Cescalouise and I have started using Wunderlist to keep track of shared to-dos (bills to pay, stuff to buy, etc). I’ve been a user of Wunderlist for a number of years now and have written about it before.
The shared lists in Wunderlist actually seem to be working for us. Whenever she adds or updates an item, I get a notification, and vice versa. This is helpful, for me at least, and can hopefully help her get less annoyed at me for forgetting things :)
I mentioned yesterday that I thought it was working pretty well, and her response was: “we’ll see. systems cover up symptoms.” Which is a fair point, I think. It’s easy for me to waste time fiddling around with a perfect system and feel like I’m making a lot of progress, while not actually changing the underlying thing (in this case, not paying attention to things as much as I should).
In this particular case I am hopeful that the system will help solve the root problem, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
There are at least two startups that I know of (Pave and Upstart) that facilitate VC-style equity investment in individuals. Upstart describes this as “the startup is you”.
In both cases, the idea is as follows: raise money from backers in exchange for a percentage of your future earnings. The idea here is that individuals, whether they are starting a company or restructuring their finances in some other way, can benefit from some amount of capital to take income pressure off of them for some period of time. That might give someone the opportunity to explore a product or company idea, or might give them the opportunity to do some other kind of life change (moving, having a child, etc.).
At USV, we were discussing this whole phenomenon a few months ago, and the general feeling in the room was that it felt a little icky to invest in individuals this way. Like indentured servitude. And that it runs the risk of striking a bad deal for those taking the cash, that they’ll resent later on.
I understand that perspective, but I think the view on this changes a lot if, rather than as an alternative to traditional equity investing / fundraising, you look at it as an alternative to debt. From that perspective, I think it starts to look a lot friendlier to the entrepreneurs / individuals.
Cescalouise and I have started using Wunderlist to keep track of shared to-dos (bills to pay, stuff to buy, etc). I’ve been a user of Wunderlist for a number of years now and have written about it before.
The shared lists in Wunderlist actually seem to be working for us. Whenever she adds or updates an item, I get a notification, and vice versa. This is helpful, for me at least, and can hopefully help her get less annoyed at me for forgetting things :)
I mentioned yesterday that I thought it was working pretty well, and her response was: “we’ll see. systems cover up symptoms.” Which is a fair point, I think. It’s easy for me to waste time fiddling around with a perfect system and feel like I’m making a lot of progress, while not actually changing the underlying thing (in this case, not paying attention to things as much as I should).
In this particular case I am hopeful that the system will help solve the root problem, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
There are at least two startups that I know of (Pave and Upstart) that facilitate VC-style equity investment in individuals. Upstart describes this as “the startup is you”.
In both cases, the idea is as follows: raise money from backers in exchange for a percentage of your future earnings. The idea here is that individuals, whether they are starting a company or restructuring their finances in some other way, can benefit from some amount of capital to take income pressure off of them for some period of time. That might give someone the opportunity to explore a product or company idea, or might give them the opportunity to do some other kind of life change (moving, having a child, etc.).
At USV, we were discussing this whole phenomenon a few months ago, and the general feeling in the room was that it felt a little icky to invest in individuals this way. Like indentured servitude. And that it runs the risk of striking a bad deal for those taking the cash, that they’ll resent later on.
I understand that perspective, but I think the view on this changes a lot if, rather than as an alternative to traditional equity investing / fundraising, you look at it as an alternative to debt. From that perspective, I think it starts to look a lot friendlier to the entrepreneurs / individuals.
My favorite story from this era is the story of how transit agencies came to adopt open data. Now, in 2013, it seems obvious that transit agencies would publish schedule, route, and real-time data in a machine-readable format for developers to build apps with. But back in 2008 & 2009, it was actually a huge struggle. There were two prevailing forces: 1) agencies not wanting to publish data at all, and going after developers who were scraping / using it anyway and 2) very slow-moving internal discussions around the development of an industry-led standard.
Those two forces were enough to basically keep the open transit data movement grounded. A little known fact outside the civic data world is that what made open transit data work was an outside force: Google. When Google Transit launched in 2005, they worked with Portland’s TriMet to design a new, lightweight, web-friendly open transit data spec: GTFS. That data was not only available to Google Transit, but also to anyone else who wanted to build with it.
Over time, more and more agencies began publishing their data in GTFS, drawn by the traffic that Google Transit saw. In effect, Google had created a “data magnet” — powered by their audience and by a lightweight web standard:
This was a tough lesson to learn but eventually more and more agencies got it: it was more powerful to have their data in Google’s app than to have visitors to their website. Or, as Steven Van Roekel, then US CIO and former FCC managing director said in 2011: “In a perfect world, no one should have to visit the FCC website.”
The big idea in all of this is that through open data and standards & api-based interoperability, it’s possible not just to build more “civic apps”, but to make all apps more civic:
So in a perfect world, I’d not only be able to get my transit information from anywhere (say, Citymapper), I’d be able to read restaurant inspection data from anywhere (say, Foursquare), be able to submit a 311 request from anywhere (say, Twitter), etc.
These examples only scratch the surface of how apps can “become more civic” (i.e., integrate with government / civic information & services). And that’s only really describing one direction: apps tapping into government information and services.
Another, even more powerful direction is the reverse: helping government tap into the people-power in web networks. In fact, I heard an amazing stat earlier this year:
In other words, helping all apps “be more civic”, rather than just building more civic apps. I think there is a ton of leverage there, and it’s a direction that has just barely begun to be explored.
I know from personal experience how it feels to have debt hanging over you. It’s a bad feeling (not to mention a source of chronic stress and illness), and something to be avoided if you can do it. And mismanaging debt from commercial banks is another reason why it’s expensive to be poor. But for many folks, it’s the only choice.
Personal equity, on the other hand, creates a different alignment between the investors and individuals. Everyone is bought into the individuals’ success. This is the same dynamic that makes traditional equity investing work so well.
I’m a firm believer that we are just scratching the surface when it comes using the internet to empower individuals in new ways. In finance, we’re seeing that everywhere — for individuals, in the debt (LendingClub, Prosper) and philanthropy (Kickstarter, Indiegogo) spaces, and for companies in equity (AngelList, CircleUp) and debt (Funding Circle, C2FO). Personal equity is a natural extension of that, and seems worthy of exploring.
My favorite story from this era is the story of how transit agencies came to adopt open data. Now, in 2013, it seems obvious that transit agencies would publish schedule, route, and real-time data in a machine-readable format for developers to build apps with. But back in 2008 & 2009, it was actually a huge struggle. There were two prevailing forces: 1) agencies not wanting to publish data at all, and going after developers who were scraping / using it anyway and 2) very slow-moving internal discussions around the development of an industry-led standard.
Those two forces were enough to basically keep the open transit data movement grounded. A little known fact outside the civic data world is that what made open transit data work was an outside force: Google. When Google Transit launched in 2005, they worked with Portland’s TriMet to design a new, lightweight, web-friendly open transit data spec: GTFS. That data was not only available to Google Transit, but also to anyone else who wanted to build with it.
Over time, more and more agencies began publishing their data in GTFS, drawn by the traffic that Google Transit saw. In effect, Google had created a “data magnet” — powered by their audience and by a lightweight web standard:
This was a tough lesson to learn but eventually more and more agencies got it: it was more powerful to have their data in Google’s app than to have visitors to their website. Or, as Steven Van Roekel, then US CIO and former FCC managing director said in 2011: “In a perfect world, no one should have to visit the FCC website.”
The big idea in all of this is that through open data and standards & api-based interoperability, it’s possible not just to build more “civic apps”, but to make all apps more civic:
So in a perfect world, I’d not only be able to get my transit information from anywhere (say, Citymapper), I’d be able to read restaurant inspection data from anywhere (say, Foursquare), be able to submit a 311 request from anywhere (say, Twitter), etc.
These examples only scratch the surface of how apps can “become more civic” (i.e., integrate with government / civic information & services). And that’s only really describing one direction: apps tapping into government information and services.
Another, even more powerful direction is the reverse: helping government tap into the people-power in web networks. In fact, I heard an amazing stat earlier this year:
In other words, helping all apps “be more civic”, rather than just building more civic apps. I think there is a ton of leverage there, and it’s a direction that has just barely begun to be explored.
I know from personal experience how it feels to have debt hanging over you. It’s a bad feeling (not to mention a source of chronic stress and illness), and something to be avoided if you can do it. And mismanaging debt from commercial banks is another reason why it’s expensive to be poor. But for many folks, it’s the only choice.
Personal equity, on the other hand, creates a different alignment between the investors and individuals. Everyone is bought into the individuals’ success. This is the same dynamic that makes traditional equity investing work so well.
I’m a firm believer that we are just scratching the surface when it comes using the internet to empower individuals in new ways. In finance, we’re seeing that everywhere — for individuals, in the debt (LendingClub, Prosper) and philanthropy (Kickstarter, Indiegogo) spaces, and for companies in equity (AngelList, CircleUp) and debt (Funding Circle, C2FO). Personal equity is a natural extension of that, and seems worthy of exploring.
