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24

Emergency crowdfunding [not relevant]

asked 2015-11-19 22:53:39 +0300

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updated 2015-11-20 00:17:31 +0300

Toxip gravatar image

With Jolla having a financial crisis how could we as a community help them survive. Here are a couple of suggestions on how we could help Jolla.

Bitcoin crowdfunding with multisig wallet

First we setup a multi signature bitcoin wallet with 3 different keys. In order to withdraw funds from the wallet, it would require at least 2 out of 3 keys to validate the transaction. 2 out of 3 keys would belong to key members of the community and 1 to a Jolla employee. If we can't get a hold of a Jolla employee willing to participate in this, the 3rd key would be given to another member of the community.

With this setup we would be able to gather funds without having to put trust to just one person so no one would be able to steal the money for selfish purposes. Majority of the keys would be held in the hands of the community so if something goes wrong with Jolla, money could still be returned back to the donators. People willing to donate other cryptocurrencies like dogecoin would be able to do so easily through https://shapeshift.io

Members of the community participating in this could be decided by vote here on Jolla together. How does this sound? For more information on the multisig bitcoin wallet creation process, visit https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multisignature.

Invesdor crowdfunding platform

Invesdor is a crowdfunding platform that operates on a different model than the reward based kickstarter and indiegogo. Instead of giving out rewards to the backers, invesdor is equity-based. This means backers become share holders instead. This is in many ways a lot better than reward based since it gives the backers something real and not just some vague promise of getting something in the future. It is also one of the crowdfunding platforms if not the only one that is operating in Finland despite the strict fundraising laws. This would probably be better alternative to kickstarter or indiegogo since you'd get shares instead of a reward. Many people may be reluctant on donating more money for the company when they haven't delivered the Jolla tablets yet. Investments are accepted from all over the world. For more information visit https://www.invesdor.com/.

Indiegogo/kickstarter

Using either of these reward-based crowdfunding platform, Jolla could organize a new crowdfunding round. As to what kind of rewards they could offer I don't have any ideas for.

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The question has been closed for the following reason "question is not relevant or outdated" by nthn
close date 2018-05-03 23:43:58.116061

Comments

18

Did I miss a meeting? Did Jolla become Open Source Project based on donations? No? Then why the hell should I throw money for free to a company?

muppeth ( 2015-11-20 03:00:32 +0300 )edit
4

I would definetly help and invest.

ralfB ( 2015-11-20 07:47:20 +0300 )edit
5

Don’t get me wrong. I like my Jolla, I appreciate your urge to help, but do you really think it’s a realistic approach? Without knowing any Jolla internals and without being an evonomist let me do a simple calculation. Jolla has >100 employees. Let’s assume around one third a needed just to let the company survive. As FInland is a high wage high taxes country the medium salary will more than 3k€ / per month - so wages alone will be >100k€ a month. Plus other costs (infrastructure, licenses, costs for warranty repairs,…) total costs will amount to, lets say >150k€ per month. I would guess that the real financial need is much much higher than that, but even with this conservative assumption:

  1. I doubt that the community can raise such large amounts of money (without any „real“ benefits) even for a few months.
  2. With fewer developers development will be even slower and become more and more unattractive for hardware manufacturers.
  3. How long would the community financing model work? What happens after that? As I said, I have no idea abot Jolla internals, but on the short run (lets say the next six months) I don’t see a way to set up a sustainable business model
LameDuck ( 2015-11-20 10:25:37 +0300 )edit
4

Making investments without benefit is something everyone will do now? I do not think so. Unless the developement and progress is assured, it is dead money. Why keep it alive for another 6 months, when Your phone soon will be unsupported.

Macilaci457 ( 2015-11-20 10:53:14 +0300 )edit

i'm not sure our little community is big enough to sustain jolla for any significant length of time, they need that proper investment round to go ahead.

r0kk3rz ( 2015-11-20 11:42:17 +0300 )edit

10 Answers

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25

answered 2015-11-20 09:46:34 +0300

lupastro gravatar image

updated 2015-11-20 09:52:11 +0300

As Jolla is not open regarding the status of the tablet, I am not willing to give one single cent (at the moment). They are in trouble? Yes. The repeated delay with the tablet has something to do with this financial trouble? Probably. The SFOS development is at risk? Mostly sure.

Then, why don't they open up their situation instead of treating us like brainless fanboys giving constant, blurry and fuzzy excuses for these delays?

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Comments

2

Maybe the recent lack of information was related to this impending financial crisis.

Andy Branson ( 2015-11-20 10:09:20 +0300 )edit
2

@Andy Branson: probably. But unless they would risk partner deals by outing information I see no reason to withhold the info. I bet that if they were more transparent the community would have much more understanding. And what's the issue with a start-up having financial issues, really? That shouldn't hold back investors as long as you are aware of the situation and have a plan for handling it.

Mohjive ( 2015-11-20 14:38:51 +0300 )edit
4

Communities such as this can be very knee-jerk. I really don't think that the community on the whole would have been very understanding if Jolla had announced in September that they may not have enough money to produce the tablets. I think the quiet majority would have understood, especially those who get that kickstarters are not shops, but the vocal minority would have made a huge amount of noise and made the last couple of months much worse, jeopardizing the funding round further. They did the right thing keeping it quiet as long as they could.

Andy Branson ( 2015-11-20 15:13:11 +0300 )edit
1

@Mohjive The impression that I'm having with all this is that they precisely can't disclose some specific information. Most companies and investors hide the details about their operations in order not to give strategical information to their competitors, and when two companies collaborate, non-disclosure agreements are usually signed. I'd say there's a good chance that Jolla has signed something like that as a condition from the manufacturing company/ies to get a deal. And I wouldn't discard that the investors themselves have put some restrictions on what they can tell, too

Nichope ( 2015-11-25 07:06:54 +0300 )edit
17

answered 2015-11-20 12:10:47 +0300

muppeth gravatar image

Hey, I have an idea! How about selling batteries finally? I guess every Jolla user will buy a couple even for 200% of it's price.

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Comments

1

Hey- I got me a spare battery for 214,-- EUR (199,-- EUR plus 15,-- EUR delivery).
O.K., it's a full set including a spare-display, a spare-mainboard and spare-whateverisneeded.
But a spare battery available for less than 40,-- EUR would be fine.

jcoder ( 2015-11-22 16:50:03 +0300 )edit
1

Ordered the compatible battery at Accu-land in germany. Took its time to get it, but it works just perfect.

Larswad ( 2015-11-22 22:55:07 +0300 )edit
9

answered 2015-11-20 14:48:15 +0300

lakutalo gravatar image

updated 2015-11-21 23:31:04 +0300

Jolla should go public, meaning they should launch an IPO (and us, the community should be offered preferred shares :) ). That should fill up all pockets for a while, provided the story still sells, and having big data vs. Europe in mind, I'm sure it still does.

Of course, it's up to the present owners, if they would accept further dilution of their share. And of course, prior to that, the shadows of a temporary crisis should disappear - first things first. So in the short run there are a couple of painful measurements to set just to stay alive, which I personally do not envy them for.

Besides, getting public would also mean a huge leap in transparency, which would be for our good.

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1

As far as I know (I'm not an expert on corporate finance, but am currently employed in a company which IPO took place in the beginning of 2015), IPO also requires substantial amounts of money and a work of experts on that area (meaning hired consultants), and the transparency also comes with a substantial amount of increased reporting, and restrictions on communication with e.g. the community about future plans.

On the other hand, I wouldn't give money to a company unless I also gained some slice of ownership with the money (since companies are good at using all the money that comes in, but it might not be spent in the way I appreciate my money to be spent), and I think any reasonable person would think this way unless they don't care about their money at all. In that sense public listing would be great way to allow the community to support Jolla also financially.

zagrimsan ( 2015-11-21 11:28:48 +0300 )edit

That is why Invesdor would be a good option here since you don't just give them money, you buy shares.

Toxip ( 2015-11-21 11:33:27 +0300 )edit

@Toxip looking at it briefly, Invesdor does seem like a more lightweight option to an IPO, yes. They also seem to have an option for offering bonds, which would also avoid diluting the current shares.

zagrimsan ( 2015-11-21 11:44:19 +0300 )edit

That's what I meant with first things first, there's a bit of homework still ahead. Offering corporate bonds is also an option, and in a way that's what Jolla is already doing now to stay liquid. But contrary to offering new shares, a bond is always a liability in the journals, whereas new shares can be considered fresh money. You won't get much out of an IPO at the moment, though, and of course, being a public limited fills you up with lots of new obligations (regulations, transparency, compliance, etc), which is why most companies try to avoid this step as long as possible.

lakutalo ( 2015-11-21 14:58:56 +0300 )edit
8

answered 2015-11-20 14:21:37 +0300

Okw gravatar image

I donated $258 USD (189+49+20) on the 19th of November 2014. I will reconsider donating more in case I receive something in return for my earlier donation.

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6

answered 2015-11-20 10:18:40 +0300

pat_o gravatar image

Before organising a funding, we need to better understand current problems and what we want to do with raised money. Different purposes (not exclusive from each other) can be: - enough money to send the tablets - enough money to open source what could be - enough money to organise some servers to run infrastructure - enough money to make sure that a limited team stays to send security updates at least ... But what is important is to liase with Jolla and the community meeting of yesterday is a nice step in that direction.

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Comments

1

Didn't Jolla got the money to ship the tablets already?

Macilaci457 ( 2015-11-20 10:45:39 +0300 )edit

in a sense yes but if there is no more cash and some suppliers ask for money. Do you think they are going to send the tablets? let's wait for some info from Jolla about this...

pat_o ( 2015-11-20 10:58:52 +0300 )edit
4

answered 2015-11-20 09:32:17 +0300

AkiBerlin gravatar image

updated 2015-11-22 10:11:35 +0300

Funding won't help on the long run - Jolla needs to sell products to survive.

Therefore, the best we could do is ordering as many Jolla phones as we can afford.

EDIT: I made this proposal in view of the fact that Jolla at the moment only has one product they actually can deliver to us. And it is not about the money they would make with selling Jolla 1 (which probably is neglectible). It is more about showing our confidence in Sailfish. The problem is, that most of us already own a Jolla. That is why we are around here.

We should keep in mind that the Jolla phones are already in stock at Jolla. So buying phones basically generates almost pure cash for Jolla.

Therefore we should somehow manage to let more People have a Jolla.

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Comments

5

That won't help, there would need to be orders for tens of thousands of phones - continuously. Can you afford that, or can you market the already outdated phone to people? Jolla needs new devices, so the sooner the Intex phone hits the market, the better - and also outside India. And as Saarnio said, they need more big partners, as big or bigger as Intex, or they will sink eventually. This is the sad story, but also true - they need to start making profit from the OS licensing.

raketti ( 2015-11-20 09:46:31 +0300 )edit

Why would buying a phone be better than funding/donating at this point? Buying a phone would require Jolla to pay a lot of expenses to the factory, shipping and handling etc. So if you pay 200 euros for a phone, Jolla ends up with maybe 10-20 euro (my guess). But if you fund/donate 200 euros, Jolla will get the majority of this money, so for the emergency phase, this would be a much better "money-maker". But neither buying more phones nor funding/donations will make it in the long run, as Jolla themselves must create new reliable revenue streams, one is paid app support, other would be getting big hardware partners, just like @raketti states.

nick75 ( 2015-11-20 09:54:47 +0300 )edit
2

@raketti: I fully agree!

The sooner SFOS runs on a up-to-date hardware, the better.

AkiBerlin ( 2015-11-20 09:56:52 +0300 )edit
1

@nick75: if Jolla can show sales they more easily find investors. And I believe that investors could do much better than community crowdfundig. Otherwise, you are right, off corse, they probably earn hardly any money with hw sales. That is why I suggest to focus on Sailfish as product on its own.

AkiBerlin ( 2015-11-20 10:02:35 +0300 )edit

@AkiBerlin , yes of course investors are much better than community crowfunding, But this thread is about the emergency funding that is urgently needed, until the right (big) investor has signed the deal and transferred the funds, or whatever the aim of the funding would be

nick75 ( 2015-11-20 10:29:08 +0300 )edit
3

answered 2015-11-20 16:42:51 +0300

utkiek gravatar image

We had supported the Sailfish project with ideas, error messages and many good native apps. Maybe that is not enough.

Invesdor crowdfunding platform ( https://www.invesdor.com/ ) is the best idea I found here on tjc (Thx to Toxip). Jolla needs money like all the other startups. Grumbling don't help.

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3

answered 2015-11-20 19:01:07 +0300

Canjet gravatar image

updated 2015-11-20 20:58:36 +0300

I am not one to throw good money after bad, but obviously there has been a great amount of the crowdfund money for R&D of the tablet to the point of shipping a couple hundred units. How much more would it cost to deliver the balance? If reasonable, this would give Jolla another platform, credibility, and possibly attract more third party developers if the apps are charged for through an app store.

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** sorry I posted a response and thought better of it. System wouldn't let me delete.

Canjet ( 2015-11-22 03:54:50 +0300 )edit
2

answered 2015-11-22 14:22:37 +0300

jcoder gravatar image

updated 2015-11-22 15:31:59 +0300

I'd be on if it would come to invest in Jolla.

But how long could we keep the company up if a few of us would invest for ideologic reasons?
Even if we get 10.000 people to invest 500 EUR in average (and that's very optimistic) we would only raise 5 Mio EUR.
That's not much compared to the 42 Mio EUR that have already been raised.

If Jolla wouln't find ways to generate (additional) incomes that money would be burned.

One of the first things they have to get working imo is to support paid apps in jolla store (something they spoke about for almost 2 yrs).

Like paid apps they could set up paid ports:
They should consider to offer officially supported and/or fully featured (including aliendalvik) paid versions of SFOS ports to Android devices that are ready for daily use (by now this would be Nexus 5 (maybe Nexus 4, too).
They could share the revenues with the community-porters.
Maybe the expected income could even attract more potentially porters to create more ports, make them faster available and suitable as daily driver and make sailfish being available on more popular (and currently available) devices.

Considering crowdfunding for sailfish ports could help, too!
I think I'm not the only one looking for a phone with specific (hardware related) features/specs where I can run sailfish on.
If there'd be one in the libhybris database that'd fulfill my demand and that I could actually buy with the perspective to run SFOS on it within the next 3-12 months I'd buy one (and support the porter(s) with a donation or via crowdfunding).
Selecting 3 or 4 actual sold popular phones of different classes and crowdfund the porting of SFOS to these devices could help poeple in their decision to buy a device and could help porters to finance their work. Maybe it could speed up porting too. Imagine how great it'd be to have ports for the currently best sold phones of different classes (e.g. a Huawei P8 lite or a Samsung Galaxy S6 (edge)) while these devices still lie in the shelves of our discounters.
After the crowdfunded port is ready to be used as daily driver it could be considered to be sold as 'paid port' with additional features (android support) and additional/oficial support to bring revenue to the porters and to Jolla.

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0

answered 2015-11-20 14:01:33 +0300

iKeivs gravatar image

talking about bitcoins

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Asked: 2015-11-19 22:53:39 +0300

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Last updated: Nov 25 '15