I’m Only Here for the Typography
Failure and success are difficult to measure. Or maybe I’m just kidding myself to think so. I can’t say anymore that my company is pre-revenue (and yikes, I had the tax bill last spring to prove it). The project we were working on was philanthropic, grant-funded, and as ambitious and broad in scope as everything else I seem to find myself embroiled in. I did the typical nonprofit shuffle of going without pay for months at a time in order to meet our goals and pay a pr firm to presumably get the word out. This worked. (Sort of.)
I actually was dorky enough to put together a spreadsheet and project using the most accurate location- and time-specific assumptions that we had saved 82 lives and averted over 4,000 cases of COVID-19. Nobody seems very much impressed, but if you’re ever tried to get a campaign to go organically viral, you know this doesn’t just happen. Somebody’s nana and grampa are alive today because of what we did. That means something to me.
One thing I did instead of paying myself was to get a design patent filed for the 3D visualization framework I had invented the year before.
No telling when we hear back about the patent. It could be in three months. It could be in a year. If we get it, we would have something quite valuable — at least in the United States. Think anybody would be interested in a visualization that lets you see and scan the entire stock market at a glance? Can you name all the potential verticals that need human review and oversight of record sets of 1,000 line items or more? Hmmm… e-commerce, banking and finance, insurance, online dating, retail, franchise restaurants, consumer packaged goods, music, movies, and books… I could go on.
Next generation spreadsheet. 3D leaderboard. Call it what you will.
It takes approximately 30 seconds to learn the conventions that make the display meaningful and actionable . The code would run faster ‘ported to Web Assembly and Rust, but even in plain old JavaScript, it runs.
===> THIS IS THE BUSINESS PLAN
If we can make a splash with a trading visualization (either crypto or stocks) then it seems very possible, if not probable, that Yahoo, Google, Apple, Robinhood et al might license this 3D design from us and incorporate it into their own investor charting. And if that happens… why not an actual acquisition from Microsoft or SalesForce?
Valuation? Pretty much just need to get it high enough so it wouldn’t be embarrassing for the acquirers’ stock price. *
<=== THAT WAS THE END OF THE BUSINESS PLAN
The tricky thing is timing.
I am essentially ready to launch a usable, market-relevant cryptocurrency analytics product. Using Twitter advertising and crypto industry channels, I am sure I can build an audience even with a modest marketing spend. I wouldn’t be asking for a subscription price. The only monetization would be an invitation to offset carbon emissions from cryptocurrency trading via an affiliate link to an established offset provider. This on its own may be enough to get me hacked, flamed, doxxed, and stalked — but whatever, if that happens it will at least marginally raise awareness of the true carbon cost of Bitcoin (one on-chain transaction turns out to be equal to driving about 880 miles) and that is probably worth whatever personal consequences accrue to me. Personally, I am much more interested in building a cross-market product that lets retail (day) traders evaluate social and financial metrics across a variety of screens (not just carbon, but also minority ownership, ownership by women, labor relations, etc) and make decisions for themselves.
My question for every ESG fund in existence is, where were you on the day of the Tesla IPO (June 29, 2010) and did you invest? Too often socially responsible funds assume that their altruistic shareholders will tolerate anemic** returns, believing that their hearts are in the right place and that values are more important than money.
This in itself is almost shorthand for what drives me nuts about the whole liberal psyche and worldview — not that I am a right-winger, by any means. I just object to virtue signals as a substitute for accountability and action.
The goal of SRI should not be placating the consciences of the wealthy, or meeting the dictates of university and institutional investment funds. It should be supercharging the enterprises that have the potential to be truly transformative and game changing. I will never forget hearing Paul Hawken speak in the early 2000’s — and making the excellent point that sustainable technologies are often the most profitable in the long run. What is needed sometimes is as simple as the investment to scale. Other times it is a shift in mindset. I don’t pretend that most green or socially minded businesses will ever achieve profitability and scale, but you could say that about any venture-funded business model.
Please, just can’t all the combined resources of the culmination of postmodern global civilization deliver us something a little bit or innovative and world changing than Blue Apron? Or Zoom?
* So if you haven’t noticed the actual substantive part of the business plan ended many paragraphs ago. I’m not too concerned with valuation because right now I own 100% of shares. I have a few people who probably qualify for Advisor status, but no pre-money contractual obligations. This is the “we” I refer to — myself and people who have listened or helped in some way.
** Speaking of anemia… I could share a little something on the subject. Also can speak to the hidden dangers of pumpkin seeds. Will save for another time.
