Tidying Up

Posted by Blip Central on behalf of Blipfuture CIC

We continue to be heartened by the support we are receiving from the community as we get closer to our target to buy Blipfoto from the current owners. We feel there is a real sense of momentum building right now as the total pledged continues to steadily rise. As we post this entry our total raised has risen to £117,558.74.  This includes over £1,000 from the new PayPal donation option.  That said, there is still some way to go, so for those many of you blippers out there who haven’t pledged yet, now would be a great time to show your commitment to what we’re trying to do here. Just £10 buys you a share in the future of this site.
 
In this post:
 
●      Next steps
●      Communications
●      Where will the Money Go?
●      What will the Membership Price be?
●      Statistics on Pledges
 
Next Steps
 
As you will probably have read by now, we are having further discussions with the current owners this week.  This is a commercial negotiation and it will necessarily take place behind closed doors.  We will update you as soon as we can (it could take a couple of weeks), but please remember that in the meantime no news is good news. It just means we are still talking. 
 
It isn’t helpful for us to speculate here about possible outcomes, other than to say that from all we have seen in the last few weeks we still believe that Blipfoto can have a future as a community-owned site and we will be working hard to achieve that aim.  The best way the community can support us in this work is through the crowdfunding campaign.  The numbers (of pledgers and total raised) we take to that meeting are therefore very important in encouraging them to continue to support us. 
 
Communications
 
Thank you for all your suggestions and encouragement to help make sure we reach as much of the community as possible.  In the last few days we have:

●      Updated the banners on Blipfoto and added them to the post page
●      E-mailed every user of Blipfoto that we are legitimately allowed to
●      Continued to post here regularly with as much news as we can
 
Several people suggested updating the iPhone and Android apps to have a banner too. This is a suggestion we’re not taking up.  It would be very costly, require the user to download an update to the app, and the apps are used by a surprisingly small number of people – so it wouldn’t have much impact.
 
Where will the money go?
 
A significant proportion of the money we are raising through crowdfunding will go to one-off costs (like legals for the deal, paying the crowdfunding site fees) and working capital to help get the new company started.
 
We have had a number of questions asking how much the owners are being paid for Blipfoto.  We can say that it is a significant portion of the amount we are raising through crowdfunding, but it will be no more than they originally spent on the purchase. We will also use some equity/debt to reduce the cash required to make up the price. 
 
We are involved in a commercial business negotiation, which must take place in private and we must maintain confidentiality to be successful.  We have had full disclosure of the site’s operations and assets and we are confident that the initial agreement we made with the owners is fair to both parties, but it does not preclude us negotiating further to gain a more preferential settlement for the community.
 
What will the Membership Price be?
 
Lots of people are asking what membership will be priced at, and some would prefer not to pledge until they know.  We completely understand this, but we think it is really important that the community is consulted before the membership structure is fixed.  We believe based on all the numbers we have seen that there will be a viable and affordable membership model. 
 
What we are not going to do is impose a membership model without consultation, or make a statement to something that commits us (as part of the crowdfunding contract) that we can’t subsequently deliver.
 
We are asking you to trust us, and to trust the community, to come up with a good solution.  We understand some people won’t feel able to do that, and we’re sorry that is the case.  We thank those who are trusting us for continuing to pledge and raise the total towards the target.
 
Statistics on Pledges
 
Finally, we wanted to share some more statistics around the crowd funding campaign.  The image today is a graph of the pledges up to Saturday, indicating key points in the funding so far.
 
We have also broken down the levels of pledge into the reward bands, combining multiple pledges from individuals when needed.  Again as of Saturday we have:
 
2          Patrons
12        Benefactors
26        Diamond level supporters
71        Gold level
257      Silver level
351      Bronze level and
364      others who have bought shares.
 
Thank you to everyone that has pledged and therefore shown their commitment to the continuation of this amazing community.