Tag Archives: Nicolás Alcalá

The Cosmonaut: date of release and update

I became an investor (for 100€) and producer (by buying a T-shirt) of the movie “El Cosmonauta (“The Cosmonaut”) about a year ago. I wrote then a post (in Spanish) about it as I had done when I first learnt about the movie in a TEDx conference two years ago.

Last week a received an update of the project via email. The team confirmed that the movie will be released in April 2013 and what it’s more important, it showed the update of “The Plan [PDF, 3.9 MB, in Spanish], a revision of the budget and the cash-flows to date. The Plan is 50-page document where the team explains the strategy for the product, which in this case is not just a movie.

My brother uses to remind me “it will only be success if the movie is good, no matter how fancy or novel the project behind is”. It might be true. But the project behind is indeed fancy and novel.

Reading the update of The Plan, one can see the variety of activities that have gone and go with the movie, the breadth of contents, formats, etc., to name a few:

  • The use of crowdfunding: to raise up to nearly 400k€ from over 4,500 investors (equity, almost 500 of them) and producers (buyers of merchandising prior to movie release).
  • Creation of a community: having organized several meet-ups and parties with investors. Planning to organize a big event with them for the release of the movie.
  • The use of Creative Commons: releasing the movie free for the viewer under Creative Commons licence.
  • One single release of the movie: which will be available at the same time in cinemas, TVs, free online, DVD…
  • Awareness: having appeared in dozens of media, hundreds of blogs and several festivals.
  • Case of study: in universities, business schools, subject of PhDs…
  • Prizes: having won several prizes for its innovation, entrepreneurial side, etc.
  • 4 classes of content: free to use, creative commons, under subscription, branded.
  • Webisodes: the movie will be accompanied by 37 short episodes showing secondary pieces, which will not be part of the main movie.
  • Documentaries: about the process of filming the movie from the perspective of a hummingbird and a crude making off.
  • Facebook profiles of the movie characters which will interact with fans at the time of the movie release.
  • Poetry book about cosmonauts.
  • Educational materials: developed for cinema schools and students.
  • Workbook manual of cinema.

If you want to know more, take a look at The Plan :-).

The project is really fresh and captivating, I wish the movie matches it. I leave you for now with the trailer of the movie:

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Venture Capital & Crowdfunding

I started giving loans through Kiva almost two years ago. About at the same time, after gathering some savings, I started investing again in the stock market.

Last month, I attended TEDxMadrid, where Nicolás Alcalá explained how a movie he and his team are working on (“El Cosmonauta”) will be financed through crowdfunding. I then discussed with a friend that precisely I was looking for a similar approach, but applied to general businesses: a kind of Kiva for for-profit start-ups.

Subsequently, I first found Kickstarter about a month ago through Fred Wilson (@fredwilson). However, in Kickstarter the funders of projects are not entitled to equity in the venture nor a share of the future profits. The funders get some merchandising or recognition for the helping hand they have given, depending on the amount they have invested.

Then I found GrowVC.

From what I gathered, this is more or less what I was looking for: a way to invest some small amount of cash (~1,000$ a year) together with other funders into a larger pool that will act as a Venture Capital operation, sharing the future profits of the business that was funded.

With this post I wanted to share these initiatives with you and also to explain what I was looking for. Now, let me throw an open question to readers: anyone knows a similar concept that I may be interested in? If so, please, let me know.

(Bear in mind that I haven’t got, yet, hundreds of thousands of Euros to invest following this approach… the larger part is invested in a much more Graham-like defensive approach)

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