Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I am looking for ideas on how to fund a startup for the entertainment (movies/film/tv/modeling..etc) business.  We are still working on © and ™'s.

I've been reading the forums and been loving what you guys have to say, but i noticed a lot of the info of course are all related to what the person's company is.  Well now i guess it's my turn to ask.

My company is a web-based application/social-ish networking site, what we offer is a application (that is ND right now) that will provide a incredible alternative to casting/auditioning that is ready for the new 3.0 world.

The social side of the site is not for the user par say, it will be for the industry looking for users.  So user's will not be able to search other user's NOR add them to a friends list and so on.  The industry will be able to do all that, and contact each user they wish via the site and vise versa, the user will be able to contact the industry.

We are offering the site for free for the user's, we cannot discuss how the site's revenue comes from cause thats our bread & butter.  We will also have donation "keep the project alive" buttons kinda thing on the site as well, so people can contribute if they wish.

I'm not seeking a whole bunch, somewhere around the lines of $10k-$20k mostly for marketing and getting server's and some other needs/wants.  I understand the less your asking, the harder it is to find funding, but included in this is also % w/ the company which im sure is always a great thing.

We do have a huge following for this, and have support all the way.  We have a incredible application.  We have heard the worst from top people in this field that gives their takes on it, but the risk's are so low, this project is a go for launch.

So i know most of you are going to say get a small loan / use your own money / ask family...etc.  Well we are a team of 3 w/ no families/friend support / and we do not want to get a bank loan for personal reasons.  We are personally spending some funds from our own wallets on this project.  We are seeking funding for the remainder of our expenses, if you have ideas / know some people in this type of industry, we would love to hear it.

Please PM for any reason, we welcome all thoughts / ideas.

Thanks,

Digi

You’re facing a classic dilemma as your capital requirements of only $10,000-$20,000 clearly place you outside the investment criteria of equity investors. So, unless you are able to do a “friends & family” round, raising such a nominal amount through equity financing simply isn’t a viable option.

If you can’t access credit (including credit cards), you may want to try working with your vendors. With other words, if your budget includes $4,000 for professional web design/coding, try to work out an extended payment schedule or throw in some equity as additional incentive. You may be surprised how many professionals consider this type of arrangement these days.

If that doesn’t work either, take another good look at your capital requirements and try to come up with an estimate that covers at least 18-24 months from the launch of your public beta. This number should be considerably higher.

You may then want to consider a private placement of your securities. There’s an article available on our website that introduces private placements or Regulation D Offerings as a viable funding option for development stage companies (http://publications.fastventures.com/article/private-placements-or-regulation-d-offerings---what-is-myth-what-is-reality. You may also want to take a look at our white paper “Reaching High-Net-Worth Individuals with your Private Placement” (http://publications.fastventures.com/reaching-high-net-worth-individuals-with-your-private-placement.

I hope this helps.

Mark

Like i said, families are all out (no families), the only friends we know are not the type to ask for money, no matter what you can promise them (sucks to be them in the long run).  Pretty much, the people we know were the people saying "crap, i KNEW i should of put money into google several years ago", but yet they wont help us, such odd people we know.

We are already projecting around the 2 yr mark.  Since we are only asking for a little (i guess what you would call little investment), we would like to hopefully get someone new or only invests small amounts.  We are more in the market for someone that wants to be actually "on the team".  We understand most investor's want to be a part of it all, but we dont want to really worry about having to get phone calls from odd times from investor's and having to present our plans and what we have been doing, and where we stand...etc and just time wasters.  We want someone that can be apart of the team and know where we are going everyday.  Not claiming we want someone at the office everyday, but someone that i guess you would call "peek your head" in kinda style.

We understand we have to always be on top and ahead of the money side, we'll have reports / progress ... etc ready for the asking, but like i said, we want a team-player on our side and not just phone calls on how the money is doing.  We need to keep our head on the project.

If you would like to know about the idea, please feel free to contact me on the PM board and ill be glad to explain it (NDA required).  Only asking for people that would like to hopefully "pitch-in" to the project.

To spice up the deal, all i can say is that linkedin has some great interest in this project.

And if you know or know someone that knows php/ajax/jquery to the T, then please feel free to message me as well, we could use one more dev.

Thanks!

There are equity funds out there that invests the amount you are looking for. Check out Y-Combinator and Berkeley Ventures. Other than that, seek more money and go down a more conventional route. However, you will need to have a beta up and running with people using it. You may need to cut corners with servers or limit the amount of initial users to allow you to do this. Good luck. Sounds like a great idea.

Assuming you do find investors who will take equity, the modest investment you'd need would put you square in the Reg D private placement zone.  An attorney would be able to guide you through this for minimum of cost.

oh yeah, we plan on having a BETA up and running for user's, probably will start off on a invites.  But most people dont want to just wait for an invite, kinda turns them off on the idea, so we have some other ideas that we would like to approach, i can say you'll be impressed w/ what we do w/ it.

You are more than welcome to follow us on twitter, we just started that account, so we could really use the followers. We'll follow you as well.  We'll keep you updated of course and all other mumbo jumbo you'll see us tweet.

Digi

Ok, so we kinda have a tentative slogan for Digi:

"We at DigiCastMe provide you w/ an agent. We welcome everyone interested in starting a career in the entertainment industry (movies/theater/tv/modeling). We provide you with all of the tools needed to succeed in becoming "that person" on the red carpet. And of course, it's free!"

What is your take on it ?  Like i honestly do not like the last line (red carpet), but i need something like that is the highest honor kinda thing.

1st line is a little odd also, like we are the agent, but after awhile, you'll be able to find another agent, and one of our tools is to help you w/ that.

• I guess ill throw in a little contest, if you can re-write it to a more professional eye-catching slogan, ill send you a free t-shirt.
  

It pretty much gives you the concept of what we are / do.  We are an agency that has powerful tools for you to use at no cost.  This isnt your typical agency, when the site opens you'll see its the 1st of its kind.

We cannot discuss the features cause that is why this site is what it is.

Thanks!

"We at DigiCastMe provide you w/ an agent. We welcome everyone interested in starting a career in the entertainment industry (movies/theater/tv/modeling). We provide you with all of the tools needed to succeed in becoming "that person" on the red carpet. And of course, it's free!"

How about:

"DigiCastMe assigns you an 'initial' in-house agent. We welcome anyyone interested in starting a career in the entertainment industry (movies/theater/tv/modeling). We provide all the tools needed
 to succeed in your chosen field. -And of course, it's free!"

Good Luck!

Or diz:

"DigiCastMe will assign an 'initial' in-house agent. Anyyone interested in starting
 a career in the entertainment industry (movies/theater/tv/modeling) is welcomed. All the tools needed
 to succeed in your chosen field are provided. -And of course, did we mention that it's free!"

We help startup ideas and entrepreneurs get funded regardless of your personal credit.

Visit our website www.3rdstreetfinance.net

You can contact me with questions

Frank Sullivan

3rd Street Financial LLC

(888)927-9449