INSTANT FUNDING WEEKLY EDITION #36
Karl Dakin
Capital Coach | Stakeholder Investor Campaigns | Design, Stage, and Manage or Support | Reduce Time, Money, and Risk of Raising Funding | Increase Probability of Success! | Opportunity Management
FUNDING FORTUNES
"Smart investing is like a chess game - each move should be calculated and thoughtful."
An investor who sees an opportunity of interest may skip it if asked to make a major investment. However, it is possible to break the opportunity down into a series of staged investments so the investor can dip their toe in the water with a high-risk, small investment to gain enough information to consider making a bigger investment.
"Your business model is the blueprint; investors prefer detailed blueprints over rough sketches."
A business model is the first step in a journey from an idea to business success. Investors appreciate and want more ‘skin in the game’ to advance the idea to something simple that they can understand, framed as an investment where the investor gets their money back, and detailed enough that the success of the business is doable.
"Raising funds is like brewing tea: steep your ideas long enough to release the flavor."
Ideas are fragile and can easily be dismissed. Demonstration of effort to create a business model and to vet and verify market interest may elevate the idea into a sustainable business opportunity where initial funding may be obtained. It also builds credibility in the person offering up the idea.
"The funding you need is out there. So is Bigfoot. Keep searching."
Raising funding is hard. However, seeking funding without a strategy, investor targeting and plan usually ends in failure. So, any encouragement to keep search should be heard from the perspective of 'do it smartly'.
QUICK CALENDAR
TUESDAY, February 25, Successful Funding show, Investors - 8 am Mountain Time, 10 am Eastern https://www.dhirubhai.net/events/successfulfunding-insightsoninv7299485340057092097/theater/
April 2 - Investor ID Webinar - 8 am to 9 am Mountain Time, 10 am to 11 am Eastern Time -Targeting High Probability Investor Candidates: Finding Your Funding Soulmate – 1st in Four-Part Weekly Series starts on - https://dakincapital.com/event-6036637
FUNDING POINT – SMART CITIES / SMART COMMUNITY
As I continue my journey in designing a smart city, the word ‘city’ and ‘community’ are often viewed as two separate concepts instead of an inseparable concepts – like two sides of the same coin.
I use the term community as a simple way of describing each of a city's residents, with each resident being a customer of the city.
As I have noted in prior articles, it is common to consider a community to be located within a single, fixed geographic area. I no longer think this is accurate. Most communities are dependent upon goods and services produced elsewhere. Smart city design calls for making each city as autonomous as possible. Where this is not possible, it suggests formal relationships with other areas where these goods and services originate.
A community is one of the key groups of activities that should each generate revenue.
·??????Smart Knowledge
·??????Smart Space
·??????Smart Digital (changed from Smart City to focus on digital interconnectedness)
·??????Smart Econ
·??????Smart Community
This Funding Point article focuses on Smart Community. Defining a smart community is a challenge. I have reviewed numerous definitions and articles on the topic. I commonly approach this review from the standpoint of funding. I am developing my model for a community investment fund based on the work of the National Coalition for Community Capital (NC3). I am working on this model to support both a single community and a smart city.
One idea I have gained from considering communities is ‘commUNITY’, where the common social interaction of residents is a measurement of social interaction, common identity, and the pursuit of common goals. Too often, governments operate independently from their citizens, with little ability for the residents to have a voice or for that voice to be heard.
I view a sense of community as a deliverable of a smart city. Through better communications and empowerment of residents as stockholders, this deliverable may be attained.
I am exploring smart cities as sustainable business enterprises that are designed and funded with the residents and visitors treated as customers. As stockholders in a business, I believe that residents may obtain a higher quality of service than that of an elected municipal representative government. Much more work is required with input from all of the stakeholders in good city operations.
RESOURCES ON SMART CITIES / SMART COMMUNITIES
Technical articles on revenue sharing from Google Scholar include:
Books available on Amazon:
ASK CAP
CAP is my AI avatar produced by Knowledge Avatars and trained by me on topics of funding and entrepreneurship. CAP is available on the Dakin Capital website where you may ask questions about funding without charge.
I asked CAP:
How can a smart city elevate the quality of services to its residents?
CAP responded:
A smart city can elevate the quality of services to its residents by incorporating innovative technologies and infrastructure.
This can include implementing digital services and products that are scalable to serve a global market, upgrading existing community infrastructure without displacing residents, and integrating live/work/play design concepts.
By embracing smart city initiatives, such as 'net zero' objectives for buildings, autonomous water management, waste recycling, and power generation, a community can enhance its overall quality of life.
Additionally, creating innovation hubs and maker spaces that offer skills training, broadband Internet access, and collaboration opportunities can further elevate the services available to residents.
Through strategic planning, investment in technology, and collaboration with other communities, a smart city can provide cutting-edge services and amenities that enhance the overall well-being of its residents.
FUNDING POINT – SMART CITIES / SMART ECON
As I continue my journey in designing a smart city, the word ‘city’ keeps getting in the way. It immediately creates an assumption that the smart city will be governed by elected officials within a representative government. This results in all kinds of questions and challenges of how to ‘beat city hall’, which can and should be avoided.
In addressing the question of ‘How do you fund a smart city? ' It is necessary to treat a smart city as a bundle of individual investment opportunities, with each opportunity representing a sustainable revenue stream. This approach avoids wishful thinking, politicized spending, and poor planning based on uncertain, if impossible, income results.
I am currently working on two scenarios under my Opportunity Management services: a smart city for a rural community and a smart city on an island. In each case, the smaller size is hoped to limit complexity, allowing for a basic template that may scale in a larger urban community. In each scenario, I am working with ‘greenfield’ undeveloped land, which also avoids the challenges of retrofitting buildings and infrastructure or mandated centralization of services for water, power, and waste.
I am also facing the assumption that a smart city represents a fixed geographic area.
Within the business model, every revenue stream is identified. In looking at smart cities, I have preliminarily adopted five groups of activities that should each generate revenue.
·??????? Smart Knowledge
·??????? Smart Space
·??????? Smart Digital (changed from Smart City to focus on digital interconnectedness)
·?????? Smart Econ
·?????? Smart Community
This Funding Point article focuses on Smart Econ. Smart Econ goes beyond a ‘field of dreams’ approach to buildings and roads, which will be empty without economic activity. It starts with designing an economy with a central theme or business that may act in the same manner as an anchor tenant in a mall.
Nearly all urban areas in the United States spring into existence in response to one or more industries of the day. However, these industries have diminished or disappeared altogether, leaving economic ghost towns.
My goal is to identify all activities that may be provided to a resident in a smart city as a product or a service. Once every sustainable revenue stream is identified, then the question is presented of who will manage the revenue stream: the smart city, a contractor business or a resident.
However, talking about a smart city without first generating economic activity is getting the cart ahead of the horse.
A smart city project must identify, recruit, and engage one or more businesses that can represent one or more industries that generate jobs for the people who make up a city. As stated earlier, I think of a lead sled dog, a business champion who can compete internationally, as the starting point. It does not make sense to build a city around a business that can be set up in any city anywhere, resulting in even more competition.
RESOURCES ON SMART CITIES / SMART ECON
Technical articles on revenue sharing from Google Scholar include:
Books available on Amazon:
ASK CAP
CAP is my AI avatar produced by Knowledge Avatars and trained by me on topics of funding and entrepreneurship. CAP is available on the Dakin Capital website where you may ask questions about funding without charge.
I asked CAP:
How should the design of a smart city engage in economic development?
CAP responded:
The design of a smart city should engage in economic development by fostering an ecosystem that attracts investments and enables startup growth.
Key elements include developing robust digital infrastructure, ensuring regulatory frameworks that support innovation, and providing access to funding opportunities such as public-private partnerships.
Additionally, implementing smart technologies can optimize resource management, reduce operational costs, and improve quality of life, thereby attracting businesses and skilled professionals to the area.
This holistic approach encourages sustainable economic growth and enhances the city's competitiveness in the global market.
"Fortune favors the bold investor—but even bold ideas need a solid roadmap."
Investment pitches that leave the investor to fill in the blanks, to define terms, or to adopt a vision unsupported by facts is a demonstration of naivete or ego. It leaves the investor with the burden of working hard to find facts that should have been provided or to choose a different pitch that respects the time and capabilities of the investor candidate.
FUNDING POINT – SMART CITIES / SMART DIGITAL
In my work to design, develop, and implement/install/construct a smart city, I am working toward a universal design template, which may be comprised of dozens or possibly hundreds of individual investment opportunities.
As with any enterprise, I start with a group of activities I offer in a service package as Business Model Development (https://dakincapital.com/Business-Model-Development). This starting point serves as a primary building block in a venture. This service is included within the more extensive set of services for Opportunity Due Diligence and Assessment (https://dakincapital.com/Opportunity-Assessment/).
Within the business model, every revenue stream is identified. In looking at Smart Cities, I have preliminarily adopted five groups of activities that should each generate revenue.
·??????? Smart Knowledge
·??????? Smart Space
·??????? Smart Digital (changed from Smart City to focus on digital interconnectedness)
·?????? Smart Economy
·?????? Smart Community
This Funding Point article focuses on Smart Digital. Some people limit their definition of Smart Cities to digital connectedness and technology. However, connecting two inefficient or dysfunctional points may not yield enough benefit to justify the investment. I have observed that many Smart City proposals and discussions fail to consider the currently available technology or pending innovation releases to accommodate the status quo, diluting the potential benefits.
To aid me in developing a business model and associating funding, I have chosen to start with a blank slate or ‘greenfield’ approach. In addition, I treat a Smart City not as a bunch of connections between disparate, sometimes incompatible, and occasionally counterproductive parts but as a singular whole. I want every activity of a Smart City to have access to all possible information to be used when needed.
The next step is to identify each activity that may be performed by a government in its operations and in providing services to its constituents. This is the same type of analysis performed to assess the data needs of any organization. Many processes and techniques for performing this analysis are available through different software platforms or consulting services.
I then add to my analysis all activities of any resident or visitor that a government or business may provide. Different cities offer different types and levels of services, often forcing residents to individually perform the same activity that could be performed by the government (or its contractors) at a lower cost with higher quality.
My goal is to identify all activities that may be provided to a resident in a smart city as a service. Setting aside momentarily the issues regarding the superiority of services or market competition, I am working to identify all information needed to perform all activities. Starting with the city as a single enterprise and its information need, analysis is shifted to every resident and to every business or organization that may operate to sell products or services to any resident.
Within the scope of this analysis, I am looking for any information that may enrich the lives of residents or visitors. The goal of a Smart City should be to make all lives better in a never-ending search for perfection.
Knowing what information is needed and what information is available provides the framework for transferring and accessing information. Where more information is required, a Smart City will include operations to produce or create that information.
As an example, when public safety was threatened in London, video cameras were set up everywhere with the ability to identify threats before they became realities.
Admittedly, my approach presents solutions that may be cost-prohibitive when implemented in a built urban area. In the same way that installing a sprinkler system in a building may be too costly in a building retrofit, some information and delivery/access systems may be too expensive.
Standard design is essential. Every building, roadway, power line, resident, or organization should be held to minimum design standards. If we can force people to put sprinklers in buildings to enhance safety and reduce damage from fire, we can also mandate the installation of data sensors that aid first responders in managing a fire in progress. In a Smart City, there should be no excuse for asking a public safety officer, fireperson, or MedTech to respond to an emergency and have to guess what is going on inside a building.
Similarly, water, sewer, power, or other meters or sensors should provide real-time information for management and billing.
Every creation, storage, or transfer of information may represent a revenue stream supporting a sustainable business. This provides the framework for funding the capital cost and ongoing operations of digital connectedness.
RESOURCES ON SMART CITIES / SMART DIGITAL
Technical articles on revenue sharing from Google Scholar include:
Books available on Amazon:
FUNDING POINT – SMART CITIES / SMART SPACE
In my work to design, develop and implement/install/construct a smart city, I am working toward a universal design template which may be comprised of dozens or possibly hundreds of individual investment opportunities.
As with any enterprise, I start with a group of activities that I offer in a service package as Business Model Development (https://dakincapital.com/Business-Model-Development). This is a starting point that serves as a primary building block in a venture. This service is included within the larger set of services for Opportunity Due Diligence and Assessment (https://dakincapital.com/Opportunity-Assessment/).
Within the business model, every revenue stream is identified. In taking a look at smart cities, I have preliminarily adopted five groups of activities that should each generate revenue.
·??????? Smart Knowledge
·??????? Smart Space
·??????? Smart Digital (changed from Smart City to focus on digital interconnectedness)
·?????? Smart Economy
·?????? Smart Community
This Funding Point article focuses on Smart Space. Smart City assumes a geographic area with buildings, roads, and people. It also causes people to automatically assume that a government rules this nexus of activity. These assumptions should be set aside to enable creativity that embraces change and implementation of the technologies of today and tomorrow.
I start my analysis of Smart Cities with a wholesale adoption of the New Urbanism concepts for achieving a live/work/play design that better supports benefiting from shared resources. Working with a clean slate or a ‘greenfield’ development, I view a Smart City not as a random collection of digitally interconnected buildings but as a single enterprise where each resident is a customer, and the provision of services acknowledges limited resources.
Too often, urban developments work to benefit real estate developers and government power brokers with the needs of the residents of secondary concern or ignored altogether. Real estate developers are offered an option to buy out of the requirement, which begs the question of how the city serves its residents. This is best demonstrated by cities that force developers to set aside a percentage of residential housing as ‘affordable housing’ without considering money culture or benefit to the tenant other than the housing price.
The current custom is to build cities with zones restricted to defined uses: single-family, multifamily, mixed-use, commercial, light industrial, heavy industry, agriculture, and special use. Historically, this has created challenges in transportation and time for residents with less money—they have to pay to go from one point to another, and time is wasted on transport that could have been spent with family, community, or working a few more hours to earn more money.
Smart Space design seeks to make more efficient use of time for the residents within the Smart City. Residents may make use of this time as they choose. However, any design of a space considers everything from time going to work, to the daycare, to the store, or a community event. It also considers every task of every resident, from taking out the trash to mowing the lawn or shoveling snow. All everyday activities that force the taking of time away from residents should be examined as a possible service of the Smart City. The value to the residents was demonstrated by the ‘work from home’ movement caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers found that despite working from a less-than-optimum home environment, they saved up to 20% of their day and the associated stress and expense by not having to travel to work.
If residents of a Smart City were given a choice, like stockholders in an enterprise, would they choose the customary approaches to city planning now in effect? If the time inefficiencies forced by customary approaches were reduced or eliminated, would the residents not experience a higher quality of life?
While these questions may appear academic, what if a Smart City were structured as an enterprise with ownership by its residents without the empowerment of local governments to rule over operations? It is expected that the residents would cast their votes for the use of space within the Smart City in a strikingly different fashion.
RESOURCES ON SMART CITIES / SMART SPACE
Technical articles on revenue sharing from Google Scholar include:
Smart Cities as a Pathway to Sustainable Urbanism in the Arab World: A Case Analysis of Saudi Cities
Books available on Amazon:
FUNDING POINT – SMART CITIES / SMART KNOWLEDGE
In my work to design, develop and implement/install/construct a smart city, I am working toward a universal design template which may be comprised of dozens or possibly hundred of individual investment opportunities.
As with any enterprise, I start with a group of activities that I offer in a service package as Business Model Development (https://dakincapital.com/Business-Model-Development). This is a starting point that serves as a primary building block in a venture. This service is included within the larger set of services for Opportunity Due Diligence and Assessment (https://dakincapital.com/Opportunity-Assessment/).
I often describe to students in my funding education programs that a successful business looks like the Great Wall of China. In its totality, it is so immense and so complicated that replication boggles the mind. The journey from concept to success is a journey beyond imagination. To achieve an enterprise on this scale, requires breaking things down into manageable projects or component enterprises.
Note: that over the last year I have interchangeably referred to small businesses, community projects, charities and other funding projects as the champions of funding campaigns. To simplify my discussions and presentation? going forward, I refer to any and all of these as ‘enterprises’ without distinction as to size or profit/nonprofit status.
Working to develop a comprehensive investment model that encompasses an entire smart city is like the riddle “How do you eat an elephant” with the answer “One bite at a time”.
Last year, I did extensive work on a model for community investment funds. While many people think of a fund as an abstract pool of money that can be drawn down anytime like a cash withdrawal from an ATM, a fund is simply a collection of individual investments. Each investment must stand on its own. When bundled with other investments it is hoped that there is lower risk, greater stability and higher payouts. In the context of a community investment fund, one is seeking greater economic impact.
Depending upon the size, a smart city may be equivalent in complexity to a community investment fund or it may be orders of magnitude greater.
A business model provides and enterprise with an objective framework for evaluating the potential profitability of a product or service. It is designed to help the leadership of an enterprise to anticipate production and sales expenses, assess resource requirements and make informed decisions about strategy, planning and funding activities. By understanding the financial dynamics of their product or service, enterprises can position themselves for sustainable success.
Within the business model, every revenue stream is identified. In taking a look at smart cities, I have preliminarily adopted five groups of activities that should each generate revenue.
·??????? Smart Knowledge
·??????? Smart Space
·??????? Smart City
·?????? Smart Economy
·?????? Smart Community
I have started my analysis with the concept of Smart Knowledge. I view knowledge an indispensable asset – the glue - that holds things together. The performance of each task within a plan will require some level and type of knowledge. Too many plans that I have seen for development are focused on buildings, infrastructure and data without understanding or explanation on how they may be filled, used or transferred.
I have been working with Knowledge Avatars in its development of artificial intelligence to manage bodies of custom knowledge. This work demonstrates the difference between common or commodity knowledge, that may now be found in Chat GPT, Gemini or Copilot, and custom knowledge of an individual or enterprise.
Governments commonly collect information through census surveys and mandated reporting. The leading smart cities indexes use a similar approach. As an example, the IMD-SUTD Smart City Index asked the perceptions of 120 residents in each surveyed city.
Management of knowledge must address the needs of each individual investment that comprises the entirety of the smart city. This may lead to additional bodies of knowledge for the potential of the opportunity to be realized.
I use as an example of knowledge within a smart city the action of a first responder to a building fire. Presently, first responders may have little information about the fire other than the address of the building. In a smart city, the building would provide additional information with regard to who (name, age and any mobility challenged) is in the building (including pets) and where they are located within the building. The building should provide information about the fire in terms of when it started and the current heat level. The building should provide information on what is combustible within the building, specifically identifying any material that may be explosive or toxic.
Obviously, this level of information includes public and custom information which crosses the line into privacy. Therefore, it is necessary to store knowledge so that it may be accessible as needed, when needed by those who should have access. Similar to HIPPA regulations governing personal medical records, access is controlled and limited to authorized individuals.
Knowledge management should encompass all public and custom information of a smart city and its residents. It should provide for the controlled access and flow of information from holders of custom information to the public or selected recipients.
The potential of knowledge management presents many investment opportunities. Some of these may match with an individual enterprise and some will match with the entire community of the smart city. These opportunities will need to be identified and assessed regarding their individual merits and their necessary inclusion within a complete smart city design, development and operation.
RESOURCES ON SMART CITIES / SMART KNOWLEDGE
Technical articles on revenue sharing from Google Scholar include:
Comprehensive systematic review of information fusion methods in smart cities and urban environments
Books available on Amazon:
SUCCESSFUL FUNDING SHOW
NEXT TUESDAY, February 25, on my Successful Funding show, I will present my insights on investors: their capabilities, preferences, and motivations. 8 am Mountain Time, 10 am Eastern
You may view the show live or listen to a recording afterward at this link:
TUESDAY, I hosted my Successful Funding show, where the topic was funding Smart Cities. Dr. Tom Frey, the futurist, will be my guest. We will discuss several ways in which a city of the future may differ from today and how the concept of a Smart City as a sustainable business enterprise answering to its residents as stockholders could reduce bureaucracy.
You may view the recording of the show at:
EDUCATION PROGRAM
Targeting High Probability Investor Candidates: Finding Your Funding Soulmate
The webinar of this education program will be presented three more times this year:
·?????? April 2, 9, 16, 23
·?????? July 2, 9, 16, 23
·?????? Oct 1, 8, 15, 22
The education program includes:
· Artificial Intelligence Avatar - Attendees will have one year of online access to a custom AI avatar on the topic of identifying investor candidates.
· Book - Attendees will receive a digital copy of a book on matching their businesses and funding needs with investor candidates who need the businesses to succeed to attain their own goals.
· Workshop - A half-day webinar will be presented on Zoom on Thursday, January 16, 2025, from 11 am to 1 pm Eastern Time, 9 am to 1 pm Mountain Time by Karl Dakin.
· Consult -? Each attendee will receive one-half hour of consultation with Karl Dakin on their funding challenges.
Discover how to secure funding more effectively and efficiently. By targeting the right investor candidates, you can tailor your entire campaign, from offer to closing, to match these candidates - achieving greater success in less time and with reduced costs.
This avtor is designed for entrepreneurs, small business owners, community leaders, charities, service providers, and economic developers responsible for raising funding.
Readers of this Instant Funding newsletter qualify for the discounted price of $400 (marked down from $500). Go to Register. Select the Funding Fans ticket and use the discount code FundingFan2025.
GOT 15 MINUTES AND A QUESTION ON FUNDING - GIVE ME A CALL
I recognize that many readers of this Instant Funding newsletter have questions about funding that are not answered by the newsletter. I am available for a 15-minute phone/video call about your funding questions. This is to let you know there is no charge for this call. Just contact me to schedule a time at [email protected].
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Karl Dakin, the Capital Coach
Dakin Capital LLC
Ask for advice. Money follows advice. If you ask somebody for money their force shieldsgo up. If you ask for advice, they can’t wait to show you how smart they are.
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5 天前That's veary informative and great service is good for the people around the world thanks for sharing this best wishes to each and everyone their ?????????????????????????
Capital Coach | Stakeholder Investor Campaigns | Design, Stage, and Manage or Support | Reduce Time, Money, and Risk of Raising Funding | Increase Probability of Success! | Opportunity Management
5 天前Smart cities are a hot topic with investors.