As promised, here's what I learned from my entrepreneurship class last quarter:
First off, Sindrian Arts, at least my current vision of it, is what is know as a 'lifestyle' startup, as opposed to a 'foundation' or 'gazelle' startup. A foundation startup is like an inventor's project, but on a larger scale: the entire business is centered around the research and development of a new idea which is then sold to another firm to utilize. My class did not spend much time on these, focusing more on gazelle startups. Gazelles are more like what most people think of when they think of startups: it's designed to grow as much as possible as quickly as possible so that it can be sold for a huge profit a few years down the line. These are the types of business venture capitalists like to invest in. Lifestyle startups, on the other hand, could be seen as the gazelle's little cousin. They tend to be much less ambitious, focusing more on creating a stable small business then a national firm with explosive growth. As I mentioned before, the current version of the Sindiran Arts business plan has two distinct phases, and the first phase falls into the lifestyle category.
See, the mission of Sindrian Arts is to help create a new manufacturing paradigm based upon (among other things) decentralization. I want to help create a community of small, local businesses that collectively compete with big-box stores. The first phase of this is to create a model for success, so I need to create a living laboratory for my ideas. Since the end goal is to help create lots of small business, this laboratory will be a small business itself. Once I've refined and proven my ideas, I can then move on to the second phase of the business where I become an evangelical consultant to help others create the same kind of business.
Now, this is what I learned: most people are not interested in investing in lifestyle startups. This is one of the reasons I didn't write the Sindrian Arts business plan for the class: the class was geared towards writing business plans that would be attractive to investors. This also tells me that when I start looking for seed money, VCs are NOT where I should look. In looking at alternate sources of funding I came across Kickstarter. Through Kickstarter, I could raise the right amount of money with very few strings attached. Not only that, but there have been other CNC-based projects on there that have been very successful. Sounds like a good match!
This is fascinating to me, David. I appreciate understanding your approach and long-range goals!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Now, I would love to know about your choice of the name "Sindrian" - what can you tell me?
There's a character in Norse mythology named Sindri. He's a dwarf who, along with his brother Brokkr, made many magical items, including Thor's hammer, Mjollnir. I choose this name because of the connecting to making neat stuff, and because it sounds cool.
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