Apply for a £5000 grant to help your business

Posted by Faisal Haque on April 29, 2009 under Miscellaneous | Be the First to Comment

Hi,

 

Thanks for those who have taken the time
to provide constructive feedback to the Million Dollar Videos site. Here are
the answers to some of the questions:

 

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy;font-weight:bold'>Figures

 

Yes, the revenue per page is £78,400 from 14
x 16 squares (one page). The goal is to raise $1m from 10 pages worth of videos
(£784,000 or $1m).

 

Once a page is full, then the companies
who uploaded a video on that page can apply for the £5000 grant.

 

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy;font-weight:bold'>50% of
Profits

 

50% of the profits (note profits, not
revenue) will go to UK SME Investments. As the videos on the site will be there
for the next 5 years, the remainder of the funds will be used to cover the
server and IT costs to host the videos for that period, as well as the costs organizing
the allocation of the grants and taxes. These include – going through
every grant application, inviting finalists to a final interview, choosing the
finalists, room booking costs, costs for the awarding committees etc.

 

Grants will be awarded ten times (i.e. after
each page has been filled with videos) which adds to the costs.

 

The commitment is to help at least 50 businesses
in this way as stated on the website, and hopefully more. I am currently in
talks to split a portion of the proceeds to The Prices Trust too, in order to
help with their young enterprise program.

 

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy;font-weight:bold'>Lottery

 

Million Dollar Videos is not a lottery,
does not adhere to any lottery laws in the w:st="on">UK or abroad, and has no intention
of being a lottery at all.

 

Grants will be awarded based on the strength
of the application and awarded by an independent committee consisting of those
chosen by the fund at a panel interview. The committee will include: a partner
from a global audit company, a Director from a global bank, a partner from a
law firm and respected angel investor. All have kindly provided their time for
this cause.

 

Grants are provided as cash contributions
and must be supported by specific purchase list of equipment, marketing spend
etc. to the value of £5000. Cheques will be signed off by two members of the
committee. The grant is not a loan or an equity investment and does not have to
be re-paid in any time period by the company awarded the grant.

 

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy;font-weight:bold'>Contract
Information

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy;font-weight:bold'> 

Sure – agree with this comment that
there should be more contact information and will update the website to allow
for this.

 

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy;font-weight:bold'>Large Corporates

 

The site is intended for small and medium
sized businesses. If a large corporate puts a video on the site then there’s
not much I can do about it – but it is a good point and I will change the
marketing strategy to target SMEs instead.

 

I am already speaking at a number of
events, fairs etc which are solely for SMEs. The next event I am speaking at is
the East Midlands Live event (
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> href="http://www.embusinesslive.com/seminars.html">http://www.embusinesslive.com/seminars.html)
in May.

 

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#003366;font-weight:bold'>Communication
on Website

 

I agreed that the communication of the
message on the website could be better and I will add more detail on the site
to answer some of these questions in advance which are good questions.
size=2 face=Arial>

 

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#003366;font-weight:bold'>Genuine

 

This is a genuine site to help SMEs. I
have my own small business and I’m sure other small businesses have had
the same problems as me – in raising money, applying for government funding
etc.

 

As this forum is largely for entrepreneurs,
we should have the skills and ability to do something about the current economic
situation in this country and not rely on the government – I am trying to
do my bit to help. We are all in the same boat and nobody will come and save
our businesses – hence I believe we need to help each other.

 

I am happy to meet up and discuss /answer
any more questions on this with anyone else at the Thursday coffee meetings or
on a one – to –one level – just drop me a line and I’ll get
back in touch.

 

Thanks for all the feedback.

 

Kind regards,

 

Faisal

 

 

From: face=Tahoma> w:st="on">[address removed] [mailto: w:st="on">[address removed]] style='font-weight:bold'>On Behalf Of Antony Penn
Sent: 29 April 2009 15:35
To: [address removed]
Subject: Re: [entrepreneur-1056]
Apply for a £5000 grant to help your business

 

face="Times New Roman">Sorry everyone but IMHO
this is the worst investment i’ve seen suggested for a very long time, and I
seriously doubt the integrity of the website.

None of the figures on this add up:

14 x 16 video slots = 224 squares.
224 x £350 per video = £78,400
But you are hoping to raise $1m (should that be £1m?)
You need 2,857 videos to raise 1 million.

You say half a million will go to businesses, yet then state 50 businesses at
£5k each = 250,000

£5,000 will indeed help a lot of businessesm but this is a lottery, not a
grant.
Why pay £350 for a 1 in 200 chance of winning £5,000 ??
This is business suicide.

Small business advertising is crazy and very difficult to get right.
Spend that £350 on MARKETING
Spend that week of effort that WOULD HAVE gone in to editing said video on
driving your business forward instead – If there’s one thing small business do
not have enough of it is time. Do not waste it on distractions like this.

Whoever put this site together really didn’t think it through, or at the very
least has completely mis-communicated it.
Think before you spend your money people!

Rant over.

style='font-size:12.0pt'>On 29/04/2009, Omar
Miah
<[address removed]>
wrote:

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#444444'>faisal

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#444444'> 

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#444444'>like the idea – hope it works

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#444444'>can i ask where the £350 goes? who
benefits from this payment?

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#444444'> 

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#444444'>constructive criticism: i really really
don’t like it when you can’t see any real contact information – like a phone
number and address

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#444444'>looks very unprofessional

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#444444'> 

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#444444'>for all we know, you could be some
indian in banglalore who has already made a small sum from the advertisers you
have already!

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#444444'> 

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#444444'>: )

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#444444'> 

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#888888'> 

style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#888888'>omar

style='font-size:12.0pt'> 

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Geoffrey McCaleb <[address removed]> wrote:

£350 to upload
a video to a milliondollarhomepage clone?

I guess
I’m missing the part how 224 videos x £350 list fee – 50 grants x £5,000
actually works….

Hey, I’m
not knocking the idea, I just think the whole "giving back" vibe
seems to run counter to what the site looks to be achieving (at least by now
there are more non-corp videos knocking around). 

Geoffrey

 

On Wed,
29 Apr 2009 07:37:56 -0400, Tobias <[address removed]> wrote:

face="Times New Roman">Maybe Im missing
something here but how does "the opportunity for small and medium sized
businesses to advertise" = Toshiba, Apple, Cadburys etc.

I like the idea, but if the site becomes a cheap advertising home for large
corporates it’s not going to fly.  The large company videos on your site
are like watching bad commercials on TV.

What is up with that?

face="Times New Roman">


face="Times New Roman">From: [address removed]
To: [address removed]
Subject: [entrepreneur-1056] Apply for a £5000 grant to help your business
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:09:38 -0400

Hi All,

 

I’m doing my bit to help kick start the economy and
believe we can do this by supporting the small and medium sized businesses
(SME’s) which contribute to over 90% of the jobs in this country.

 

Hence, I’ve set up a website called Million Dollar
Videos www.milliondollarvideos.com
The idea is simple – businesses place a small video advert of their product on
the site to help them generate more sales, for a small fee.

 

The goal is to raise $1m of which half of the profits will go
into an independent fund called ‘UK SME Investments’. This will
provide £5000 grants to the most deserving businesses to help with marketing,
developing new products and hopefully increasing sales and employment for this
country.  The fund expects to help at least 50 businesses in this way.
Businesses which place an advert are eligible to apply for the grant.

 

A number of media companies are running with this story,
including The Guardian, ITN etc. to generate awareness and I will be speaking
at a number of small business events about this too.

 

If you have a small or medium sized business, then it would
certainly be worth applying for – I believe £5000 can make a big difference to
any business.

 

Many thanks

 

Faisal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Please Note: If you hit "REPLY",
your message will be sent to everyone
on this mailing list ([address removed])
This message was sent by Faisal Haque ([address removed]) from href="http://www.meetup.com/opencoffee/" target="_blank">London OpenCoffee
Meetup.
To learn more about Faisal Haque, visit his/her href="http://www.meetup.com/opencoffee/members/5154029/" target="_blank">member
profile
To unsubscribe or to update your mailing list settings, href="http://www.meetup.com/account/comm/" target="_blank">click here

Meetup
Support: [address removed]
632 Broadway, New York, w:st="on">NY 10012 w:st="on">USA

face="Times New Roman">


Find someone to snuggle up with href="http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fdating%2Enz%2Emsn%2Ecom%2Fchannel%2Findex%2Easpx%3Ftrackingid%3D1048628&_t=773568480&_r=nzWINDOWSliveMAILemailTAGLINES&_m=EXT"
target="_blank">No-one wants to be lonely this Autumn


Please Note: If you hit "REPLY",
your message will be sent to everyone
on this mailing list ([address removed])
This message was sent by Tobias ([address removed]) from href="http://www.meetup.com/opencoffee/" target="_blank">London OpenCoffee
Meetup.
To learn more about Tobias, visit his/her href="http://www.meetup.com/opencoffee/members/9401642/" target="_blank">member
profile
To unsubscribe or to update your mailing list settings, href="http://www.meetup.com/account/comm/" target="_blank">click here

Meetup
Support: [address removed]
632 Broadway, New York, w:st="on">NY 10012 w:st="on">USA

 


Please Note: If you hit "REPLY",
your message will be sent to everyone
on this mailing list ([address removed])

This message was sent by Geoffrey McCaleb ([address removed]) from href="http://www.meetup.com/opencoffee/" target="_blank">London OpenCoffee
Meetup.
To learn more about Geoffrey McCaleb, visit his/her href="http://www.meetup.com/opencoffee/members/3845249/" target="_blank">member
profile


To unsubscribe or to update your mailing list settings, href="http://www.meetup.com/account/comm/" target="_blank">click here

Meetup
Support: [address removed]
632 Broadway, New York, w:st="on">NY 10012 w:st="on">USA


Please Note: If you hit " face="Times New Roman">REPLY
", your
message will be sent to
everyone class=e> on this mailing list ([address removed])

This message was sent by Omar Miah ([address removed])
from London
OpenCoffee Meetup
.
To learn more about Omar Miah, visit his/her href="http://www.meetup.com/opencoffee/members/5740099/" target="_blank">member
profile
To unsubscribe or to update your mailing list settings, href="http://www.meetup.com/account/comm/" target="_blank">click here

Meetup Support: [address removed] color=gray>
632 Broadway, New York,
NY 10012
USA


Please Note: If you hit "REPLY",
your message will be sent to everyone
on this mailing list ([address removed])
This message was sent by Antony Penn ([address removed]) from href="http://www.meetup.com/opencoffee/">London OpenCoffee Meetup.
To learn more about Antony Penn, visit his/her href="http://www.meetup.com/opencoffee/members/9127617/">member profile
To unsubscribe or to update your mailing list settings, href="http://www.meetup.com/account/comm/">click here

Meetup
Support: [address removed]
632 Broadway, New York, w:st="on">NY 10012 w:st="on">USA

Add A Comment