The Mayan Circle is upon us and a creator bringing the New Age... the Age of Open Collaboration not Closed Institutions.

Pictured in the middle is the bringer of the new age and on his back the disruptive solution that ushers it in. That solution is O!F. 

Michael J. Trout, died Dec 25, 2011 and was reborn The Mayan warrior to bring in the New Calendar. On his back he carried OS! 

The Story for the Our Calendar. 
For the last 5000 years the closed institution has ruled humanity. I believe 12.12.12 that will change. 


It started with a strong tribal leaders that became chiefs by enslaving rivals. Fearful of others killing them they sought mystics to aid them and in turn these anointed them into Kings with divine right of rule; How in turn reciprocated creating and empowering religion. And these together these leaders become fearful and powerful tyrants. 


As empires grew Innovation brought about a new class "the merchant" to feed and fund wars. But over time these usurped the tyrants in great rebellions: Magna Carta and the French Revolution. Further Innovation created the closed corporation and these expand into global territories and as innovation spiraled it gave these corporations the ability to influence and control leaders and set policy that would take advantage of the majority -- Corporate  greed is spinning everything out of control: Climate, Fishery's, Forests, etc... A tipping occurred when rampant corporate banking greed caused markets to collapse and trillions of dollars were allocated to save the 1%  from ruin... for their "greater" good.   

Depicted is a peasant, a teacher,  man of no means, but possessing the vision to see and bring about the New Age of collaboration.  On his back be carries his solution a gift to humanity. One that will free the 99%  and create a better world.

But as as markets crashed and millions lost their homes. One man sat on the floor cross legged leaning over his laptop and meditated in the birth place of Zen working on a solution to bring about change. He realized that the root problem is the "Closed" Startup the starting point of  ALL selfish closed institutions that care only for rewarding a few stakeholders at the sacrifice of the plant.  His mantra introduce a new startup (a foundup) that would bring about a new kind of selfless corporation and then have them invest net profits to launch more foundups. And on Christmas Day 2011 he became aware of his true purpose and duty to humanity.     

12.12.12 - Day of the Circle. It is the Day the Great Snake takes the last bite and devours itself ending the Mayan Circle.  It is the day Open Startup !ncubator will be openly launched and all its IP placed in the creative commons. Anyone will be able to talk my invention and use it for good. I would love to give you a glimpse.

Let's imagine 2012 is 2000... and if we are replayed thing all over again with new players... A Samson and Goliath. But in this case it's the 99% and against 1%... but no stones will be thrown... just dollars.  So who are the PLAYERS?

• "Ycombinators and all its incubator clones + ALL the current crowdfunding platforms and all its Kiva clones (Kickstarter, Profounder, GrowVc, Indiegogo) PLUS all the Business Growth Platforms (any business app for managing biz development/growth)" and Displacement of Developers as the bottleneck to launching web-startups. These three markets will play the role of  MicroSoft Encarta and Britannica 
• and little unknown FOUNDUPS® OS! platform plays Wikipedia  the Tampa "joke" trying to disrupt the a heavily funded product from the World's most powerful Valley company at!

Let's THROW IN SOME WILD CARDS (PAIN) that didn't exist in 2000:

• Let's pretend 2012 marks the launch of a new $144BN market that ONLY OS! has known for 2 years it was coming and designed everything around it.  
• A new Access to Capital Crowdfunding Bill, HR 2930, passed the House with 96% support and it has presidential backing, called the Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act. 
• And for added kicks let's pretend OCCUPY and the 1% are at their wits end on how quell their "peasants, surfs and slaves to debt." Their precious workforce, that they have ruled for 5000 years, is threatening rebellion.
• And this is playing out by some fluke in 2012 the year that was predicted 5000 years ago by a dead civilization to end their calendar... The Mayan Calendar. 

OUTCOME? -- If by chance history does repeat itself then it just might be OS!. But this time the stakes are massive.

• A new corporate model that is selfless and interested in the greater good for ALL mankind. A Model that is EXTREMELY HIGHLY SCALEABLE -- The OPEN CORP.
• Introduces the Greater Stakeholder to the corp for the 1st time
• Makes the CEO accountable Greater Stakeholders
• CEO is ISO 26000 responsible
• Expands the Lesser Stakeholders to include employees
• Lesser stakeholders ratify CEO and board appointments and any attempts to change Corporate Charter (constitution)
• Lesser Stakeholder decide what Percentage of net profits are invested in to Open Startups (20-80%)
• This amount is divided equally by Lessers Stakeholders and invested into the Open Startups BY the Lesser Stakeholders 

Is the root OCCUPY problem Greed, greed, greed... or is it something simpler...?

I recently got an email... "Mike, I recently watched one of your video's on Youtube. It definitely struck a chord with me." He goes on to say:

"There is one point which you make in your video with which I do not fully agree, however. I cannot take credit for this idea...it comes from my friend and author, Charles Eisenstein. In his recent book, Sacred Economics, he points out that greed is a symptom of an inaccurate perception of scarcity. And, that this perception of scarcity is what we need to be addressing. One human being to another...I heartedly encourage you to take a look at Chuck's writing. Here's a link to the passage to which I refer:" Greg Buxton, COO

The article Greg is referring to is rather lengthy but worth the read... But I think Greg thinks I think human greed is the underlying problem... I don't. I think that it's a symptom of the problem.  Here is the opening of  Charles article...

"For years, following conventional opinion, I thought the answer was “greed.” Why do sweatshop factories push wages down to the bare minimum? Greed. Why do people buy gas-guzzling SUVs? Greed. Why do pharmaceutical companies suppress research and sell drugs that they know are dangerous? Greed. Why do tropical fish suppliers dynamite coral reefs? Why do factories pump toxic waste into the rivers? Why do corporate raiders loot employee pension funds? Greed, greed, greed." Chapter 2 The Illusion of Scarcity

There are millions now OCCUPYing because of a feeling that they are being ripped off my the 1% and that their greed is driving everything. Charles Eisenstein goes on to explain what be means...: 


"Money, which has turned abundance into scarcity, engenders greed. But not money per se—only the kind of money we use today, money that embodies our cultural sense of self, our unconscious myths, and an adversarial relationship with nature thousands of years in the making. All of these things are changing today. Let us look, then, at how money came to so afflict our minds and ways, so that we might envision how the money system might change with them."

I agree with this sentiment. However, my contention is greed is a symptom of the corporate 1.0 model that places revenue creation as the MOST important goal superseding ALL others. And at looking at the corp 1.0 model I realized that the way these companies come into existence is at the root of the problem. The most powerful ones are created by investments from the 1% (angels, VCs, institutional investors) . And remember that less than 1% of pre-seed startups and ideas become seeded early stage startups, and is it a any coincidence that they need the backing of the 1% to make it? I don't think so... these investors DEMAND a return and this demand turns the corporations into greed machines driven by the obligations of a few investors.

The closed "Startup" is a incubator for selfish 1.0 corporation. 

2012 - The Year for Crowdfunding Startups.

There are some exciting bills that look to disrupt SECs and Angelgate's (accredited investors that are currently the ONLY ones allowed to invest in startups) grip on Startups. Here are the ones that could play an important role in helping startups.

HR 2930  Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act

Passed the House on November 3 with a 96% bipartisan support. It is now in the Senate.

BILL UPDATE: CROWDFUNDING
We hand-picked these related bills, which might be of interest to you. We hope you'll weigh in on POPVOX and share these bills with your friends and networks. (New to POPVOX? Learn why it works.)

-- The CROWDFUND Act (S 1970)(Capital Raising Online While Deterring Fraud and Unethical Non-Disclosure Act) 
Allows new websites to easily connect investors to small businesses, while minimizing the risk of fraud and loss for our most vulnerable investors, according to the bill sponsors. Weigh in at https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s1970


-- The Democratizing Access to Capital Act (S 1791)
Allows small companies to offer shares of stock directly to ordinary investors through established and vetted peer-to-peer platforms, according to the bill sponsor.
Weigh in at https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s1791

-- HR 2471 
Permits a video tape service provider to obtain a consumer's consent through the Internet and in advance for a set period or until such consent is withdrawn. This bill would enable, for example, Netflix to integrate social sharing with Facebook. 
Passed the House and now goes to the Senate for consideration. Weigh in at https://popvox.com/bills/us/112/hr2471 


-------------

Trying to compell Sramana's 1m/1m to get behind FOUNDUPS® Open Startup vision - I know I am shameless. Her answer... No $$ no play... how narrow minded of her.

Below is an email (edited) I sent out last week to Sramana Mitra who is behind her 1m/1m initiative - to get one million startups to pay her $1000 for access to her closed program. 

Her free pitch offer is merely a way to promote her closed fee based service. And if you sign-up you will be spammed with emails telling you why you should pay $1000 and be part of your program.

It's a shame because if she REALLY wanted to he a force for good and launch 1m.1m startups she would embrace our FOUNDUPS® open startup vision. Ask yourself... Is 1M/1M really scaleable using a closed framework that requires founders to pay $1,000 a year to play? Answer is no. However, if you have the $1,000 to pay her maybe you will find it beneficial... tbh, If I had $1,000 I would gladly spend it. But FOUNDUPS® is a bootstrapped pre-seed, pre-revenue startup and as a rule we don't spend funds on maybes.

Our FOUNDUPS® Open Startup initiative is free and open to all. I would love for us to work together. But Ms. Mitra "Be Good" paradigm differs from mine significantly.

-----------------

Thanks Sramana, but I am terribly sorry I don't have $1,000 in my bank account to even consider paying for your "valuable" program. I am unemployed and lost my paying job due to the recession in May and am supported by my wife as I bootstrap FOUNDUPS® with equity allocations. FOUNDUPS®, like Linkedin, Twitter, Google and Facebook were all once pre-revenue too. But unlike them we don't have an Angelgate network to get us going.   

I can however, offer you equity at $0.01pv (100,000 shares) in lieu of payment. Tbh, I look at FOUNDUPS® equity as no different to the FED looks at the dollar. And the more FOUNDUPS® Open Startups that launch over the next 4 years, just as Gmail, Vark, YouTube, etc., have become part of Google Corporation, the higher our valuation will be at our Dec 2012 private placement. We are not launching one startup we will be building the open collaborative framework capable of launching 1000s and just as Google share value has gone up as a result of new offerings so will ours.  It's just a matter of time. We will be launching OpenStartups.org by the end of the year. 

If you really care about launching 1m startups would you not be flexible with payment options? Would you not want to make your services available to a greater body of startup? Would you not be interested in adding our 100+ FOUNDUPS® Open Startups that could foreseeably bring you potentially more customers? and why wouldn't you want to offer our solution to those that can't afford your services? Or at least introduce the concept and then let them decide.

Visit foundups.org and see many of our volunteer team stem form Inc. 100 companies such as IBM, MS, Google and AOL. 

As they say united one can achieve more than alone and I would love to offer your service to our Open Startups providing it is quid pro quo. We have over 4000 subscribers on Ideaswatch.com (our newest addition to FOUNDUPS®)  and over 300 ideas that we will be putting though our open startup framework "O!F" that I have been developing and pioneering for over the last 2 years. Out goal is to see launch 100+ as open startups and see many will become become part of our offering or independent FOUNDUPS® Open Corps in December 2012. Here are some of them. Take a few minutes and learn about our Open Corp vision. FOUNDUPS® is the World's 1st Open Corp.

I want to help 1m+ IDEAS and PRE-SEED Startups to become SEEDED open startups without  $1000 entry barrier, but instead educate them on "Being Good" by becoming a FOUNDUPS® Open Corp... that will invest 20-80% of annual net profits into FOUNDUPS® Open Startups and adopt the recommended changes to their corporate charter. 

Your gut response may be that offering this for free is crazy. But is it? Wikipedia created an encyclopedia... and Facebook has grown to over 800m members. Our collaborative Open !ncubator Framework is highly scaleable too. You might know a meditation practice of Vipassana from India. It is followed by millions and if offer a framework for anyone to achieve self actualization at no up front cost. Instead they say pay what you feel you got out of it, this is our model and we recommend this... 

1. If we help you launch by building your team and funding you via our free crowdfunding platform consider allocating 10% warrant stake to FOUNDUPS® - 6% will be shared with our Open Startup community.
2. Or consider becoming an FOUNDUPS® Open Corp - a qualified independent subsidiary of FOUNDUPS® that invest 20%-80% of net profits into new FOUNDUPS® Open Startups. 

FOUNDUPS® Open Startup is built on the same "Be Good" dhamma framework and I would hope that 

you would see the value in it for all entrepreneurs in achieving the 1m/1m goal of yours that I wholeheartedly support. 

  

This Weeks in Startups - Only 1% of Startups Succeed.

Only 1% of startups succeed is NOT true. Because there are 3 stages to a startup and at each stage their chance of success changes. Here is a better way to put it:

Less than 1% of Pre-Seed Startups succeed to become Seeded startups. However is true. 

Have you ever considered why only 1% of startups succeed from pre-seed to seeded? Could it have anything to do with the fact that Seed investors make up only 1% of of the entrepreneur community? I am sure there is other factors but a funding bottleneck is a big one.

Let's define some terms...

• Pre-Seed - these are startup ideas and newly incorporated business ventures that have less than $100,000 in net revenue or investments. They usually have NO accedited investor involvement 
• Seed - these are incorporated business ventures with over $100,000 - $2m net revenue OR seed investments in that range form accredited investors - angels. 
• Seeded - these are incorporated business ventures with over $2,000,000 in net revenue OR funding from acredited and institutional investors other wise known as venture capitalists. A common name used for Seeded Startups is "early stage" 

It is obvious by looking online that people (even luminaries Like Steve Chase) are clueless on how to define a startup...

This is how Steve Chase Startup America defines a startup... "Holy cow, our company is growing!" -- Seed? and "Our revenue and staff are growing exponentially" -- Seeded?   Wouldn't it be MUCH clearer for them to use Pre-Seed, Seed and Seeded?

The root of the problem is that there is no standard for defining a startup. Here is my attempt at doing it and I think it comes a long way in helping entrepreneurs. When you hear advice the first question that needs to be asked is "WHAT stage is the speaker referring too?" 99% of the time the VC is talking Seeded and the Angel the Seed stages... however, 99% of us are in the Pre-Seed stage! And only 1% of pre-seed startup get the funding. That is why I founded FOUNDUPS® and the Open Startup

How how do we define a startup?

Open Startup (FOUNDUPS®) -- "A startup is an active non-incorporated strategic Initiative or newly formed legal entity engaged in a highly risky new venture in pursuit of a product, service or solution that aims to solve a significant pain of a niche customer base. It either has investors willing to get it to its customers in a specific time-frame or customers supporting it financially. The Startup is broken up into 3 stages: 

1. Pre-Seed, which encompasses active startup ideas such as Startup weekend startups. At the pre-seed stage startups have secured under $100K in net revenue or investments. 
2. Seed, the startup has secured over $100K, but under $2m in investments or net revenue and has accredited investors known as angels or seed investors. 
3. Seeded (replacement for early stage), the startup has secured or netted over $2m in revenue or has accredited or institutional investors (VCs).

New Entrepreneur Bill is getting insiders to acknowledge the "Valley" Startup Angelgate without actually saying it.

the startup of the 99%

Simply put, Angelgate is a collusion of "Valley" Angles to Control Startup Deals. Check out Angellist's Angelgate.co Angels. And the new Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act (HR 2930) is getting the ugly truth out! It's music to my ears.

For the last 12 months I have been singing the Angelgate.co insider Valley Angel Song that few would admitted exist (Even though Dave "likes to say f$#king" McClure was outed). The Dirty little secret is if you do a startup you have less than 1% chance of success and EVEN Dave admits this. Here is a talk on it I did.

This Week In Startups finally picked up what I had been saying for nearly a years now -- that less than 1% of Pre-Seed startups make it to the Seeded level (when VCs and institutional investors buy in) and that if you are NOT in the Silicon Valley "clique" their is little to NO hope of success.  And this what the Bill is going is going to help to significantly disrupt by:

1. Allowing the creation of professional fundraising firms like NCDS that has raised over $1.6BN for npo strategic Initiatives (a fancy name for a startup). FOUNDUPS® will offer a similiar serices for it's Open Startups (a startup that n1 can join).
2. It will allow the $144BN that according Profounder slips under the SEC radar to become legitimized investments and FFFs can become Micro-Seed Investors and come out of the closet and get equity they deserve. These guys in the past get hoodwinked by the angelgate.co Valley Angels. 
3. It will allow for Open Startups (not closed Lean "Valley" Startups) to become the way startups are developed and launched. Open Startups are startups ANYONE can join. A "foundup®" is an open startup that uses our Open !ncubator Framework.

It is SO great to hear others admitting to the existence to the incestuous Valley angelgate.co startup community. Thanks @jonstokes @markfidelman

The HR 2930 is a Massive OCCUPY Wall Street win. It WILL severely disrupt Wall Street bank gatekeeper's control on IPOs and angelgate.co angles who gets to benefit from them! Here is what @jonstokes of Wired.com said in response to recent article  who sees the Bill Death certificate for Angelgate.co Investors.

"If the bill passes (watch the latest Congressional Bill Progress), you can say good bye to the Professional Angel Investment Community as we know it today."  @markfidelman


"Let’s face it, the Professional Angel community is insular. They invest in each others deals, they invest in similar types of deals, and they invest in who they know. Why? Because it’s safe and they have a legitimate need to protect their client’s capital. But that has led to a lack of investment diversity and has created an investment “group think” that is limiting the potential of the community." @Jonstokes

HR 2930 is possibly the most important bill for entrepreneurs to have passed the House in the last 75 years! Please take a moment to thank and show your support.   

Foundups.TV: Crowdfunding House Bill H.R. 2930 Passed Nov. 3rd 2011 - Death to Angels?

There is a talk I did on the new Crowdfunding Bill that passed the house 407 to 17 (Who were the 17 that opposed it!?)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TARP, FINANCIAL SERVICES AND BAILOUTS OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PROGRAMS HOLDS A HEARING ON CONNECTING INVESTORS AND JOB CREATORS

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 (Annotations by AnnoAds.com)

Here is a transcript of the talk. Below are direct links to them.

1. REP. QUIGLEY
2. MEREDITH B. CROSS, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF CORPORATION FINANCE, SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
3. DANA MAURIELLO, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, PROFOUNDER
4. JEFF LYNN, CEO, SEEDRS
5. SHERWOOD NEISS, COFOUNDER, FLAVORX
6. MICHAEL MIGLIOZZI, MANAGING PARTNER, FORZA MICHELE

Here is a great article.