This gave us the exposure we were after, which then generated enough income to generate the funds to build the full version we wanted, which launches in early August this year. We got there in the end, but we made do with what resources we had to get underway and achieve traction

What’s next for iPledg?

Continue to build awareness of both crowd funding and of iPledg. Launch iPledg 2.0 with the successful components of the current platform, but with more functionality and flexibility. Continue to work with the regulators with whom we have started speaking about investment crowd funding, and move to review global experience in readiness for acceptance of the same model here in Australia when the regulators are ready to do so,

Linkage:

Find out more about iPledj here at their website

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New York Startup: Return On Change Crowd Investing For High Impact Startups INTERVIEW

As we get closer and closer to the SEC’s July 4th deadline to come up with rules for crowdfunding startups, we’re likely to see more and more crowdfunding startups emerge. Earlier this month we reported on Ohio crowdfunding startup Fundable who has already opened for business, with a more traditional Kickstarter, Indiegogo model until the crowdfunding rules are announced and brokers are approved.

A New York startup called Return on Change LLC, has also thrown their hit in the crowdfunding arena. They’re now in a private beta and promise to provide a way for investors to connect with game-changing startups.

“The timing could not be better,” said Sang Lee, founder of Return on Change. “We saw the huge potential in crowdfunding, and now, with the signing of the JOBS bill, look forward to connecting investors with ventures that can make a real difference.”

RoC also announced a contest that provides incentives for startups to register. The first 100 startups that meet RoC’s criteria will have the opportunity to win one of three $1,000 funding prizes. The company is seeking startups in the areas of clean energy, biomedical, social ventures and technology.

With all this excitement about crowdfunding we got a chance to speak with Sang Lee, one of the founders of Return On Change. Take a look at the interview below the break.

New Hampshire Startup: Regaalo Takes To Indiegogo For Expansion

The student founders of Regaalo (photo regaalo.com)

Stories like this one are a strong indicator that as soon as the SEC figures out the regulations for crowdfunding for startups, it’s going to take off.

Regaalo, a social gifting startup founded by University of New Hampshire (UNH) graduates has taken to crowdfunding site, Indiegogo, to expand their gifting startup to Boston.

Regaalo allows parents and loved ones of college students to send them real gifts using an app on their mobile phones. The service is currently available for UNH students from surrounding merchants. Basically a parent or loved one back home can pay for and send their college student a real gift that will show up on the students mobile phone.

For example parents can order their student a pizza from a local pizza merchant. All the student has to do is pick the pizza up and show them the app on the phone to verify payment.

“The text-messaging gift gives us our edge, it’s what makes us unique,” said Jessica Streitmater, a Litchfield native and one of the student co-founders of the site told the New Hampshire Business Review. “There are quite a bit of people that do care packages, but we do have an edge on that too because we make it customizable.”

The startup is looking for $5,000 on Indiegogo to fund interns in the Boston area so that they can expand their service to Boston University. The company will remain headquartered in New Hampshire. There are incentives on the Indiegogo campaign for donations up to $800. At the time this story was written they’ve raised $975 of their $5,000 dollars with 21 days to go.

“we have a lot of people who are really interested in the company and who would love to help us,” said Streitmater. “They ask, ‘How can I help?’ And we really needed the help… to get to Boston.”

Linkage:

Check Out Regaalo here

Help them out on Indiegogo here

Source: New Hampshire Business Review

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Ohio Startup: Fundable Launches CrowdFunding Startup For Startups

Exciting news in Ohio today as Fundable, a crowd funding source for startups, after seven months of work, and making sure the Jobs Act passed, Fundable is open to the public. They are dubbing themselves the Kickstarter for startups.

If you’re not aware, Kickstarter doesn’t let you fund startups. We’ve tried several project ideas surrounding our “sneaker-strapped nationwide startup road trip” and all were rejected by Kickstarter. We then switched to Indiegogo which we used twice. The first time we raised $300 and the second we didn’t raise a dime. That’s despite the fact that literally hundreds of people looked at the page, showed interest and asked us via email, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

After Congress passed the JOBS act it went over the the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC has until July 4th to set the rules up for crowdfunding. Crowdfunding means that the public at large can invest in a “startup” or other company, or product through crowdfunding sources in exchange for equity.

Startups and small businesses can receive up to a million dollars with this form of funding.

Fundable (if approved as a broker by the SEC) will become one of the first startup funding crowdfunding websites. They opened up for business two weeks ago with a “reward” model similar to kickstarter but devoted to startups and businesses.

The Fundable website outlines what kind of businesses they want on the site as it first rolls out. Fundable is targeting startups in the fields of gadgets, technology,apparel food and sports. John’s dry cleaners, or a franchise of pizza hut isn’t going to get approved. At this time they are also not handling charities or a “Clown suit franchise” (damn there goes that idea).

The other great thing about Fundable is it’s not a place for artists, either the painting kind or the musical kind, and it’s not for crafters there are plenty of sites out there for that.

Fundable is a great way to fund a startup and good ideas are going to shine through on the site (we’ve submitted an application for nibletz and hope it’s approved and you’ll support us).

Since their launch, Fundable startups have already raised $40,831 (at the time of this writing). In fact Elevation Training Mask 2.0 is already 115% funded at $11,506.

If you’re a startup with a good idea, you definitely want to consider Fundable.

Linkage:

Get funded with Fundable here

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India Startup: Milaap, CrowdFunded Loaning For India’s People

Milaap is a new startup in India that allows anyone in the world to loan money to people of India for anything from solar power,clean water, building toilets, training and more. What sets this apart from traditional crowdfunding or even donations, is the fact that the money collected is a loan and is actually paid back.

With Milaap’s business plan not only can anyone help make things better for people in India that can’t get traditional loans, but they can recoup their money as well, and then reloan if they wish to.

We got a chance to talk to Shubhashree Sangameswaran about this innovative new international startup, check out that interview below.

What is Milaap?

Milaap (www.milaap.org) is the first online platform that enables anyone from across the world to lend to India’s working poor for causes such as solar energy, clean water, building toilets, vocational and artisanal training. Since it’s a loan, not a donation, you get your money back once the borrower repays.

We believe that while a handout is good, a hand-up is even better. Donations create a huge impact, but their lifespan is short-lived. When you give a loan, on the other hand, you encourage the borrowers to be enterprising and responsible with the money, and if you re-lend the money, it can successively help more borrowers!

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

The founders are Anoj Viswanathan, Mayukh Choudhury and Sourabh Sharma. Sourabh and Anoj have their roots in the same university, National University of Singapore (NUS), and have known each other for 6 years. They are all entrepreneurs; Anoj has worked with SKS Microfinance and D.light Design. Sourabh worked on and sold his first start up, MicroAppli, to OnMobile, while Mayukh has worked with Ernst& Young and D.light design.

Where are you based?

We are based in Bangalore, India, and we are incorporated in Singapore. We fund borrowers from all over India though.

How did you come up with the idea?

The idea for Milaap was born when Anoj, one of our co-founders, saw what a difference solar lighting made to underprivileged households in Orissa while working at SKS Microfinance. He realised that one of the reasons such products failed to make a bigger impact was because loans for these were unavailable at low interest rates. He teamed up with Sourabh (who having sold the product of his first startup was looking to build a consumer-facing internet startup for social impact) and Mayukh (who was trying to build loan programs for small scale retailers and kirana shop owners selling lighting products in rural Uttar Pradesh) and started Milaap in June 2010.

So is the idea behind Milaap to do business loans, general loans or is it more like American cash til payday loans?

Milaap focuses on the huge opportunity to weave microfinance around livelihood services. Our loans focus on bringing financial inclusion to over 700 million Indians who live on less than $2 a day: the people at the base of the pyramid. We hope to create sustainable and increased incomes that provide for their unmet needs through our loans.

What is the problem you are solving?

The people we target, those who earn less than $2 a day, find it difficult to access capital for their needs. The cost of capital from mainstream financial institutions is too high for them to afford, especially on loans for amounts between Rs 5,000 – Rs 50,000.

We provide access to affordable credit at almost 50% less than existing credit sources available to such small value borrowers, ensuring that they see value in the service and maintain their credit worthiness. We eliminate the usual wait associated with grants traditionally, and we enable our lenders and borrowers manage their own requirements as and when needed through a transparent and structured system.

Most importantly, we aim to create economic impact. Each Rs. 1 lent on Milaap creates at least Rs. 9 in economic impact, and helps lift families out of poverty.

What is your secret sauce?

Our secret sauce is that we focus on positive stories and creating opportunites rather than focusing on the problems. Our stories are grounded and we believe in steering clear of romanticism.

Share one or two of your great stories about how Milaap is helping the people of India?

We have seen many stories of change on Milaap, and all of them are dear to us. However, if we just have to pick two, one would have to be Sridevi’s story.

Sridevi is a female entrepreneur from Bangalore. She took a Rs. 50,000 loan to expand her artisan business. She started her business 10 years ago, and has since provided employment to the destitute women of Bangalore’s slums. With her loan, she bought new equipment and is now able to employ 60 people in her unit. You can watch the video here: http://youtu.be/QZDA7p0YgxI

We also have Parameswaran, who had no access to a toilet at his home a year ago. He would carry his disabled daughter everyday so that she could relieve herself. Milaap changed his life. He got a loan of Rs. 10,000 to build a toilet, and now, he does not have to carry his daughter to the fields anymore. You can watch the video here: http://youtu.be/2vAYmtmmlQY

What is your plan to scale up?

We ultimately aim to make microlending a part of people’s everyday life. We plan to tap into social media tools to our advantage. In future, you will be able to browse through borrower profiles right from your Facebook account and make a loan.

We hope to make our presence felt in the retail sectors online and offline as well. While you shop online, recharge you cellphone online, or even eat out at a restaurant, you will be able to lend a few dollars to Milaap.

We have also launched payroll lending with a few corporates wherein employees can simply opt to have a small amount from their monthly pay given out as a loan to Milaap. This is simple and hassle-free. Since this is a loan, 100% of the money comes back to them.

Are credit scores and factors as hard in India as they are in the US? What do you need to do to qualify to get a loan through Milaap?

In India the poor do not have collateral to access loans from banks. The rural poor tend to be excluded from financial banking systems and most of their financial transactions happen informally. Usually for large sums of money, they rely on local moneylenders and lending clubs.

Milaap uses social collateral as an approach to overcome this. Group-based loans where individuals serve as guarantee for each other is an approach we employ. Other mechanisms to ensure repayments are making loans in the name of training institute for an education loan and or the artisan training institute for artisanal loans.

What are the safety features to protect the lender?

Milaap follows strict policy measures to cover all risks to our lenders. Our standards and processes have been laid out with the advice of our highly qualified advisors, who have significant experience in microcredit and financial services.

Our field partners are selected after rigorous due diligence to ensure that they have a grounded understanding of the borrowers needs and capabilities. Our field partners have a strong market presence and over three years of experience interacting with borrowers. As a result, we have been lucky to have a repayment rate of 100% to date.

In the off-chance that a borrower defaults on a loan, we offer a 20% first-loss guarantee through our field partner.

What’s next for Milaap?

Our goal is to redefine the way people think about charitable giving, not a one-time write-off but make it ubiquitous and part of our everyday activities, making it more engaging beyond financial transactions.

On the ground, we hope to expand to offer loans in all parts of India and ultimately make essential services accessible to all. Once the basic needs are taken care of, that’s the beginning of real, positive change.

Where can our Indian readers find out more?

They can visit our site, www.milaap.org, and read our blog: blog.milaap.org for all our updates. We are also on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Milaap.org and Twitter as @milaapdotorg. Be sure to follow these channels and make a loan!

Linkage:

Find out more about Milaap here at milaap.org

Nibletz is the voice of “everywhere else” check out these stories from “everywhere else”

We’re on a sneaker-strapped, nationwide startup roadtrip, check it out here

European Startup: Gambitious Hopes To Be The Kickstarter For Games

While Kickstarter is a great place for projects, it does have it’s drawbacks, which we experienced first hand and why we had to go with Indiegogo for our project. One of the main drawbacks to Kickstarter is international projects. While there are folks building international projects and have no problem delivering perks/rewards to U.S. backers, Kickstarter uses Amazon payments for collection and disbursement, and Amazon payments doesn’t work outside of the U.S.

Well a new European startup hopes to take some of that pain out of European project starters, specifically gaming focused projects. Gambitious is a crowd-sourced funding site for gaming projects. It’s a very lucrative market. With just U.S. based gaming projects over $10 million has been raised and funded using Kickstarter.

While Gambitious has a lot of the same fundamentals as Kickstarter, the company actually lets you buy into the gaming project. Not only did you help fund it but you will receive royalties from it as well, you will in essence become part owner of the game. This could prove to be a great opportunity, especially if you choose to invest in the right games.

As Joystiq suggests, instead of receiving a copy of the game in advance or a lunch date with one of the art directors, you’ll actually own part of the game.

Gambitious won’t be ready for another 4-6 weeks as they are planning an E3 launch.

Linkage:

To learn more about Gambitious click here

Like GeggyTah, Nibletz covers startups Wherever You Are

We’re on a nationwide sneakerstrapped road trip of startups, please support us getting on the bus

source: Joystiq

Microryza: Crowdfunding for scientific research with only one prize: learning

Seattle, Washington: Microryza is tackling the lack of funding for scientific research using “crowdfunding.” Thinking differently regarding what should drive the bidding and decided to not follow along the lines of Kickstarter with prizes or exclusives, instead the offer the gift of learning. In the companies FAQ they explain the decision to forgo the prizes,

Other crowdfunding websites provide tangible returns. Why doesn’t Microryza researchers provide tangible rewards?

We believe the real value is in the process, regardless of whether or not you meet your project aims. While providing donors with tangible rewards is good at getting funding, we don’t want you to be held liable if you don’t achieve your promised rewards.We understand that sometimes, your research project just doesn’t go as expected. That’s alright, because that is just the nature of research. If you knew things what to expect, then you wouldn’t be doing anything new.

Co-founder Denny Luan states, “what matters is the process, not the results,” says Luan “You can’t really offer things like ‘I will name a newly discovered butterfly species after you’” in the hope that you can deliver that if you get funded.

I am going to borrow a paragraph from the website Insidehighered, due to both their outstanding story and the fact that they’ve followed the progress of Microryza for some time now.

There’s a strong social component to the startup that Luan is building with Microryza – it’s not just a place for funding, but a place for networking and sharing research. In fact, Luan describes Microryza as a “social learning” site, and he’s clear that while the goal is certainly to have scientific research projects funded, the emphasis isn’t just on the outcomes of that research. It’s on the process itself.

What is the cost for either donor or researcher? “We take a small transaction fee for all successfully funded projects, which is 10%. This includes the 3% processing fee we have to pay for payment processing.For details on how the payment processing fee is calculated, please view Stripe’s pricing. If your project does not meet its goal, we won’t charge to you or your donors.” Are donations tax-deductible? They will be soon! We’re currently working on channeling your donations directly to the researcher’s host institution so that you can receive a tax receipt from the Institution’s respective 501(3)c entity. Stay tuned for more info.

The overall design of the site is very attractive yet is also usable. There are currently only 8 projects up on the site and they are cycled through in the top three slots highlighting the projects.

Each project is given space to include a brief introduction of the project, researcher, and includes a place to include any relevant publications or papers they’ve contributed on. The researcher is then asked a number of questions some of which are more generic as seen below and others are more targeted to their project:

So what is your project all about?
What inspired you to pursue this idea?
So this project challenges (this or that idea or problem)
Why does this project matter to you?
How do you define success?
What do you plan to share with your backers?
What’s the risk associated with a project like this?
If you could tell your backers any one thing, what would it be? Seriously, anything.
And what does this project depend on in order to be successful?
What are the next steps for this project?
What if it succeeds?

Some of the Denny Luan quotes are from this article over at insidehighered UNFORTUNATELY, I did not manage to note who the original source was for this story, I saw it in our Google+ Stream

St Louis Start Up Spotlight: Passer.by Now Anyone Can Invest In A Movie

Are you old enough to remember the days of HSX.com, before 9/11 it was the place to go to invest virtual money into real life actors, actresses and movie projects, called the Hollywood Stock Exchange. Now this wasn’t real you weren’t really investing money in a movie it was more of a game, kind of like fantasy baseball. If the movie did well the actors and actresses did well and then you made more virtual money.

Well shove all that aside because a St. Louis startup called passer.by is working on a crowdfunding website for real movies. Passer.by was founded by childhood friends Todd Metheny and Josh Clayton. Clayton has some experience in the film business but for Metheny it’s a new venture based on a love of movies.

Passer.by will be a way to get film projects off the ground with the help of many people, from friends and family. They have several funding options and plans they are working on. Metheny says they are riding out the “JOBS act” and the SEC to see if the entire crowdfunding model will be a go.

As for how much it costs for the film maker, right now they are launching the first 20 films with the film makers “paying what they choose”.

“It’s certainly a risk, but it’s exactly the kind of risk that we’re excited to take,” Passerby CEO
Todd Metheny said. “Some people will choose to pay nothing, but it’s a matter of trust. Our
mission is to be the crowdfunding option that puts filmmakers first, and to do that we need to
create a relationship with our users that is built on trust.”

CCO Josh Clayton is exciting to see how filmmakers react to the “pay what you choose”
option. “We’d love to be ‘pay what you choose’ forever, and we very well might be,” he
said. “We just need to make sure it’s possible to cover the expenses related to running the
platform at that level. We believe it’s a favorable experiment for the filmmaker.”

We spent some time talking with Metheny about passer.by check out the interview below the break.