The startup opportunity I present here for you, or someone you know, can significantly change the future of our society and become a huge business. The venture is ideal for potential entrepreneurs who are adept at finance, marketing, communications, and team building. This business is perfect for an individual who sees value in planting trees today to benefit tomorrow's generations.
If you feel you have more to contribute, have some cash saved up and are good with people, perhaps now is your time to start a business. But beware, 80% of new businesses fail within five years. The top two reasons are misreading market demand (42%) and running out of funds (29%).[i] With that in mind, you'll need a carefully chosen, promising opportunity.
Wait - why give away a solid business idea?
If the idea is good, why give it away? Let me explain. I am a retiree in my seventies and must realistically concede I do not have the energy required. Nor do I want or need to start a new career.
I am enthusiastic about being a customer of the service spawned by this business. Hence giving out this business suggestion helps me indirectly to fulfill my dreams of making large donations to charity. An energetic team that fulfills this opportunity will change the world, providing immense satisfaction.
Introducing money capsules
Imagine a new product which I call a money capsule. A money capsule is, in many respects, like a time capsule. Both these capsules gather donated contributions from initiating folks of the day, often in commemoration of some significant event. Both these capsules are intended to be left alone for decades and centuries. Every so often in the future, the capsules are opened by later generations and then carefully put back for future re-openings.
Time capsule contents are kept safe in a sturdy container. A money capsule is not a physical object but instead is a digital financial account held at an investment business on behalf of the contributor(s). The money capsule portfolio begins with modest seed funds donated by the original contributors. A money capsule contains an always up-to-date investment portfolio that continually grows.
Opening up capsules
When opened at pre-set time intervals, a time capsule offers viewers a glimpse of the past through the various items provided by the contributors.
Opening a money capsule is similarly triggered at each interval date. A typical interval might be every thirty years. When opening up a money capsule, the investment portfolio transfers out an agreed-upon portion of the fund's total to various selected charities specified by each contributor.
At first, transfer amounts to charity are suggested to be a 25% portion of the funds on hand. The remaining 75% re-invests to continue growing until the next interval. Because the funds keep getting bigger, the payout dollars are approximately three times larger at every subsequent opening.
Steady-state transfers
Once the size of the fund after inflation reaches a particular agreed-upon amount, just 25% is re-invested, and the remaining 75% goes to charities. This reversal effectively moves donations from the first stages of growing payouts to a steady-state stage of huge similar-sized payouts.
Large donors who do not need to grow their financial capacity are encouraged to begin at the steady-state level.
Why money capsules?
Charities know how to address our social problems, or at least how to make a massive difference if they could be assured of all the financial resources needed.
Money capsules give donors a way to give to charity in amounts far more significant than they could afford while living. Taken together, the collective money capsules of our society today could one day provide the future with all the funds ever needed.
Most importantly, please understand this startup initiative seeks not to reduce gifts going to today's charities but rather to encourage a little extra donation for the future. Balance is key. Seed contributions can be considered balanced if they are pretty small relative to a donor's donations to current charities.
Your chance to make a difference: start a money capsule business
Now imagine starting an investment business that operates these money capsules.
A money capsule service enterprise offers many advantages ideal for the right individual or team. Imagining this opportunity inspired me to document the following:
1. Answers to nine questions that assess the idea
2. Key challenges this startup must address
3. Uniquely favourable characteristics of the business
4. Beneficial factors of the current situation
I would be honoured to send you a no-obligation copy of the whole article describing strategies, with explanations and references. I'm not selling anything, just hoping to encourage an entrepreneur to consider a great opportunity.
Humanity faces a vast and chronic shortage of funds when addressing social problems. Whether the solution takes one hundred years, two hundred years or more is not the issue; it is whether you believe this journey to better fund our society's future is worth starting now.
Please email me with the subject heading "Ideal Startup" at Cam@FutureLegacies.ca for your copy. Or please forward this blog to someone you know who would be inspired to start this up. Our legacy depends on it!
The above is Part One of a four-part series on the Ideal Startup.
Photo by Dayne Topkin on Unsplash