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was that the one with the member who was a pedophile too ?
No, that was a different one. I mean there might be paedos at candlepower, too, for all I know, (ditto Ravelry and Parkrun) but the specific paed you're thinking of was from somewhere different, with a more normal interest set.
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Bumming kids?
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We are selling ourselves to you, investors and users, to site admins, and to VCs.
Because the audiences overlap, and the communications overlap.
Where possible (e.g the Seedrs listing), you can tailor the message to the audience. Where that's not possible, you should target your communication to your most important constituents. In time, I expect this will be existing (and potential) forum admins but perhaps it's still investors/VCs for now?
"Communities, reimagined".
Is that magical enough?
If you're going to go big, why restrict yourself to synonyms of discussion board?
Your Internet, reimagined
Your interests, onlineBit salesey - though might work for a larger target audience when you have more scale.
For the Seedrs listing, it might be better to go with something more descriptive:
Connecting like-minded folk online
Though the Seedrs strap line looks like it can be quite long, so perhaps a padded out version of the infographic text?
As others have said--and I think you have concluded?--I don't think you should reference tumblr in your strap line as it instantly puts you in the shadow of that company. It served its purpose, but it's time to move on.
Well... this is the graphic going at the top of the listing.
This is very helpful--definitely the best way to get your point across succinctly.
However it doesn't distinguish between points (you and your interests) and vectors (ways to engage). In addition, what are you engaging with, communities, or your interests? In practice, it's communities, but they only serve as a locus for your interests. Given that "community" is ambiguous, I'd drop it in favour of "interests" only.
Semantically, I think something like the following works better:
Connecting You
To your interests
In ways that matterBut this is harder to show graphically--the best I can think of in 2D is having "you" on the left, "interests" on the right and "ways of engaging" in the middle but with the text centered below so that it reads in the right order, but it's not elegant. I can see it making for a nifty animated pencil illustration though, perhaps taking cues from parts of the video Apple used to introduce their developers' conference (e.g. from around 50 seconds in):
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Velocio, this is a bit off topic, but would you mind telling me what accountancy software you are using and your view on how good it is for a start-up?
We use Xero.
It does standard bookkeeping, invoices, keeping track of suppliers and customers, can record payroll (but not generate, our accountants still do that with Sage), asset management and depreciation, profit and loss summary as well as executive reports.
What it mostly does it keep me in touch with the money on a daily basis, and then allow the accountants to do their work on top of it for a lower price than if we weren't running this cloud-based bookkeeping.
I have a very good impression of Xero, and because I use it with HSBC business accounts and PayPal all reconciliation is pretty much automatic (I never have to type in a transaction).
Although I recommend it to everyone, there is another one to check out which is KashFlow http://www.kashflow.com/
I haven't used KashFlow, but I hold their founders in high regard and they are UK based (whereas Xero just have a UK office). Maybe... just maybe, they're a better bet. Investigate it for yourselves.
Our entire company (non-technical) is basically run using the following:
Bookkeeping/Accounts: http://www.xero.com/uk/
Accountancy: http://www.ihorizon.co.uk/
Minutes/Company Registers: http://www.seneca.io/
Legal: http://www.orrick.com/Lawyers/Christopher-Grew/
Project Management: https://www.pivotaltracker.com/
CRM: http://www.streak.com/
Email and cloud: http://www.google.com/intx/en_uk/enterprise/apps/business/Though we're deliberating whether the project management should move to Trello.
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Oh, and how good is Xero for a startup? It's awesome.
You really need to stay on top of your spending, watch every penny... yet not to have it become an all-consuming distraction.
Xero does that, and it's a bargain.
Things like company hygiene you should pay for from day one. If you get it wrong, the cost to put it right later can be substantial, and the benefit to things like due diligence (when receiving investment or at exit events) is immeasurable.
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Seneca is going through a pivot right now, just board minutes today but investigating all company registers and statutory books.
If you want an intro with the guy who runs it, just say, he will get you set up. Only makes sense if you are a director as this is compliance and statutory record keeping rather than just memo and note sharing.
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Oh, and I really want to preach the benefits of Streak.
Compared to SalesForce or SugarCRM it is a blessing.
It adds pipelines to your email, and allows you to share emails with other people in the organisation, so that anyone can access all communication with someone.
Basically think: email transparency + pipelines = Streak CRM
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"Love your interests" sounds weird to me. That 'interest' is also a verb makes me do a double-take: they love it but I'm just interested in it (does that make me a bad person, etc).
In any case, the wider issue with the copy is that the primary target market for Microcosm is surely the people who run forums and bulletin boards, with the secondary market - the influencers - being the users themselves. Most of the positioning copy I've seen on here has been aimed at the secondary market.
Tumblr has (or had) this strategy of: let's allow anyone to throw their shit against a wall and some of it will stick. So even a blog created by some bored adolescent devoted to graffito-ed cocks and balls might go viral and be used as an ad vehicle for condoms (or whatever). Is Microcosm going to follow a similar strategy - so that anyone can go out there and set up a forum about cycling, many will, most will fail, and only the good ones will be successful? It doesn't sound like this from the material on the Seedrs site (I am thinking of joining this round). It sounds like you're going in for a more controlled approach and targeting community leaders and admins first. Which is why Microcosm precisely isn't like Tumblr for forums.
Back to the positioning point: based on what I've seen in the published material, the messages for the target market are things like:
- Everything you need to run an online community.
- The best home your online community can have.
For the secondary market, things like:
- Home to some of the world's best-run online communities.
As a general description of what you're doing:
- We give online communities the best home they can have.
- Everything you need to run an online community.
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This might have been covered, but how do I calculate how much I can invest for the second round?
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Confirm that as an original investor I have received the 'pre-emption' email.
The amount that I am entitled to invest is shown in the email so for current investors this should be clear and obvious.I can also confirm that I received an 'out-of-office reply' from the chap that sent it to me. Considering that I got the email at 1056 and replied within 30mins I'm convinced that this doesn't reflect well on him.
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Confirm that as an original investor I have received the 'pre-emption' email.
The amount that I am entitled to invest is shown in the email so for current investors this should be clear and obvious.I can also confirm that I received an 'out-of-office reply' from the chap that sent it to me. Considering that I got the email at 1056 and replied within 30mins I'm convinced that this doesn't reflect well on him.
Hah, if that was Frank then he was on vacation until yesterday and may have forgotten to turn that off when he got back.
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About
Microcosm - 2nd Seedrs crowd-funding round
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@Velocio
^^ it was that exact forum