RE: [kFW] Company formation and funding...

[Daniel Harris <daniel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Scott,

At 15:18 24/06/2002 +0100, Scott Switzer wrote:
>Because of the nature of Kendra, it seems like while it can be a non
>profit entity, some funding can come from the users of the system (who
>could be very large corporations).  I imagine that it is relatively
>easier to get more £££/$$$ from these companies than it is to extract
>cash from the organisations you listed below.

Yes, funding would come from commercial organisations, NGOs and GOs. The 
companies I listed were examples of what Kendra Foundation (for want of a 
better name) could model itself on. So, they'll have a good insight into 
how to go about setting Kendra Foundation up and also a good grasps 
(hopefully) on where to get cash from.

>A business plan is pretty much required in order to raise money.  The
>days of getting $10M with an executive summary are gone.  Some level of
>detail about goals, product, market, growth strategy, success criteria
>will be required.

Kendra Foundation would exist to provide organisational, legal, and 
financial support for Kendra Initiative. Kendra Foundation would ensure 
that Kendra Initiative trials continue to exist beyond the participation of 
interested organisations and individual volunteers, to enable contributions 
of intellectual property and funds on a sound basis, and to provide a 
vehicle for limiting legal exposure while participating in the trials and 
contributing to software projects. Kendra Foundation would provide hosting 
for the Kendra Initiative website and develop web/email tools to facilitate 
the collaborative design process, between Kendra Initiative participants, 
necessary to create the Kendra system. Coordinating marketing efforts, 
meetings and conferences. I'm sure there's more...

How does that sound? Thanks to Apache Software Foundation for 'inspiration' 
on wording.

>Perhaps a series of strategy/planning meetings (or conference calls if
>not in the UK) could start to take place, with minutes of these meetings
>being posted to the newsgroup.  Based on these meetings, a business plan
>can be outlined, with specific parts coming from 'volunteers' of the
>organisation.  A funding strategy could also be an outcome of these
>meetings.  Afterward, we could get volunteers to help with the tactical
>side of setting up the organisation.

That's all great stuff. We should try and do as much as possible via these 
lists. Meetings are hard to for various reasons. Please don't count on 
loads of volunteers for this. Most (hopefully all) of the people on these 
lists want to see the Kendra system build and up and running and usable by 
them and their companies. They don't want (or don't have enough time) to 
get involved in the boring side of setting up a company and all that kind 
of stuff. That's all fair enough. People are busy these days. So, what I'm 
saying is now there are 2 of us discussing this. If others come along then 
great but let's not define a set of tasks that requires more than 2 people 
right now until more come forth otherwise we risk not getting tasks done 
and we can't gamble with Kendra...

Cheers Daniel