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Re: [kFW] Kendra Foundation funding strategy...
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your speedy email. I like your questions. I wish I could
answer them right now. But let me preamble. Perhaps I shouldn't be
asking for money at this stage. Perhaps I should be asking for someone
who knows how to answer these questions.
Points 1, 5 and 9 are fully answerable. I can give you the final stage
of 8 as that's the vision. I could do a rough 10. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, the
bulk of 8 and 11 are all unanswerable in any detail by me unless I get
some good detailed questions.
If I knew how to answer all the questions then I would have gone about
this in a completely different way. I would have built a business plan,
got the money and built the system and sold it for loads. So, I set up
a non-profit company instead and put the end vision out there in the
world. Bear in mind there will be no "investors" in Kendra - only
sponsorship and grants. The value they get back is not in cash but in
having the system built and up and running.
Is it arrogant of me to even suggest that business plans are a waste of
time? I and 2 other lads built up an ISP (Cerbernet) with a turnover of
just over 1M and sold it for over 4M. We never had a business plan. We
sold to First Telecom (they had business plans) and they sold to
Atlantic (they had business plans). Atlantic went bust.
Does the method of having a vision and setting short term goals based
on that vision and implementing and then revising those goals as we go
forward have any worth in this world? I did very well by using this
method. And, so far, that's how Kendra's moved forward.
The real problem I have with business plans is that it's pretty much
all guess work. The scope of the project is so huge that we just don't
know what's going to happen or who the best people are to get involved.
My heart is in doing the project not trying to prove to someone that
it's possible. To answer some of your questions one would need to trawl
through much of the web. This could take a lifetime. There are so many
projects that overlap Kendra and none are the same that display
Kendra's staying power - meaning there are similar ones but they come
and go - usually just dreamers (without the doing bit).
The reason why the time scale is 5 years and counting is that this is
not just a technology development project. We want to see the system in
use. So, it's not only about getting the technology to work together
but also getting the people to use it. That education takes a long
time. There's a lot of inertia out there.
In 1994/5 I was part of the Cerberus Digital Jukebox project. We
predicted that "in 5 years there would be mass piracy of music on the
Internet" - admittedly we wanted to sell our music encryption download
system ;-) Now it's almost 10 years since then and the music industry
is only just (JUST!) starting to begin to be serious about online music
sales. No blame. I understand the forces afoot. Perhaps we should say
10M seed money for a 10 year project.
So, where does that leave us? What are our options?
All that said I am very willing to put much effort into writing a
business plan if I can get help to do it...
1) Clear objectives and overview of the opportunity
See: http://www.kendra.org.uk/index.php
and: http://www.kendra.org.uk/about.php
and:
http://www.kendra.org.uk/documents/kendra-an-introduction-draft-
current.html
2) (Preferably) a design for the software - if possible
We design as we go. But there are lots of interface goals on the Wiki.
See:
http://www.kendra.org.uk/wiki/wiki.pl?KendraToolsDemo
http://www.kendra.org.uk/wiki/wiki.pl?KendraToolsProjectPlan
3) Timescales for design, implementation, testing, deployment
I hope to have a prototype to demo at Milia 2004. Then I hope to get
funding in.
4) Management team details e.g. who will manage the project. If you're
looking at obtaining significant money you really need somebody who is
experienced in these matters
So far I have Neil Harris hired to build the prototype.
5) A clear proposition to third parties as to why they should
contribute the money i.e. What commercial / other benefit they would
get out of it. The 'good publicity' angle simply isn't enough
Having an open market for content would increase the amount of money
changing hands and so increase prosperity - I guess - I'm no economist.
If one personally can't see the benefit of having "I want what I want,
when I want and I want to be able to pay for it!" then I can't do much
about it. That's the goal. For all I know it may be bad for big
business. It may level the playing field - shock horror. How could the
world function if everybody had the same amount of money? Those aren't
my problems. It's for people to decide where the benefits are for them
selves - I can't do it for them.
6) What equipment would be needed for development and testing
Lots of lovely Apple kit please! ;-) Seriously, servers and bandwidth.
But we're only testing on Kendra servers so I don't think it'll be
astronomical costs here.
7) An exploitation (marketing) plan
Much of this will be done by building useful products and get people to
market by word of mouth. Most effective way.
8) Product road map
I can give you the end goal. For starters see:
http://www.kendra.org.uk/wiki/wiki.pl?KendraToolsProjectPlan
9) How you will work with standards institutes
All the way. This project is all about technology aggregation. If we
can help it we don't want to create anything new we just want things to
work better. So, think of Kendra as a thin skeleton to hang existing
standards and competing technology off.
10) Cashflow forecasts for at least 2 years
I reckon 10 people maximum. 100K each. I want to work with the top
people. I'd prefer not to have an office as people will be spread out
globally. We'll be working remotely. Most people will be broadband
enabled and that is not a significant cost. Then marketing is the other
big spend.
11) Competitor analysis
There is no body out there with our clear goals. Have you seen anyone?
----
Cheers Daniel
On 2 Nov 2003, at 12:25, Paul Evans wrote:
If you're looking at obtaining funding you need to create a business
plan,
which normally contains: