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This might interest both entrepreneurs and investors. Taken from the Guardian newspaper in the UK
Social networking site Tribe aims to secure customers and investment for entrepreneurs
The brainchild of Serge Bueno, the Tribe will bring together consumers, investors and small businesses
Serge Bueno at the Tribe in Covent Garden. The shop, which is linked to the website, will open next month. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian A Franco-Israeli entrepreneur is hoping to rekindle some of the optimism of the dotcom boom with a new social networking site that combines the mass-audience reach of eBay with the trend for grassroots funding of small businesses.
Serge Bueno, who relaunched the SodaStream soft drinks maker in mainland Europe, is hoping that his latest project, called the Tribe, will help the next generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs get off the ground by providing them with a ready-made market.
His plan comes as the UK government continues to press high street banks to start lending to small businesses again. Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, admitted this month that the credit crunch was lasting longer than he expected. While large companies have access to other sources of funding, small and medium-sized companies are still struggling to obtain the cash they need for investment.
Bueno said: "The idea for the Tribe is very simple. I think our world is simply dying, as capitalism is coming to an end. I think we are trapped. The other problem is most jobs are created by small companies and there are less and less of those."
The Tribe opened its doors on the internet this month but will launch officially on 18 September. It is designed to bring entrepreneurs and business people who have projects that need funding together with a large pool of users who have registered online and are looking for new, innovative products to buy.
If enough "Tribers" express an interest in a product and make a small up-front payment, its developers will be able to calculate their break-even point and decide whether to press ahead. If the product cannot reach that break-even point, everyone gets their money back.
Anyone can put forward a single idea to the Tribe community for a $100 (£60) introduction fee, or an unlimited number of ideas for $500. Bueno hopes to have 50,000 users by the end of the year.
The Tribe's business model is similar to that of an earlier group buying site, LetsButyIt.com, which hoped to bring buyers together to reduce the price of goods by placing bulk orders. But Bueno must hope it will be more successful: LetsBuyIt.com collapsed in 2002, having racked up tens of millions in losses, although the name was subsequently sold to become a price-comparison website.
Bueno's ambitions for the Tribe go beyond group buying. The site will loan cash to projects using a fund created in part from its introduction fees, and it is hoped that small investors from among the community will be attracted with the promise of better returns on their savings than are offered by high street banks. The Tribe will also sell any products that it thinks are especially marketable through its retail store in Covent Garden, central London, which will open for business next month.
Bueno thinks his plan will have a particular appeal to women who have given up work to have children but want to continue to develop business ideas.
"New mothers are always full of ideas. Whether they have a good idea for a product, a book or a business, the Tribe can help," he said.
He is also putting together a team of business experts, who will be able to advise the entrepreneurs who come to the site, along the lines of the business incubator model that again was tried with varying degrees of success in the dotcom boom of a decade ago.
"We bring two things, security and guidance," he said. "Security is brought by the break-even point, guidance by our group of experts, because you can be a very smart, creative person but have no idea of accounting or marketing."
The brainchild of Serge Bueno, the Tribe will bring together consumers, investors and small businesses
Serge Bueno at the Tribe in Covent Garden. The shop, which is linked to the website, will open next month. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian A Franco-Israeli entrepreneur is hoping to rekindle some of the optimism of the dotcom boom with a new social networking site that combines the mass-audience reach of eBay with the trend for grassroots funding of small businesses.
Serge Bueno, who relaunched the SodaStream soft drinks maker in mainland Europe, is hoping that his latest project, called the Tribe, will help the next generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs get off the ground by providing them with a ready-made market.
His plan comes as the UK government continues to press high street banks to start lending to small businesses again. Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, admitted this month that the credit crunch was lasting longer than he expected. While large companies have access to other sources of funding, small and medium-sized companies are still struggling to obtain the cash they need for investment.
Bueno said: "The idea for the Tribe is very simple. I think our world is simply dying, as capitalism is coming to an end. I think we are trapped. The other problem is most jobs are created by small companies and there are less and less of those."
The Tribe opened its doors on the internet this month but will launch officially on 18 September. It is designed to bring entrepreneurs and business people who have projects that need funding together with a large pool of users who have registered online and are looking for new, innovative products to buy.
If enough "Tribers" express an interest in a product and make a small up-front payment, its developers will be able to calculate their break-even point and decide whether to press ahead. If the product cannot reach that break-even point, everyone gets their money back.
Anyone can put forward a single idea to the Tribe community for a $100 (£60) introduction fee, or an unlimited number of ideas for $500. Bueno hopes to have 50,000 users by the end of the year.
The Tribe's business model is similar to that of an earlier group buying site, LetsButyIt.com, which hoped to bring buyers together to reduce the price of goods by placing bulk orders. But Bueno must hope it will be more successful: LetsBuyIt.com collapsed in 2002, having racked up tens of millions in losses, although the name was subsequently sold to become a price-comparison website.
Bueno's ambitions for the Tribe go beyond group buying. The site will loan cash to projects using a fund created in part from its introduction fees, and it is hoped that small investors from among the community will be attracted with the promise of better returns on their savings than are offered by high street banks. The Tribe will also sell any products that it thinks are especially marketable through its retail store in Covent Garden, central London, which will open for business next month.
Bueno thinks his plan will have a particular appeal to women who have given up work to have children but want to continue to develop business ideas.
"New mothers are always full of ideas. Whether they have a good idea for a product, a book or a business, the Tribe can help," he said.
He is also putting together a team of business experts, who will be able to advise the entrepreneurs who come to the site, along the lines of the business incubator model that again was tried with varying degrees of success in the dotcom boom of a decade ago.
"We bring two things, security and guidance," he said. "Security is brought by the break-even point, guidance by our group of experts, because you can be a very smart, creative person but have no idea of accounting or marketing."