The idea I have is to set up a collectively funded food bank/food truck that can provide one free meal a day to anyone in the city who needs it (trying to eliminate the hunger problem here in America), to keep contributions and business running, I incentivize the investors/philanthropists by giving them a partial ownership in the business via a token.
This part I still can't understand. Your business, as you called, is actually charity as people donate to your food bank/food truck right? How you keep 'contributions and business running' when you're relying on donation and from that, partial ownership in the business to investors for shares of your business is enough to convince them of profit? Are you going to steal a part of the donation to keep as your profit? 
Topic: I need a reality check, is an ICO right for me to fund a business? (Read 938 times)
June 14, 2020, 06:36:11 PM
The nature of your business determines if you can raise fund in ICO. And you talk of owning a part of the business base on sum invested. That make your fundraising an STO. I just wonder how you will satisfy your investors in ICO when your business is a blockchain based.
June 14, 2020, 05:07:50 PM
That's donation, you are not looking for ICO you are looking for donation. Just because you call it ICO doesn't mean that people will profit from it, you are going to use all of that money for helping the poor people which is a very noble gesture and I hope one day you can do it, but that doesn't mean that you can convince investors for something like this.
Maybe you can get a small amount, people do like to donate to charities and if you can actually provide proof that you are helping people with the money you get, there is a 100% chance you can get some donations. However what you get will be donations, it is not ICO, it is not crypto, it is totally unrelated donation and that's it, the only thing that this has in common with us is that you may accept bitcoin donations and that's it.
Maybe you can get a small amount, people do like to donate to charities and if you can actually provide proof that you are helping people with the money you get, there is a 100% chance you can get some donations. However what you get will be donations, it is not ICO, it is not crypto, it is totally unrelated donation and that's it, the only thing that this has in common with us is that you may accept bitcoin donations and that's it.
June 14, 2020, 04:29:02 PM
I think you're at the wrong time to implement that project funded by an ICO. because we all know that the ICO's nowadays are not working well anymore so even your goal is good(charitable) I might say that your chances to succeed in raising funds using the ICO method is very slim. I might suggest that you should find an alternative way to fund your startup business (if its a business). but not the ICO method because it's already dead.
I must agree that that the timing now is bad for ICO. We already lost so much investors through the years due to scams and unwanted fails of most speculated projects back then, even Libra of facebook didn't show up. Investors now are losing confidence to invest on projects lately, there have been a huge decrease of investors if you would look at the raised funds of projects lately, unlike back then. Especially now that we are facing a world catastrophe, we are getting less support if we plan a project now. The best thing to do now for profit earning is trading and futures trading.on investors side.This is the reality now thats why its really hard to raise up some fundings into this kind of situation and as said, we
are on a pandemic situation where people wont prioritize investment as of this moment but rather be focusing into their own
needs and priorities for them to survive.
June 14, 2020, 04:25:40 PM
You have to understand what blockchain is. It's not like a share that you can distribute to your investors base on what you have said. It's where bitcoin and any other coin runs. It's the network for most cryptocurrencies so it's not like an asset or dividend that you can give to those people that's longing to invest or buy a share with what you're trying to discuss here. As I have said, as long as there is no business model and profitable service or product you'll going to offer, it's more of a charity.
Actually tokens in a blockchain is a good way of determining the share of a person. You just need to look at the blockchain and you can see the addresses that owns the token and it is quite easy to distribute profits to the holder.
If you are providing free meals then how is it a business? Also as far as I know you can only do ICO with regulated investors in America. Since your token isn't providing any utility to holders, it might as well be classified as security and you might have difficult time going around it.
I think OP has work around on this "free meal". As stated earlier, this can be a form of promo, wherein every x purchase of foods a y number of a free meal is allocated. It not that hard to maintain this while profiting from a business. Though I agree that if their token is classified as security then it will need legal documents to proceeds.
June 14, 2020, 02:42:03 PM
I think you're at the wrong time to implement that project funded by an ICO. because we all know that the ICO's nowadays are not working well anymore so even your goal is good(charitable) I might say that your chances to succeed in raising funds using the ICO method is very slim. I might suggest that you should find an alternative way to fund your startup business (if its a business). but not the ICO method because it's already dead.
I must agree that that the timing now is bad for ICO. We already lost so much investors through the years due to scams and unwanted fails of most speculated projects back then, even Libra of facebook didn't show up. Investors now are losing confidence to invest on projects lately, there have been a huge decrease of investors if you would look at the raised funds of projects lately, unlike back then. Especially now that we are facing a world catastrophe, we are getting less support if we plan a project now. The best thing to do now for profit earning is trading and futures trading. June 14, 2020, 02:05:08 PM
You have a good idea or something like Amal. but the problem is that investors are not currently very interested in the ICO project for several reasons, especially fraud. because ICO's reputation is bad, it makes most investors worry about investing in it. but it also doesn't hurt if you plan to develop a project through ICO, because that is your own right.
June 14, 2020, 01:51:12 PM
If your business model is a charity organizational, u don't think you need to tokenized such project because the target audience are not cryptocurrency savvy. People you want to offer a meal per day do not have any knowledge of blockchain technology. You can raise funds to kick start the business.
June 14, 2020, 01:46:21 PM
If you are providing free meals then how is it a business? Also as far as I know you can only do ICO with regulated investors in America. Since your token isn't providing any utility to holders, it might as well be classified as security and you might have difficult time going around it.
I think OP has work around on this "free meal". As stated earlier, this can be a form of promo, wherein every x purchase of foods a y number of a free meal is allocated. It not that hard to maintain this while profiting from a business. Though I agree that if their token is classified as security then it will need legal documents to proceeds.
I see where you're coming from but I struggle to see why would any investor be interested in funding this project since there'll be no profit generated. Their financial contribution would simply be one based on them willing to do a good deed but then even that would be temporary rather than long term. In my opinion, you need to think of giving something back to these investors, something they see as value.
This may answer the question stated by OP.
Quote
Well before I feel like I'm on to something I need someone to give me a reality check, because in my mind (based on my limited knowledge) offering tokens as say 'shares' of the company can be later cashed in as the companies Marketcap continues to expand, or as more people donate/invest.
It seems that it would be a speculative asset since the investors need or wait for the token to increase in price for them to get a profit and that is not attractive since it is actually a common scenario.
June 14, 2020, 01:27:46 PM
I see where you're coming from but I struggle to see why would any investor be interested in funding this project since there'll be no profit generated. Their financial contribution would simply be one based on them willing to do a good deed but then even that would be temporary rather than long term. In my opinion, you need to think of giving something back to these investors, something they see as value.
June 14, 2020, 10:58:23 AM
I think you're at the wrong time to implement that project funded by an ICO. because we all know that the ICO's nowadays are not working well anymore so even your goal is good(charitable) I might say that your chances to succeed in raising funds using the ICO method is very slim. I might suggest that you should find an alternative way to fund your startup business (if its a business). but not the ICO method because it's already dead.
June 14, 2020, 10:34:17 AM
The idea looks good to me, that is looking for a way to end the hunger problems in America, but however there is a big roadblock and that is the fundraising method you are choosing, which is the ICO. ICO method of fundraising is long gone into oblivion thus no one is saying anything about it and even if any project comes up with, there will likely be no chances of success which is as a result of the known fraudulent nature of ICOs. Nowadays, people prefers IEO because the project team can't outrightly scam them unlike in ICO. Therefore my own suggestion is, if you really trust in your project or idea, get a team if possible, work on the idea to be more better, perfect it and seek for IEO on good exchanges.
June 14, 2020, 10:32:19 AM
If you are providing free meals then how is it a business? Also as far as I know you can only do ICO with regulated investors in America. Since your token isn't providing any utility to holders, it might as well be classified as security and you might have difficult time going around it.
June 14, 2020, 09:40:52 AM
that depends on what kind of business mechanism that you have taken it for your company.
In ICO what we are looking for is a product and this is the main thing for a company to raise the funds. Investors need a utility to be used by them for something else or generate profit to give the investors the dividend like what already given by some major platforms. They will not invest in something that will waste their time and money.
It's better for you to understand what's the ico https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-ico/
If there is no product! Assume that it will fail. Many traders and investors are already learned in ICO. Today, we are already educated and if we see that it has no products then it is red flag.In ICO what we are looking for is a product and this is the main thing for a company to raise the funds. Investors need a utility to be used by them for something else or generate profit to give the investors the dividend like what already given by some major platforms. They will not invest in something that will waste their time and money.
It's better for you to understand what's the ico https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-ico/
That's why, OP should not just think that it is to fund his project. Besides, you must have brilliant core members because it also serves as reference for investors to fund your project.
June 14, 2020, 09:36:25 AM
It'sd hard to set up project projects via ICO that is nontech, people would like to see a tech-based project, even teach based project are having a hard time to succeed, and to give you an update, it's hard to get investors to invest in ICO, they are fed upon it, you need an extraordinary project and create a big hype to get the support of investors and the whole community.
June 14, 2020, 09:28:53 AM
How will you even get to convince people to invest with you for a charity work and hold a token that doesn't have a worth? It's not the right thing to do. The real cryptocurency is still struggling with getting people to understand how it works and invest. This food charity can be done without a token introduction.
June 14, 2020, 09:14:33 AM
The idea I have is to set up a collectively funded food bank/food truck that can provide one free meal a day to anyone in the city who needs it (trying to eliminate the hunger problem here in America), to keep contributions and business running, I incentivize the investors/philanthropists by giving them a partial ownership in the business via a token.
This part I still can't understand. Your business, as you called, is actually charity as people donate to your food bank/food truck right? How you keep 'contributions and business running' when you're relying on donation and from that, partial ownership in the business to investors for shares of your business is enough to convince them of profit? Are you going to steal a part of the donation to keep as your profit? 
June 14, 2020, 08:40:49 AM
Ico have already lost the trust of investors long time ago, all the disappointment investors have had to experience in investing in all this project already erased the trust they had, this is why ico's are struggling lately, even you are not helping with your plan either, it seems your token holders will not benefit much from this your plan.
for now, it is very difficult to ensure a very good ICO. even very few percentages can be trusted about ICO. Well, in 2020, I don't know ICO that gets a big profit. only a few IEO are like that, but for ICO, I'm still waiting for its success this year, even though it's quite difficult. 
June 14, 2020, 08:24:33 AM
If you want to fund your business with ICO, it's better to prepare a clear project scheme or product that is convincing and promising. I think for now it's better to make a private sale or an IEO on an exchange. almost 100% of projects that run ICO fail for now, because it is no longer the ICO era for several reasons. what the investor sees first is definitely "product" and then reviewing the project, whether it can be profitable or not. before thinking about crowdfunding, you should develop ideas related to your project first.
Also you should keep in mind that the token should be of use somewhere in your business and won't be just a holding for the investors, think of ethereum network where all the ICO were hosted you could have invested in any ICO all you needed was an ethereum wallet. So think about your business and how can others benefit by purchasing those tokens from you, if you come up with a sound idea then there will be a lot of sound pockets willing to invest in your business Idea and even better there are Pre ICO investors also who offer generous money. June 14, 2020, 08:02:08 AM
Ico have already lost the trust of investors long time ago, all the disappointment investors have had to experience in investing in all this project already erased the trust they had, this is why ico's are struggling lately, even you are not helping with your plan either, it seems your token holders will not benefit much from this your plan.
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