Rebekah blogging from the 3rd feedback round on economic sustainability.  Each group was asked to answer: What is your expected revenue and how is that split between earned and philanthropic?

WiserEarth

 Online space for civil society to network and come together.

Q: Lots of organizations there. What's next? Hard to make sense of the higher level order.

A: Multiplicity, can really drill down in it. body of knowledge is broad and with a few clicks can focus down to find what you want. We have the total concept.

Q: why should this be a stand alone organization?

A: A community-based model for growing the data of who is doing what didn't exist in a format where you could drill down and find what you're looking for, so they created it.

 Q: Editorial decision making about how to categorize and compile the information. How much of that editorial work is done internally?

A: 44 main categories, 300+ subcategories. They've been talking to community members to get input. It's both staff and community generated.

Q:  Infrastructure . . . What part is centralized, what part is community driven? Who's doing what?

A: Vision is that it will be community driven. Currently 80% is staff from Natural Capital Institute, 20% community. Goal is to switch that balance.

Audience questions:

Q: Are you working with Wiser Business or other Wiser initiatives?

A: Platform will be also for business and government. Don't want to have ads for businesses, don't want it to be a billboard. Revenue philanthropic from grants and donations. Transition between content/resources from biz or npos will be seamless.

Q: Costs? What's the benefit to NGO that's maintaining their own site, and WiserEarth site, etc. What are you doing to make sure NGOs don't have to do all that.

A: They're looking into common sourcing. 30% tech, 40% research, 30% support. Expenses will drop after r&d phase in a couple of years. Content will be community driven.

comment: you could actually charge for that and earn some income. NPOs will want that. 

Miro

Open up media as tv moves online so its in control of users and producers. Cost structure: currently 95% grant funded; starting to get small individual donations. Earned income a la Mozilla's ad revenue structure. would scale as they grow.

Q: Why do your users care about you? will you eventually compensate publishers for providing content? 

A: We're offering something no one else has. We offer a positive user experience. People are starting to replace cable tv with this. If we care about independent publishers, we want to help sustain them. Putting ads in their content. Dynamic ad serving (fee burner).

Q: Natural extention of public tv. Have you talked to PBS, CommonSense Media, etc? Is either a source of partnership, content, revenue.

A: We're very interested in partnering with them. They have licensing issues -- a challenge. Staff resources to do this kind of one-on-one outreach are limited. Have grown board to help with this.

Q: Paid services? Might you provide some for revenue.

A: creating custom versions of the player. Have done some consulting services like that. Want open source software to be used that way, but they don't want to turn into a consulting firm. Are there some consulting projects that might also serve the needs of our users. 

Comment: that's a question of both strategy and pricing.

Audience questions

Q: How do you sustain competitive advantage?

A: Provide excellent product and excellent user experience. Pitch isn't about politics, it's about the user experience.

Q: How do you interpret the risk of rights or clearances. How do you evaluate your risk when the producer might not have been diligent in securing the rights?

A: None of the content ever comes from Miro. They just point at the video feed, like Firefox points at a website.

Q: # users, downloads, etc.

A: Growth with every version. 1 Million over past year. 170,000 downloads last month with latest version. Want to see bigger growth, exponential.

Comment from biz advisor: team has passion and vision. They've attracted foundation dollars. Video is the next big thing online. 

Stop Family Violence

3500 family violence prevention orgs in US. Expects to charge a nominal fee and reasonable revenue stream (up to 80%). Start up would rely on philanthropic dollars.

Q: Have to use your credibility in this field or as web developer.

A: Have a mailing list of 30,000 and a 7-year track record.  We are the only site that's technologically happening in this field. Online leader in the field

Q: Have you checked with other orgs to see if they will back you?

A: Casual conversations indicated people are very excited. Want and need to do more robust market analysis. 

Q: How much of the investment you are making on building the site or on marketing and drawing users in?

A: Wants to develop "survivor handbooks" that are customizable for local context. Users will find value in those kinds of things. Other content development will require support. No shortage of content. 

Q: How will you allocate your time with skeleton staff?

A: Consultants. Will local sites want to help to set up their own sites -- can we automate that or will they need support? We need to test this out to determine staffing needs. Also, I don't know how to anticipate growth at this point.

Audience questions:

Q: Are there any relevant historical examples from other fields? Scarce resources and adoption questions -- who's solved those problems in the past?

A: Interesting question. I need to look into that.

Comment: Try to connect with BBBS project. Similarities. (ding ding) 

comment: Blur between features you're providing on main site, and services provided to niche-partner orgs (eg., activism tools).

MyKenyanSpace 

Transaction fees to cover $7,800 expenses per month. Need to sell 1,000 pounds of Kenyan coffee per month to support this. Need to develop the B2B venture, has the social network in place.

comment: Do you need to spend more time researching buyers and the market?

A: No. I want to do things different. Start with social networking and from there move to a biz solution.

Q: How much of the functionality will be built into your site, how much through other vendors.

A: I envision using vendors for financial transactions.

Q: How do you plan to connect the social network?

A: I've had no trouble reaching the African diaspora. There are things they need from back home. they can spread the word about my site.

comment: try talking to Adina.

Audience questions:

Q: Making any market work is a function of trust, or of information. How will you make people trust you to transact with you?

A: This is not an MBA solution. I'm starting with a social network and letting people get to know each other. Then talk about biz.

Q: What if you  make $15,000 a month. What will you do with the extra money. 

A: use it to scale it farther, expand the site.

Q: What keeps you in the mix after you connect buyers and sellers? Why won't they just go directly to the seller?

A: The platform will be the easy way to connect them. After they connect, I am not involved.