Investor Blog
Below you will find Blog postings from this specific Investor.
Tim Vang |
14.11.2008 12:42:02 CET |
5 Comments
I am in close dialogue with an amazing clothing company;
Howies (I met them at
Wavelength and I truly fancy the road they travel) - browsing their site I stumbled upon the following list of benefits of a recession... I really like it, so I simply just want to share it with you as well as wish you a great weekend...
It causes you to get more creative.
It forces you to make the tough decisions.
It thins out the competition.
It makes you realize you can’t take anything for granted.
It reminds you that real wealth isn’t about the stuff you own.
It fosters out-of-the-box thinking.
It makes it easier to abandon business-as-usual.
It brings you back to the basics.
It accelerates change.
It causes you to be less wasteful.
Tim Vang |
27.10.2008 16:04:27 CET |
10 Comments
I am writing this post today, because I am wondering what keeps people, interested in MYC4, from going all the way??
The situation is; we have approximately 3,000 pending Investors, meaning several thousands of individuals that have pressed the “JOIN” button, received the confirmation mail, pressed the mail link but have not uploaded any funds to their Account… yet!
Hence, we have sent 970 questionnaires to this group of people to understand what keeps them from uploading funds to the platform (for the record, this group of people does not count in the +9,000 accounts).
We have received impressive 134 answers. Going through all the answers we spot two general answers/reflections:
1. ”It was difficult to upload funds to the platform, because you do not accept a credit card I have” The upload part is now fixed, seen from a Danish perspective, as you can now use Danish credit cards as well… so please do not hold yourself back on this front.
2. ”With the financial crisis lurking around the corner, I want to wait and see what will happen before I commit capital here”
Regarding the financial crisis (this is the real wondering part of my post!);
a) Yes, the global financial situation is on everybody’s mind and it is hard not feeling just a little uncertain of what will happen in the future, but imagine what it is like living with an even larger uncertainty all your life!!
b) MYC4 investments seem to be rather attractive (even after idle time, currency risk, etc. has been “dealt” with)
c) There are no fees when you invest via MYC4
d) Start small!! We advice people to upload smaller amounts in the beginning (you can start with as low as €15), get confident with how the system works and then upload more money when you have a better understanding of MYC4 – this said; small amounts do make an immense difference in Africa!!
So dear "pending Investors", I hope to see you actively aboard MYC4 soon…
Tim Vang |
23.10.2008 15:30:40 CET |
3 Comments
Last week I attended
Wavelength seminar at the
Sheepdrove Organic Farm in the middle of nowhere (with no mobile coverage!!). I would normally post right after such an event to give you my "here
& now thoughts", but I simply had the need to reflect on all the
different impressions, contacts, etc. before I could write this
post...
Let it be clear; it has been some of the best spent days in a long time
seen from a social entrepreneurial perspective. The diversity of app.
100
VERY influential people who are all tuned in to make the world a greater
place, truly has given me new angles of looking at
MYC4.
The interesting part is, that major part of the inspiration did
not come from people working with/in
Africa, but from people/organizations who are focusing on
solving inequalities in local
communities in the streets of for instance Liverpool. I truly admired how an organization like
FRC
(Furniture Resource Centre) was focusing on creating livelihoods and
new opportunities for long term unemployed people. They have existed 20
years and have truly made a difference. I really like the way that FRC
has build a business that is benefitting several groups of poor people;
creating jobs, refurbishing furniture to be sold at very low cost, etc.
There is always a solution and my key take away is: Often it is "just"
about somebody picking up the opportunity. Another very interesting
take away is: Stay with the core of your offering eventhough it is
tempting to embrace more elements that will make an even larger
difference.
Grameen Foundation had a co-speak together with Danone about
their joint partnership
which was
breath-taking!! The two have built a
yoghurt-factory in Bangladesh which should produce yoghurts containing
minerals and vitameens for the local poor people. This also created
several jobs (no expats was hired): sales people, factory workers, etc.
You can see pictures of their venture
here .
I asked Emmanuel Marchant from Danone, who was in charge of making the
factory become a reality, whether Africa was on the Danone radar. It
is!! Actually, Emmanuel find MYC4 interesting. I will soon speak with
him whether we should have "Investments of Crowds" make African plants
a reality...
MYC4 had a speak the first day where I took the participants on a
tour through the history, the platform and the vision of where we want
to take this. There was a lot of enthusiasm and super good feedback -
one even came and expressed: "Now the current financial system has
broken down, it is time to come with a new solution - MYC4 could very
well become the very first true Digital Democracy".
We now have some extremely interesting contacts that we are working the
way forward with. I will post about this when some more tangable hits the agenda.
Tim Vang |
14.10.2008 13:11:43 CET |
6 Comments
MYC4 builds on partnerships in order to provide you with the "full package". We coorporate with
organizations/businesses/individuals, that are the
best within their respective area, in order for us to focus on our core offering.
The other day I met with Ben White from
Africa Interactive - watch the movie on their front page, it tells their story and why MYC4 could be interested in working with them. I like the way they use mobile phones and the speed with which they upload the reports...
Below, Ben is summing up on our meeting about the way forward for the potential partnership... we are not lacking ideas!
Please feel free to reply if you have ideas/comments as to how we can build a sustainable model around reporting from the African entrepreneurs...
Tim Vang |
06.10.2008 17:27:16 CET |
3 Comments
Today we had Chuck Waterfield from
MicroFinance Transparency swing by MYC4 Head Quarter to give a
"Why transparency matters"
presentation to the entire team. Chuck has an extensive experience with
this topic as he has been working in the MF industry the last 24 years.
Chuck is definitely on a mission - as the name of his organization
reveals (registred in US as a 501(c3) not for profit) he wants to
promote transparent pricing in the microfinance industry . This is right up our alley and we see several ways to collaborate with him.
He started with an interesting analogy of the pawn industry in order to
give a picture of where the MF industry (financial services for the
poor) could go if transparency does not become widely accepted and used...
The pawn industry was founded in year 1461 by the Franciscan monks
(Northern Italy) as a do-good instrument to give the ordinary Joe the
opportunity to come with personal goods in exchange of cash.
Joe could then at a later stage, if his liquidity had improved, buy back his
goods. It was a proper instrument until it was "taken over" by the single-bottom line business!
We believe that business must be for a profit (in order to be
sustainable), but profit must be for a purpose (focus on a triple-bottom line: People,
Planet & Profit)...
APR
As we have experienced, it takes a lot of time and is very complex to
explain an crucial element like APR, but it is THE only way to go if
you want to become transparent. As Chuck explained; APR gives the
borrower the ability to compare where to borrow the money at the lowest
cost. Loans without APR may look good on the surface but after a little
"investigation" the loan truly does not look as appealing as before. As
heard in the industry:
"It is easier to hide than to explain interest
rates" - or even:
"I lie to help the poor"!!
There are several tools to hide the real cost of a loan - two of these instruments are:
1.
Flat fee (you pay interest of the initial loan amount throughout the loan) - 70-80% do flat fee in the MF industry.
2.
Savings - this sound as a good intention but actually a
proportion of your loan is "locked" at an interest rate lower than what
is being charged - you can say that you are borrowing your own money,
but at a cost!!
The mission of
promoting transparent pricing in the microfinance industry may
seem close to impossible, but Chuck "only" needs repayment schedules
from MFIs which enables him to derive APR for each of the players (he
has a good strategy to "ensure" that data will come floating in). When
data is processed he will use his website to create the overview.
Chuck will prove concept in two non-African countries, but we would
very much like his service to be available soon in the African
countries we operate also. It costs around $20,000 to get a transparent
overview for an average sized country (depends on the number of MFIs).
Ideas as to funding these countries are of course welcome...
Tim Vang |
01.10.2008 20:18:45 CET |
4 Comments
The date is 01.10.2008 and yes it is one year ago MYC4 went online!!
A little reflection; think about what we have done in just one year. Then think about what we will achieve within the next year...
Thank you all for the support - MYC4 would simply not be where we are today without you!!
Tim Vang |
01.10.2008 15:31:19 CET |
0 Comments
I was so fortunate as to have the possibility to speak at two very interesting seminars last week; Global Empowerment Meeting at Harvard University and a BoP conference at Helsinki School of Economics.
Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University has established an
Empowerment Lab based on the following belief:
”Inclusion into a market economy is a crucial component of economic welfare, and large portions of the populations in the U.S. and developing countries lack productive access to markets (such as banking, insurance, and healthcare), mediated by effective products and services. For most of the world, access, and thereby choice, is severely limited due to market failures that result in few, uncompetitive products. This is perhaps most apparent in the global banking sector that often has little to offer for a majority of the population.”
+60 people attended their very first annual meeting with specific focus on ”financing the unbankable” and I must say that I was rather impressed with the level of people that they have gathered for this seminar – academics, politicians, business people… the lot!
Besides getting a lot of the latest inspiration within this area from listening to the others, I was part of the second panel (business/entrepreneur board) and got to present MYC4 for these great thinkers/influencers/doers. I received overwhelming feedback and one element clearly stood out: They liked the fact that we are doing this from the Bottom of the Pyramid on the Investor side as well, it is not just Governments, and businesses that have the key to do something about it… YOU are the solution as well! I fancy to state:
”Poverty is not the problem (I am not saying that poverty is not a problem!), it is how we deal with poverty that is the real problem. Striving to become the first company in world, owned by the world (6.6bn $1 shares) truly spun their brains and hearts. I am very happy to see how a crowd like this is receiving a vision of this kind…
Dani Rodrik has posted a
great post about MYC4 and I can tell without accessing his Google Analytics that he has many readers and many interesting readers. His post has effected in several other blog posts around the globe as well as we have been contacted by rather large media which are interested in writing about us – more on this soon… cheers Dani!!
The seminar in Helsinki was a bigger crowd of people and more traditional set-up – a speaker goes to the stage and presents for the +150 attendances followed by a couple of questions. I included the 6.6bn $1 shares in my presentation and outlined that this could be in form of the bar code on a Coca Cola or as a preinstalled widget on a cell phone (”Intel inside” thinking)… the way could be led by, let’s say Nokia! Yes, Nokia’s headquarter is based in Helsinki and several people from the 38% world market leader was present at the BoP conference. I exchanged business card with one of them that said that she would very much like to hear more about this idea – I will keep you posted on this.
(Sorry there is no pictures in this post... I needed to get this post online here and now as there is now a direct link to my blog in the right hand tools of MYC4. Yes, pictures will come in the future so it is more digistable).
Tim Vang |
01.10.2008 15:19:41 CET |
0 Comments
After quite some time with no pulse on my blog – to be exact I haven’t been active here since 12.11.2007 14:52:31 CET – I will now end ”radio silence” and start posting here again.
It is actually rather interesting to start up again taking into consideration that we now know a whole lot more about MYC4 than we did when I started blogging in 2006.
My focus for future posts will be on things that are happening internally in MYC4, the road ahead for us, interesting people we get to meet, interesting articles I read, etc. etc. etc.
As always, I am open for suggestions as to posts, so keep ’em coming! I truly look forward to talk to you here… please feel free to join the dialogue here and now!
Administrator - Tim |
12.11.2007 14:52:31 CET |
7 Comments
Finally we have moved into our new offices...
An old school in the center of Copenhagen has be rebuild to accommodate us and we are so happy as it truly fits our needs today as well as in the future!!
We are not 100% in place yet, but one of the very important elements have been installed...
Just a short post to show you MyC4 headquarter.
Administrator - Tim |
09.11.2007 17:07:34 CET |
2 Comments
People: Population: 37 million (July 2007 est)Official Language: English and Kiswahili (12 December 1963 from UK) Age Structure (2007 est.): 0-14 years: 42.1% (male 7,826,804/female 7,720,456)Population below poverty line: 50% (2000 est.)Capital City: NairobiNatural Resources: Limestone, soda ash, salt, gemstones, flourspar, zinc, diatomite, gypsum, wildlife, hydropowerTerrain: Low plains rise to central highlands bisected by Great Rift Valley. Fertile plateau in westClimate: Varies from tropical along coast to arid in enteriorGDP - Composition per sector (2006 est.): Agriculture: 24%