How many coworkers have participated in barn raising? Friendly neighbors from near and far come to a location to help one of their own construct a barn. A day’s hard work and sweat is rewarded with free lemonade, home-canned veggies and perhaps some baskets of fruit. Most of all, it’s a fun and collaborative effort.
How many Coworking Space owners are aware of SecondMarket where barns are also built? These kinds of barns are better known as the startup companies whose employees and vendors are rewarded with “sweat equity.” SecondMarket is one of the secondary markets where the equity in many high tech and social media private companies is traded before their initial public offering. What’s interesting about SecondMarket is that anyone can sell private company stock and anyone residing outside the US can buy private company stock. Within the US, only accredited investors are allowed to purchase. I have a company client – a Utah LLC – whose business model brings ownership with earnings to its members. Let’s say a new food company sells locally grown food to members of this LLC. Let’s say another new company brings a unique transportation service to these same LLC members. If you like, imagine other products or services from other new companies and add them to the list. In all these examples, the LLC members buy the product or service and receive something extra. All these companies are designed to give ownership to the LLC members who buy their products or services. The companies set aside 46% ownership for a customer base of 14 million LLC members. Since these companies are also LLCs, their customers receive their share of the LLC profits, i.e. ownership with earnings! Any LLC member would pay $1 a month to be notified of new companies with products or services that are bundled with equity for their customers. The provision of a safety net of equity for customers is a powerful idea that economies across the globe need today. In Coworking Spaces across the globe, we should collaborate to bring this idea to the marketplace. We can raise this global barn in various ways. Please allow me to share a few ideas. Let’s say a thousand Coworking Space owners help the Utah LLC with 10 members each. The company would reach the milestone of 10,000 members in a few days and a New York Advertising Agency will propel the membership to 14 million in a few months. Some owners could attract 10 candidates for signup, pay their $12 fee ($1 per month) and apply the $120 as advertising for their Coworking Space. That’s a small expense for “sweat equity” whose implied value is about $6K today and is projected at one million dollars in a few months. Please take a look at https://www.secondmarket.com/company/equity-score-llc and let’s raise this barn. Paul -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en.
