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What is the current ownership of tribe (or Utah Street Networks, or whomever has the ultimate decision-making function for doing that which needs to be done in order to have tribe function -or to pull the plug on the whole system)? I am assuming tribe is privately held or owned by an llc or small corporation of some sort but do not know much if anything of the actual history, just hearsay. For all I know the option to buy stock in tribe already exists, but if so then I have not heard about it.
Perhaps I am naive or too uninformed to know which end is up, yet if a lack of capital is hindering progress (and/or if there is doubt about whether or not folks are serious enough in their interest and support of tribe to put their money where their mouth is), then one option might be a stock offering. This could serve both to assess the strength of interest and to raise significant funds.
Perhaps I am naive or too uninformed to know which end is up, yet if a lack of capital is hindering progress (and/or if there is doubt about whether or not folks are serious enough in their interest and support of tribe to put their money where their mouth is), then one option might be a stock offering. This could serve both to assess the strength of interest and to raise significant funds.
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Sun, August 16, 2009 - 3:44 PMIt also would give all of us who are supporting Tribe a stake in its future and a voice in how it is run.
Problem is, small stock offerings are generally not open to small investors. Though in this case, we might be deemed insiders. -
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Sun, August 16, 2009 - 5:53 PM' Utah Street Networks, Inc' appears on the bottom of every page.
<Problem is, small stock offerings are generally not open to small investors. Though in this case, we might be deemed insiders. >
Because generally it is too expensive to market the offering.. but not so here where you have a web site to promote it and probably already ready buyers.
I don't know the law in the States, but I would assume Tribe would have to be incorporated as a Non-Listed Public Company and issue a Prospectus.
I have been involved in two small Prospectus Launches with minimum capital of $750K and $350K - it does not have to be millions of dollars to capital raise publicly. It can be done. The average shareholding is about $2 K in each prospectus - and you could market it through tribe.
Indeed - I would put a shareholding cap in place and one vote per shareholding rather than per share. It would make it more democratic and increase the community nature of the site.
I would start with a pledge campaign, pledges to buy shares - to give an indication of the likely hood of the prospectus's success prior to even forming the company. I would be very careful to evaluate the soundness of such pledges - but they might avoid incurring the cost of creating a doomed prospectus.
The problem for me would be the Directors. Are their 8 (sane) people here who have the expertise, time and willing to assume the risk of being Directors of such an enterprise - it is a big shift from being an incorporated body (which might be funded by tax losses from some venture capitalists at start up, which in itself might be a problem) to a public company. I would imagine the Prospectus would need to incorporate a sale of the site to the new Public Company. I would set the minimum share holding at $500 or $1,000 but it also depends on the minimum capital target - something which would have to be very carefully considered solely on a sound financial model on needs and income stream. -
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Sun, August 16, 2009 - 8:06 PM>>>Because generally it is too expensive to market the offering.. but not so here where you have a web site to promote it and probably already ready buyers. <<<<
No, that's illegal here. You can't promote a stock offering without a prospectus, and you certainly can't promote it on your website. A bunch of people on a website, say in a specific tribe on Tribe could get together and decide to start a company, that'd be okay, but once you register it, you couldn't market it.
Bigger issue is that generally you don't start a regular company (Class C) but a Subchapter S corporation or a Limiited Liability Corporation or a Limited Partnership. There are various tax and legal consequences to the ones you choose, but Subchapter S and Limited Partnerships (I don't know about LLCs and their cousins LLPs) allow you to pass the losses on to your investors, which makes them tax deductible. But you usually can't market those to the public, only to sophisticated investors or to insiders.
There are various exceptions, which you can read about here: www.sec.gov/info/smallbu...bsec.htm#eod6
>>>>I don't know the law in the States, but I would assume Tribe would have to be incorporated as a Non-Listed Public Company and issue a Prospectus. <<<<
Not necessarily, you could set up a corporation that would buy the assets of Tribe from Utah Street. Or Utah Street could go public.
>>>Indeed - I would put a shareholding cap in place and one vote per shareholding rather than per share. It would make it more democratic and increase the community nature of the site.<<<<
We don't have this system. Nor a monarch. One share, one vote. You can monkey around with super-voting classes of shares or preferreds, but the banco populari idea isn't legal here.
A relatively painless way for a private company to go public is to find some burnt out shell of a pubic business that buys your company from you.
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If enough people are serious and nobody from Tribe is monitoring this thread and wants to respond as to whether it would accept capital and how, we could get a bunch of people together and write a letter asking to examine the books with an eye toward buying into the business. But an investor group just took over Tribe and probably has it's own plans and may have what it considers to be sufficient capital to pursue them. Or it may not want a gaggle of small investors telling it what to do.
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Sun, August 16, 2009 - 8:41 PM<No, that's illegal here. You can't promote a stock offering without a prospectus,>
Indeed. Same here. But it is not illegal in Australia to obtain non binding indications that people would buy stock if a Prospectus was issued. It is a well known and used model here, esp in community enterprises. Is it illegal to ack people if they might buy shares in an entity if the entity was created ?
Here and there - one would assume it is illegal (and bad business practice) to collect money before a prospectus was issued (it is illegal here)- but you can collect expressions of interest. Pledges to buy stocks. That has been used over about 200 companies here which I can think of.
<and you certainly can't promote it on your website. >
And you could promote expressions of interest in a forthcoming prospectus. (assuming I am right on the above). But you cant collect money. And you cant legally bind. But you could promote the concept and even get people to nominate the amounts of shares they may buy. That is not illegal here. Is it there ?
<A bunch of people on a website, say in a specific tribe on Tribe could get together and decide to start a company, that'd be okay, >
Indeed. But what is the capital requirement and can you see some synergy in binding users to the site through share ownership?
<but once you register it, you couldn't market it. >
You are not allowed to promote capital raising documents ? Or shares in companies ?
How do you guys operate ! Is the exchange the only place you can buy shares ?
<Bigger issue is that generally you don't start a regular company (Class C) but a Subchapter S corporation or a Limited Liability Corporation or a Limited Partnership. There are various tax and legal consequences to the ones you choose, but Subchapter S and Limited Partnerships (I don't know about LLCs and their cousins LLPs) allow you to pass the losses on to your investors, which makes them tax deductible. >
I would imagine passing tax losses onto investors would be good for some.. but I assume the aim is to make the site viable not create a tax vehicle...
I cant comment on the classes of American Companies.
<But you usually can't market those to the public, only to sophisticated investors or to insiders. >
Then would it be want is wanted ? But you can market anything within the bounds of the law.
<Not necessarily, you could set up a corporation that would buy the assets of Tribe from Utah Street. Or Utah Street could go public. >
Yep. I contradicted myself - but your idea is what I was thinking when I said 'I would imagine the Prospectus would need to incorporate a sale of the site to the new Public Company'
<We don't have this system. Nor a monarch. One share, one vote. You can monkey around with super-voting classes of shares or preferred, but the banco populari idea isn't legal here.>
Backo populari - I assume that is not an accepted technical term ? (I always like trivia)...
And I would imagine it is normal to attached voting rights to shares in America. The idea voting rights cant be defined by the company within the Constitution (do you have Company Constitutions there) and by the laws affecting Corporations and such variation to voting rights 'isn't legal here' sounds weird to me.
<A relatively painless way for a private company to go public is to find some burnt out shell of a pubic business that buys your company from you. >
Does that happen ? Would it not be cheaper to avoid the cost of purchasing such a burnt out shell, and also assuming its liabilities (that would worry me no end as a director and/or shareholder), and just create your own ?
<Or it may not want a gaggle of small investors telling it what to do. >
Might not. But at the end of the day - the opportunity for that to happens occurs annually - at the AGM. And your 'one share one vote' will institutionalize the ownership over time - perhaps making that unlikely ?
But even in small enterprises - esp partnerships - they confused direction created by too many chiefs is often the death of them. That is much less likely to happen in a Public Company.
And okay. You peaked my interest on American Company Structures. I will spend 10 minutes and have a look at them, so I don't look completely ignorant :)
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Sun, August 16, 2009 - 8:46 PMAh, right - now very clear en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_corporation
Oh - and I see 'Must not have more than 100 shareholders'
Oh and 'Shareholders must be U.S. citizens or residents, and must be physical entities (a person), so corporate shareholders and partnerships are to be excluded. - corporate shareholders excluded... not good...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_corporations
A C corporation (or C corp.) is a corporation in the United States that, for Federal income tax purposes, is taxed under 26 U.S.C. § 11 and Subchapter C (26 U.S.C. § 301 et seq.) of Chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code.[1] Most major companies (and many smaller companies) are treated as C corporations for Federal income tax purposes. A Corporation must file under Subchapter C if it fails to meet even one requirement to qualify as an S Corporation.
Right. We have equivalent structures. -
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Sun, August 16, 2009 - 9:04 PMInteresting 'Corp., Inc. (Corporation, Incorporated): used to denote corporations (public or otherwise). These are the only terms universally accepted by all 51 corporation chartering agencies in the United States. However in some states other suffixes may be used to identify a corporation, such as Ltd., Co./Company, or the Italian term S.p.A. (in Connecticut; see under Italy). Some states that allow the use of "Company" prohibit the use of "and Company", "and Co.", "& Company" or "& Co.". In some states individuals and partnerships may register a fictitious name with the word "Company" in it. For '
From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type...ted_States
Ours simply are en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type...#Australia So when I see 'Utah Street Networks, Inc' the Australian Inc. (Incorporated): restricted to non-profit associations " comes to mind.. but I did know about the US use.. but one of those examples where you get an idea stuck in my head.. but I still dont know how then "inc" is used for tribe.. -
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Mon, August 17, 2009 - 3:52 AMAn American corporation can be not-for-profit or unlisted. It just means it is recognized as an entity under the law and that its owners are shielded from liability.
Banco popolari are Italian banks where depositors have one vote no matter how many shares they own. For this reason, institutional investors would never buy them so they end up with many small investors and not much in the way of stock market value.
There are plenty of listed shell companies with no operations, no debt and no reason to exist other than they hope to do a listing deal. The shell actually buys the functional acquirer, so in this case the shell would buy Utah (or Tribe) for its own stock. The result would be the owners of Utah would then own most of the shares and you'd have an instantly listed company. In this scenario, there wouldn't be an offering, but the owners could sell some of their shares in the secondary market. That doesn't directly infuse the company with capital (but it makes it easier to do a secondary offering).
American companies don't have to be listed on an exchange. Check out www.pinksheets.com and www.otcbb.com for zillions that aren't.
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Mon, August 17, 2009 - 3:58 AMWhile you might ask for general expressions of interest, once you register a stock offering it can only be done via prospectus. To do a C corp. is considered expensive, and it doesn't have the tax benefit. But no matter what you do, you can't market it to the public (with the exceptions listed on the SEC page) unless it's a C corp.
Most subchapter S corps. change to C once they become profitable. The prohibition on overseas investors is one reason NOT to use this format. -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Mon, August 17, 2009 - 5:16 AMThank you Mitch for your answers
I assumed partnerships are the same - but then found you can limited your liability in them in the States when looking up LLPs .... interesting...
<Banco popolari are Italian banks where depositors have one vote no matter how many shares they own. For this reason, institutional investors would never buy them so they end up with many small investors and not much in the way of stock market value. >
Thanks. Never heard of those. I now have a new phrase :)
<There are plenty of listed shell companies with no operations, no debt and no reason to exist other than they hope to do a listing deal. The shell actually buys the functional acquirer, so in this case the shell would buy Utah (or Tribe) for its own stock. The result would be the owners of Utah would then own most of the shares and you'd have an instantly listed company. In this scenario, there wouldn't be an offering, but the owners could sell some of their shares in the secondary market. That doesn't directly infuse the company with capital (but it makes it easier to do a secondary offering). >
Thanks. Sounds like a reverse takeover (not exactly what you propose) is more viable in the States. I must admit, my comment was a bit mischievous :)
<American companies don't have to be listed on an exchange. Check out www.pinksheets.com and www.otcbb.com for zillions that aren't. >
Nor does a public company necessarily have to be listed here . These are known here as 'non-listed public companies' (Ltd) something distinct from a Propriety Limited Company (Pty Ltd) . A Company must be a Public Company (Ltd) if it has more than 50 shareholders. There is also equity requirements and triggers in relation to proprietary companies (Pty Ltd) which force them to but Public (Ltd).
I was thinking what you might call a DPO
"A company pursues a direct public offering (DPO) to raise capital by marketing its shares directly to its own customers, employees, suppliers, distributors and friends in the community. DPOs are an alternative to underwritten public offerings by securities broker-dealer firms where a company's shares are sold to the broker's customers and prospects.
Direct public offerings are considerably less expensive than traditional underwritten offerings. Additionally, they don't have the restrictions that are usually associated with bank and venture capital financing. On the other hand, a DPO will typically raise much less than a traditional offering."
Source (LOL) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dire...c_offering
Your Taxation for Companies seems a little more complex from the get-up and go, but more likely - I just don't know the American Terms....
Here, you cannot escape being liable for Company Tax when not commonly using not-for profit (most commonly "Incorporated Body" "Inc."), co-op or Partnership structure here.. Nevertheless, you can 'administer' your before tax profit. And one would assume the same is true in the States and costs like wages, plant, and such are deducted from before tax profit. I am sure there are many tax minimization strategies to disperse income prior to the calculation of 'profit' for C corporations in the States, just as there are here in Australia. Indeed there is an industry based on that very thing..
And I assume you can issue Voting and non-voting shares in any of these structures ? I am certainly know of the 'one-share one-vote rule' - but does it apply across the board or can you define voting rights in a IPO, or is that contrary to American Corporation Law. ?
Before I said
'The problem for me would be the Directors. Are their 8 (sane) people here who have the expertise, time and willing to assume the risk of being Directors of such an enterprise - it is a big shift from being an incorporated body (which might be funded by tax losses from some venture capitalists at start up, which in itself might be a problem) to a public company. I would imagine the Prospectus would need to incorporate a sale of the site to the new Public Company. I would set the minimum share holding at $500 or $1,000 but it also depends on the minimum capital target - something which would have to be very carefully considered solely on a sound financial model on needs and income stream. '
And I think that issue, the issue of forming a group of future directors, is more significant in the first instance than the structure one uses.
Simply, people are good at talking, and it is much harder to get them to actually do something. Then you want those doers to be informed and competent, and hopefully, gifted. -
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Mon, August 17, 2009 - 6:19 AMWe don't have a minimum of eight directors, for a small company I think you can have as few as one. They're usually compensated for their attendance at meetings and such.
DPO might work in this case. Another possibility would be this model, but it's complicated: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alte...c_Offering
Again, you run into issues with marketing to the general public.
We don't typically have non-voting common shares. There can be super-voting shares, so the common has 1 vote, the super has 10 -- family owned media companies (the New York Times, notably) use this structure.
You can, and often do, have non-voting preferred shares. Sometimes, if the company misses a payment or two, the preferred shares get to put representatives on the board until the arrears are paid off.
I think looking at the structures is putting the cart before the horse though: first we need to know who owns Utah, then we need to know if they'd entertain partners or buyers, then we'd need to see the books. -
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Mon, August 17, 2009 - 7:00 AMYep, and APO -but like any deal - the simplest is the best. But you never know, capital might not be the problem..
<I think looking at the structures is putting the cart before the horse though: first we need to know who owns Utah, then we need to know if they'd entertain partners or buyers, then we'd need to see the books.>
I agree.
First action would be to form a group of people seriously interested in being future directors and also supply seeding capital for the deal.
Then the questions would be
1. Who owns it
2. Would they be willing to sell
3 An indicative price
4. Conceptually but realistically, how might you fund the purchase.
5. Look at the books
6. Decide to proceed.
7 Due Diligence on the company before anything else .. etc etc..
It is an unreasonable request to look at the books before you qualify yourself as a genuine qualified prospective purchaser.
That's assuming the information on the books is not already publicly available, which in this case I doubt. But I would still check.
Midnight here. Must fl ! -
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Mon, August 17, 2009 - 6:40 PM
>If enough people are serious and nobody from Tribe is monitoring this thread and wants to respond as to whether it would accept capital and how, we could get a bunch of people together and write a letter asking to examine the books with an eye toward buying into the business. But an investor group just took over Tribe and probably has it's own plans and may have what it considers to be sufficient capital to pursue them. Or it may not want a gaggle of small investors telling it what to do.<
So, who owns Utah Networks --anyone? anyone?-- and is there a tribe employee --anyone? anyone?-- monitoring this thread who can reply to some of these questions even quasi-officially, or perhaps even a member of the Inner Circle --anyone? anyone?-- who can advise us as to whether or not a gaggle of small investors would be a welcome addition to the tribal funding structure? Anyone? Anyone? -
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Fri, August 21, 2009 - 10:28 AMOver on the notorious Aug. 9 Outage OutRage thread Tribe said in reply to related questions:
>Infinite money would solve most of the problems Tribe has, but only in a fully unrealistic magic gift mode. Realistically, we have to struggle through the current problems and come out the other side stable enough to grow the community again.
Basically the problem is this: the application is a legacy development effort and none of the original authors are now actively involved with Tribe (though some are extremely helpful and for their assistance we are very grateful). The application itself has gone through various different stages of management and some of those stages have altered the original architecture in ways that make ongoing support difficult. Some portions are documented well, some not at all. The platform is encumbered with complex red tape and we are in the process of developing a new, unencumbered, modern platform that will do everything tribe does and provide affordance for more.
At the same time, the physical hardware that tribe is on is, in some cases, EOL. We've had some graceful failures and some extremely graceless failures (recently). We've spent the last two weeks recovering and we believe we have most of these problems behind us. At the very least, we've become expert in the rebuild process and have better documentation now.
Tribe has two revenue sources: ads and subscriptions. Ads pay bandwidth and some sysadmin support. Subscriptions go straight into our equipment fund and we've been using that fund as we can to put new hardware in place on the current platform and build the right (read fully-redundant, modern, power efficient) infrastructure for the next platform.
We realize downtime is frustrating and we're working hard to minimize it. We track our uptime through third party monitoring, and while it may not seem like it this week, uptime is significantly better since NSA took over, even including recent catastrophic hardware failures. These failures frustrate us at least as much as the members; we're up and working until they're fixed, we're not making progress on new features and development of the next platform. And they always come at the exact worst time.
Every time it seems like we've got things sorted out, something else breaks, but at the risk of ensuring the next unexpected failure comes sooner rather than later, we have stabilized the recent problems and a major enhancement to the core database system should be on line within a week.<
How much of the question set being posed in this thread does this respond to? I am still unclear who owns tribe &/or Utah Networks.
Additional unreplied questions include Sneakparrot's and : Denisey Strangest Angel's request for an overview of:
1) Current server hardware architecture and inventory (servers, physical and virtual, storage, power, UPS, physical server rack space, room environment)
2) Operating system(s) in use
3) Database type(s), size, growth rate
4) Tribe code base (primary coding language(s), compiler(s), supplementary scripting language(s))
5) Current LAN setup (routers, switches, network speed)
6) Current WAN/Internet connections
7) Any other physical, behind-the-curtain stuff I forgot to ask about
and
What languages are in use to make Tribe work? Is it all old C or C++ code, something at a higher level of abstraction, or something totally arcane and dark?
Also -- and this is a serious question -- if you could have one piece of hardware (server, quad monitor rig, NAS, screwdriver, self-sealing stem bolt, etc) that would give you a leg up in your efforts, what would it be?
Mitch commented >If enough people are serious and nobody from Tribe is monitoring this thread and wants to respond as to whether it would accept capital and how, we could get a bunch of people together and write a letter....>
I've just shot off a flare over on the Aug. 9 Outage OutRage thread requesting someone from tribe's inner circle please come over here and read through this thread, since we have evidence that other thread was being monitored.
How long do we wait for an official response before >we...get a bunch of people together and write a letter<? Also, when 'yal think "a bunch" are you thinking "Mitch, Busy Bloke, Sneakyparrot, : Denisey Strangest Angel, AlaskaSteven, et. al., equals a bunch" or are you thinking "Let's go put the word out in huge tribes far and wide, rounding up dozens to hundreds of hardcore committed tribers as seriously interested cosignatories"?
Anyone, anyone? -
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Fri, August 21, 2009 - 10:59 AMIt sounds like a typical legacy setup. And it sounds like they are doing a decent job of rectifying the problems. I think anything to do with stocks is a mistake if it concerns money. And I think this would be a good place to practice patience. I have been on tribe for years and the outages have been very few in the last year compared to previous years. Not to mention upgrades and bugs getting eliminated in the last 2 years. -
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Fri, August 21, 2009 - 11:31 AMStock would ONLY concern money.
The thing is, the members of this Tribe ARE investing in Tribe. Not a whole lot, but it's something and it's more than the vast majority of Tribe users. I'll send 'em $5 a month forever and feel that I've gotten my money's worth, but before I send much more, I want to know a lot more about how it works, why there are these outrages, and if the problems are solvable.
It may be that the group that now controls Tribe doesn't want or think it needs our help. If that's the case, then there's not much to do or say. Unless we wanted to start our own social network, which I pretty much think we don't, we can live with the service the way it is and run the risk that it'll be gone some day.
If they DO want help -- in the way of more money, but on a fairly small scale (in the thousands or low tens of thousands of dollars), then it would be nice if we had a chance to participate.
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Sat, August 22, 2009 - 6:48 AMStill, using it as an investment in stock is not right. It will cause more problems than it solves. We see proof of that everyday with the Dow Jones report and people (not enough in my opinion) going to jail for fraud. It should be thought of as payment for a service. LIke you said $5.00 a month is fine and you feel like you get your money's worth. I feel the same way. Instead of wasting time talking about stocks, maybe we could talk about ways to get more members to become 'gold star' members.
The whole thing about stocks that makes it messed up is that it is essentially gambliing. People invest money in something they have no idea about and hope it makes them more money. Of course the person selling the stock can steal all of it and then tell everyone, well you lost that gamble. You can be strung along to continue gambling by getting 'lucky' every now and then. It is exactly like going to Las Vegas and playing at a black jack table, except the stakes are higher and you don't even get to see your cards until after the hand is played.
So, how about we post notes to all our tribe friends about how we feel, and see if any of them decide to join the gold star club. -
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Sat, August 22, 2009 - 7:28 AMI have two kinds of Tribe friends: those who contribute $5 because they think the service is worth it and those who don't. Almost all of the members of the latter class think the members of the former class are chumps and are unlikely to be convinced by anything I'd be likely to tell them. Besides, I can't even promise that Tribe will work tomorrow.
It's not really a discussion for this thread, but I disagree with your characterization of the stock market. Stock is just shares in companies. If you invest in something you have no idea about, then, yes, bad things are likely to happen to you. But -- and this is the reason there is so much disclosure required -- you have access to practically everything you need to know about publicly traded American companies, it's just how smart you are about interpreting it. Yes, AIG was hard to figure out, but nobody is required to invest in companies that are hard to figure out. I could point you to dozens of companies where the executives are not corrupt and the people go to work every day and try to make good products or offer valuable services at reasonable prices. Those are good things to own and a smarter use of your savings than a bank account or the mattress.
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Fri, August 21, 2009 - 11:25 AMIf they are interested, the people here should be sufficient as a first step.
See answer to JaHara
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Adoption is a beautiful thing.
Tue, August 25, 2009 - 12:43 AMLet's revisit what Mr. Tribe wrote in the Outage thread:
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>Infinite money would solve most of the problems Tribe has, but only in a fully unrealistic magic gift mode.
>Tribe has two revenue sources: ads and subscriptions.
Ads pay bandwidth and some sysadmin support.
Subscriptions go straight into our equipment fund and we've been using that fund as we can to put new hardware in place on the current platform and build the right (read fully-redundant, modern, power efficient) infrastructure for the next platform.
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Perhaps, at this time, the best way we can help tribe is by adopting a friend. If you are so moved, and can afford the extra $5 a month - go for it. This gives tribe a monthly income, whereas a stock option would give them a one time shot, and would take a lot of time and resources to set in place. Time and resources they don't have...
Aloha!
:D -
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Re: Adoption is a beautiful thing.
Tue, August 25, 2009 - 10:57 AMVery good point. -
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Re:Very good point.
Tue, August 25, 2009 - 3:22 PMThe quality of advice from glowing water foul is surprisingly high.
(And now I'm wondering if the I have the right word or if there's a homonym I've forgotten about.) -
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Re:Very good point.
Tue, August 25, 2009 - 3:56 PMThe correct word would be "fowl." -
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Re:Very good point.
Tue, August 25, 2009 - 5:07 PMDepending on how she meant it...
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Re:Very good point.
Tue, August 25, 2009 - 7:57 PMD'oh! I knew that was wrong, but I just couldn't think of the right way.
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Re:Very good point.
Tue, August 25, 2009 - 7:16 PMI assure you, I was not high when I wrote that ; )
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Re: Tribe stock offering: option for members to buy shares?
Thu, September 3, 2009 - 11:23 PM"I have been involved in two small Prospectus Launches with minimum capital of $750K and $350K - it does not have to be millions of dollars to capital raise publicly. It can be done. The average shareholding is about $2 K in each prospectus - and you could market it through tribe."
If you are going to go small, you can't really list in the US due to Sarbanes/Oxley crap. You are better off listing in Vancouver or even London. And if the idiotic proposal to "tax every single share of stock traded on wall street" gets any traction, you are going to see practically every company in the nation flee to those exchanges anyway. That proposal would simply kill US stock trading and they would end up with pretty much nothing but a dead goose with a golden egg half out it's ... egg thing.
There are other options too, such as Limited Partnerships.
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