Yesterday, Wired.com issued a story titled "Powerset Co-Founder to Launch Crowdsourced Green VC Fund" which went in to a little bit of detail about the GreenFund project that I am working on.

I wanted to take the time for all of the people who read my blog to hear directly from me regarding this article, because the wording in the article made it appear that I was on the verge of launching a venture capital fund - and I must humbly say that I am not.

That being said, I am exploring one and the rest of the story that Alexis wrote is accurate - although I had asked him to keep the detailed information off the record.  But I guess I can't complain too much because the posting actually got me to thinking that it would be really interesting to open source my idea as I explore it.

So to that end I am going to be changing the format of my website a little and I am going to writing specific blog entries to post updates on the progress of 1) my legislative initiatives; and 2) my business initiatives.

As well, I am going to be adding some technology to my website to add a video blog and technology that creates a forum for people to discuss, argue against or support my initiatives.  My goal is to involve as many people as possible in the initiatives that I am trying to push.

Read on to see the first post and behind the scenes video. 

GreenClub (private)

Some people who follow me closely know that I have already created a private social network of about 80 people that I call GreenClub (shown to the right here)  The purpose of GreenClub was to help me think through and punch holes in my GreenFund idea.  I created it on Ning.

GreenClub (open)

Now I am looking to take this same concept and open it up to a much larger group of people and not only include GreenFund, but also all of my initiatives that I am working on such as the Green Campus and Solar Initiatives that are on this Junes Ballot and several other initiatives that are in the works like my Green Startup Incentive Program and the Carbon Fund idea for San Francisco.

Why am I sharing my ideas publicly?

As anyone who knows me can tell you, I am a big believer in transparency and I'm not afraid to be criticized in public.  In addition, I'm not afraid of my ideas getting ripped of, because this time I'm doing it for the benefit of others.  If someone wants to perfect GreenFund on their own and take it out to market then bravo! I'll do what I can to help.

The Very First GreenClub Video

To start the sharing, I thought it would be interested to take you back to the earliest days of GreenClub and let you peer into the process and see the early thinking. Below is the very first video that I posted back in October of 2007 to welcome new people to GreenClub.  The idea has changed quite a bit since then and you will see in subsequent videos just how much it changed.  In the early days of GreenFund the key problem we were trying to solve is that when you go over 100 unaccredited people you get into Mutual Fund rules quite quickly.  You'll see in the video, back then we were contemplated a reverse micro-lending model.  Since then we've moved on, but I thought it would be interesting to dig up the old videos that were private and show them to you.

In the video, I also talked about GreenCivics and GreenYou - today all of these concepts are merged into GreenFund.  Also note, I have Climate Change in the beginning of the video taking center stage and now I truly think it is sustainability and not climate change.

Take a look at the video, I'll be posting more to help share the history and thinking behind GreenFund as we develop the idea.

Posted by Steve Newcomb on February 28, 2008 03:06 PM | Permalink