Ideas

I think you have a great idea. I myself am an inventor. It has been near imposible to rase the money I need for some very interesting green projects. Sicerely Grandpa

Green is a hot topic right now, I don't know if there really needs to be a special site, basically a CH Green. I think you could do well with a site that has resources for funding. The problem with Green and investing is the ROI factor, Green does tend to be less profitable... I think that is changing though.

Interesting idea.

The best you can do for the environment is invent something that kills a lot of people or makes a big part of them infertile.
Sounds nasty, but the truth is that the ever growing number of people your apocalyptic worldview must come true someday, green inventions just postpone that moment.
T

I think putting this "green site" as a middleman between projects and investors would cause a lot of trouble raising money. Do you really think you can go to a VC or other sophisticated investor and say "give me $N for this fund and I'll invest it in green projects" rather than just individual projects seeking funding on their own so the investors can weigh them on their merits? VCs themselves create this type of fund because it lets them advertise a "market" for green startups while still controlling the allocation of money themselves, but unless you have a VC track record and are going to try to solicit non-VC and unsophisticated capital, I don't think you'll have much credibility inserting your fund in the transaction.

Micco_ This is exactly the type of debate I would like to have on that site. If you can "turn me down" like this with this idea, you can do the same with any other. People are not giving special attention to this aspect of idea development, but its crucial for anybody to participate. Not just the investor, but people in general as well . I see many (?) (OK, I saw some :-) posts proposing something like "Some sort of product", "Some sort of business idea". They just hope the crowd will do everything for them ! Without having a solid idea of what they actually want to do. What the investor wants to see is a "Person" not the idea !
If you are able to face the debate and explain further what do you want to achieve, the investor will gain trust not only in idea, but also in you as a person. If you show that you have a solid and realistic idea of what do you want to do, and you can keep the people around you going, the investor will come.
_ "Do you really think you can go to a VC or other sophisticated investor and say "give me $N for this fund and I'll invest it in green projects" .... No I really don't think so ! Investor must invest in particular project, but share some royalties with CHGCH :-))). That will rise the prize fund in the future ! Investor must keep the final word on where is the money going, cuz it is his holy right.
I am talking here about more then "Separate IdeaWarz". As well as source of possible financial input, this should be an information resource for people to understand, what are they doing wrong ! And when I say people I don't mean individuals, but "the crowd." I mean a common knowledge resource, not a general one , but tailor made for this community.
Lets not forget I want to involve a third party as well. The NGOs could at some point join the game, as guarantors (I hope this is a valid english word :-( )
Tommy_ This is exactly, what people from my first scenario are doing! They just want all the resources for themselves, because they are not thinking about how to use their existing resources better (not to pollute and share, rather than posses). So they invented spears, and swords, and guns, and machine guns, napalm and atomic bombs. Spying airplanes ans spying satellites. Lot of different inventions really, even some really industrial solutions. Only to find out, that people cannot be killed just like that. People will fight back and that will lower your comfort even more!
I would think more about sexual education, rather then killing people.

Darradishman_ I am taking about looking for Investors, who are already willing to invest in enviromental friendly projects, rather than anything else. And also about attracting some people from other communities.
That is the reason to create a separate site.
NGOs for example wants to achieve different goals than profit, but they can contribute to development of an idea, if thisones realisation will help them to achieve their goals.
What is going on with enviromental organisations scene right now looks like "Critical Mass Head Hunt" for me. Crawdsourcing may be a critical point in this process, by his abillity to invest knowledge. Maby there are many people out there who wants to invest their knowledge, their advice and their time. Not only for money.

" I think you could do well with a site that has resources for funding."

That is the type of site I want to have in links section of my site. Do you have any concrete idea?

VanHees ( Tommy ) : Fertility rates are already on the decline naturally. Some studies are expecting that the human population will curve back down and drop to between 1.5 - 3 billion by 2200...though a good war would help speed that up.

Checoslovaco: Don't take this the wrong way, but your rant is exactly why so many investors run screaming from "Green" projects. It lacks sophistication and is more-or-less idealism and finger-wagging at a community you need to be friendly with, not foster an attitude of animosity. I don't think that was your intent, but that is how it is coming across to me.

There are a number of VC groups that will and do invest in "Green" projects. There is also no reason a "Green" project can not be highly lucrative and profitable. That is what VCs look for.

I tend to agree with Miccro, there are enough middle men in the investment process, having another one focused on "Green" projects would only damage the "Green" industries in their attempt to get funding and traction. Rather than making it easier, your proposal, in my opinion, makes things harder.

If you are talking about building a community and resource centre for people with "Green" Ideas they want to pursue, and what VCs look for, and how to bring profitability and ecological true-costing into a business model... well, that would be a different story. A site where business knowledge and entreprenuerial spirit meets eco-friendly forward thinking. That would be a nice resource, and a noble project... as long as it isn't just a eco-hippy-rant-fest.

daraddishman, "Chapeau" well said.

I was about to compose a long reply but I think daraddishman said it all and more.

OK! I must admit I am on my knees right now :-( I was probably a bit too enthusiastic. Sorry for moralising it was really not my intention. With exeption of, when I was answering to Tommy ;-)
Mainly the "enough middlemen already" argument, I have to agree you are both right!
But,
Darradisman_part of your last sentence " A site where business knowledge and entreprenuerial spirit meets eco-friendly forward thinking. That would be a nice resource..."
That is what I am thinking about. A nice resource aimed on would-like-to-be green business projects.

Something like: Cambrian House + http://www.rethos.com/ + http://spacecollective.org/ + http://www.investopedia.com

Your Green Business: tips, tricks, and community help to get your eco-corporation off the ground.

sort of like a green version of the Go Big Network. ( http://www.gobignetwork.com/ )

nice idea... it would be interesting to see what happens if it is developed furthur.

Quoting daraddishman:

"If you are talking about building a community and resource centre for people with "Green" Ideas they want to pursue, and what VCs look for, and how to bring profitability and ecological true-costing into a business model... well, that would be a different story. A site where business knowledge and entreprenuerial spirit meets eco-friendly forward thinking. That would be a nice resource, and a noble project... as long as it isn't just a eco-hippy-rant-fest."

That's exactly what CarbonTicker.com aims to be, with a solid business foundation:

http://www.cambrianh...er/ideas-id/EJwMKfE/
http://www.cambrianh...com/bazaar/view/200/

Hey, cool, you two should start PMing each other and collaborating to get this sort of thing off the ground.

Checho--
Another good idea and do-able. So, do it!

Tommy:
"The best you can do for the environment is invent something that kills a lot of people or makes a big part of them infertile.
Sounds nasty, but the truth is that the ever growing number of people your apocalyptic worldview must come true someday, green inventions just postpone that moment"

True, I've known this for years. What you say will fall on deaf ears of well-intentioned people. I feel wretched for having brought 2 (wonderful) children into the world. But I began early presenting the option of not having children, and I think I've convinced them. The Buddhists have an idea like this: just stop having children. Eventually mother nature will be sick of us and just sort of *FLIK* us away. Ever look at a population map, where population is portrayed by black dots? Notice how most of the black dots cluster around rivers, river deltas, lakes? Kinda like bacteria disease bacteria around mucous membranes. Okay, none of this has anything to do with Checho's idea.

Okay, Tommy, here's the thing about your idea: how can we make money off it??!! : )

Checoslovaco,

I think you have a really good idea. There is a definite need for change to our current economic systems. A basic tenet of capitalism states that profit maximization is the most important aim of business. Many entrepreneurs and executives now want to use all aspects of their humanity at work not just their ability to make money. They feel one dimensional in the role that our current system has set them up in and they are looking for change. Humans are after all multidimensional with great depth and richness of abilities. Your idea is one way of working toward these changes.

Some really interesting things have been going on (slowly) over past 10 years. One notable achievement would be that Danone, a huge yoghurt maker in France has started a social business selling yoghurt to poor children and their families in Bangladesh. They managed to have this new company on the stock exchange even though the dividends are locked in a 2% and profits over that go into expanding the business, creating new products and so on. In other words, this is not a profit driven business and it has been accepted in a stock exchange and investors have put their money into it, even though they know they can get a better ROI elsewhere. The business is not losing money and doesn't depend of donations at all.

The products themselves are priced so that the very poor can afford them, you know, the dollar a day or less poor. It is rich in nutrients so the children get nutrients they are missing, the village women earn a wage for selling it, and local farmers get fair market value for their milk.

So many things that haven't happened before are possible. Sometimes, we need to not worry about how it happens now, or what the norm is now, but instead look at what would be possible if we dared to dream of a new way of doing business. We need to look at how we want it to work and move in that direction.

Read some stuff by Muhammed Yunus if you are interested in more and better information than I am giving you here. His ideas may also help you refine and clarify your idea. Then you could bring it back here and try again.

Here are some of my questions...

Who is voting on the ideas? Anyone, consumers of these products, the investors? --- One idea to improve the system is to also vote on whether you would actually use the product not just if you think it is a good idea or not. If you are not the target market or don't understand the target market, then you may not be the best person to judge the idea. A good example of this would be the celly wipes that someone posted awhile ago. A number of people didn't get it, which made sense since they were not the target market. I know the teen girl market quite well and can see the product doing really well in that market. How many teen girls voted in that round?

If it is not the investors then do the most popular ideas go on to investors? Do the investors then decide individually which ideas will get their money based on feedback from the general public? Or is it more like a mutual fund with the crowd being the fund manager and making the decisions for the investors?

The marketers, product developers, accountants, and whoever else works on the business... do they also get a cut or are they working for a wage?

I would love to hear more details. Keep working on it.

EthicalConsumer -

Danone is a well known brand and stable business so it had no trouble getting listed in the local stock market and lining up investors. This would NOT be the case for unknown startups.

Daraddishman -

Below is my call-to-action to Checoslovaco. Thanks for the suggestion.

Checoslovaco -

Oh, the good old days of Checkoslovakia...maybe between 1920 - 1938?

There is something concrete we could do together. Would you be interested in collaborating to fund and build CarbonTicker.com?

Hi Steve

I had a look on your site, I think there is a significant overlap in many areas.
http://www.cambrianh...er/ideas-id/EJwMKfE/

There is a door open to collaboration, even if non of those projects will be accomplished, this debate can take us further.

No time tonight guys, but I promise! Tomorrow! First thing on the morning !

Good morning !

Steve_I will, drop a separate comment on CarbonTicker site.

Ethic.._"Who is voting on the ideas? Anyone, consumers of these products, the investors? "
First I though about a general voting system, similar or indeed identical to the one on CH. Sponsored by Investors coming to the project. But this debate is showing this was a bit naive.
Now, I think the best way would be to sponsor the fund, from royalties of companies that will succeed in the project. That obviously means there will be not much money at the beggining. The fund will have to be gradualy build. Both, The crowd and the investors are making decision on where is the money going. Of course Investors can still make their investment in projects, if they win or not.

Well i do have a green idea that i would like to release onto the world. ;) It involves a process of carbon mitigation.

This is not really something to base a site off of this seems more of just a suggestion to have a idea warz tournament with only "green" ideas.

Kevin_You hit the nail! I know this will be probably too much of revision and maybe I should post it as separate idea, but I've done some thinking on this since my last post.

There is a section in my Idea I would like to give a special attention:
" Maybe this could attract people, who are not interested so much in business aspect of crowdsourcing, but more in its potential to change the world as such. People who wants to change the way we interact (with) and (mis)use our environment. Members of this project could be collaboratively looking for funding, already existing for Green initiatives out there. "
This project is not just about Cambrian House. My original idea was to build a collaboration platform (an open know how resource), for people coming from different web communities. There is many NGOs, small entrepreneurs, government organisations who would like to have a common platform to meet and discuss. Instead of trying to become big on the web, We will just focus on strategical communities opening a wide discussion and adding to catalogue. Perfect for crowdsourcing. Mainly if you ad "I just want to save the f"·%·n planet and I don't want a penny for doing it"

This are the sections of my site:

WEB FORUMS, BLOGS, ESHOPS ETC.

Rethos.com
Spacecollective.com
gobignetwork.com (Thanx Darradishman)
cambrianhouse.com

100s
1000s
10000s more.

Writing articles about different webs, forums and communities. Adding by hand to catalogue. Articles explaining how those sites and communities work and what are their goals or intentions. I am sure if you ask for them (The articles) many of them will have one in their drawer.

ORGANIZATIONS

NGOs, government funds, Investors, Banks, catalogue of green businesses,Local small biz support centers etc.

A detailed catalogue search database with content hand added by 1000s of people recruited from different forums.

OPEN SOURCE UNIVERSITY

Free learning materials and resources, open source software, freely available know how of any kind (if useful for business). $A$M$A$Z$O$N$,
Strong cooperation with groups operating on wikipedia.

Lot of those resources exist already in different places I just want to catalogue them in the right way.

FORUM

Big, big, super big, bulky, fat forum. With lot of different topics about business start ups, developments and how to make the things the right way to succeed.

PEOPLE

Facebook application. Sometimes there is harder to find your business partner than an investor.

BLOG

There must be strong Blog section as well and I think this will be also the best place to start.

Of course this will be a good resource for not-so-green businesess either, but I just want to put all that stuff in so they have to deal with "rubbish" as well. Bastards !!!!

This is something I'd very much like to see happen - see some of my forum posts! There are a lot of green ideas bouncing around on here and clearly some people who are passionate about the topic, so it would be nice to combine all of these efforts and try to actually get somewhere.

I'm not sure if a separate site is what's called for necessarily, but if that's what it takes then go for it.