Open Coffee Entrepreneur Group » Antony Penn

Apply for a £5000 grant to help your business

Faisal Haque — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:47:00 +0000

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