57 START-UP ALLEY Pipo
THE PERSONAL TOUCH UK start-up Pipo allows users to invest in individuals, known as pipsters, who are seeking to raise funds for a particular goal. The original idea was the brainchild of Shahar Burg, pictured right
If investees fail to deliver, their shares are likely to drop, while lack of ROI to the investors is restricted by the fact that the individual amounts pledged tend to be relatively small (£250 is the largest pledge so far). According to Thompson, Pipo is aiming to recruit individuals across the creative and tech communities from vloggers and bloggers, MBA students, gamers and athletes, to other types of freelancers. And with more than 50% of the workforce in territories, such as the US and UK, set to be freelance by 2020, Thompson feels the time is right. “Social media created the personal brand. Crowdfunding proved that community funding works at scale. The freelance market shows the evolution from companies/projects to individual talent. All of the pieces are now in place to make Pipo a success,” he says. The first person – or ‘pipster’ as they are known – on Pipo was 27-year-old Ewan J Philips, a music graduate from the University of Manchester who needed £1000 to create his first LP, a goal he achieved in ten days. His pledge was for investors to become stakeholders in his
label and to split 40% of revenue made directly from the recording. “Ewan had 15 investors – seven of whom he didn’t know, while the others are his friends and family. Relatives and friends often play a big part on Pipo; if you state you are going to make a pledge to those close to you, you are more likely to keep it, as well as receive support,” notes Thompson. As a pipster, the user is essentially the marketing director of their own campaign (conducted largely over social media) and they are given the tools to create videos and communicate with stakeholders via a noticeboard with similar features to the team messaging app, Slack. A voting facility also enables investors to make decisions on something that the investee asks. After 30 days, the shares (or pips as they are referred to on Pipo) become tradeable, which also encourages investors to keep returning to the platform and investees to post updates on how their campaigns are going. Pipo hopes to generate its own revenue by taking 5% of what successful campaigns generate and 1% of each share transaction.
The original idea for Pipo was the brainchild of Shahar Burg, an Israeli expat living in Cyprus who sold her previous beauty and fitness marketplace app to the cloud-based web development platform, Wix Mobile. Thompson, meanwhile, spent 18 years working as a global marketing manager for big corporates, such as Mars, Walt Disney and Lego before starting his own business helping start ups. “We both know how hard it is to get funded in the world of VCs and right now everything is invested in start-ups rather than people,” he says. “What we want to do is create a marketplace where it’s possible to invest in the people you believe in.”
feedzinesocial feedzinesocial feedmagazine.tv
Powered by FlippingBook