April ALAP Meeting Recap
We are an informal group of
Northern Michigan citizens seeking to have more local impact and connectedness
with our money. We gather once a month for a potluck and to meet local
entrepreneurs and learn about their projects. During our meetings, we
also share ideas for how we might keep more of our money locally and invested
for triple-bottom-line returns (financial, social, and environmental). This is
an experiment of sorts with exciting offshoot possibilities, including the
spawning of a more formal local investing club. For now, though, those
interested in pursuing local investments with other group members or presenting
entrepreneurs may do so independently of this ALAP group. Our meetings
are open to any individual, although we request that you RSVP so that we can
assure sufficient meeting space. We blog our progress @ www.aslocalaspossible.blogspot.com.
MLUI hosted another fine As Local As Possible (ALAP)
Investment Group meeting on April 12! We changed up the format a bit this
month to discuss group business during both the first (in between yummy bites
of potluck goodness) and third hours. Here’s a quick summary of these
topics:
*Membership: with several months under our belts, we
are now confident it is time to more openly spread the word about ALAP.
We will work on some basic content to help with this (including a combined
hand-out (paper and/or electronic) that appeals to prospective members and
fund-seeking, triple-bottom-line entrepreneurs). Such content will help
us get the word out to our respective social networks, local media like the
Express and TCTicker, and sustainability-connected groups like ISLAND, SEEDS,
and MLUI. In order to manage logistics, we will strongly encourage RSVPs
to make sure our current meeting space is sufficient.
*Speaker Sourcing: In addition to the combination
member/entrepreneur recruiting noted above, we will get the word of what we are
doing out to other organizations that regularly interface with entrepreneurs
(such as Northern Michigan Angels, SCORE, community bankers, etc). We
will be sure to emphasize that ALAP members are focused on making loans to
triple-bottom-line-focused local entrepreneurs.
*Meeting Format: we talked quite a bit about this
including frequency, structure, etc. For now, we’ve decided to skip the
May meeting as many of the regular ALAP members will be getting together in the
weeks ahead to work out an operating agreement for a local investment
club. So our next regular ALAP potluck will be June 14. We also
discussed taking July and Aug off and then from September alternating the ALAP
potluck and ALAP investment club (once formed) meetings. Depending on our
speaker sourcing efforts, we may alter the 7-8pm hour to include two 30-minute
entrepreneur slots rather than the current format of one 60-minute slot.
We also liked the idea of mixing in a local Pizza order from time to time to
give the potluck preppers a break. Generally though, we like the 3 hour
format of (6-7pm) networking/potluck/5-minute quick pitches, (7-8pm) featured
entrepreneurs, and (8-9pm) group business.
After our “working” potluck hour, we heard a five-minute
talk from ALAP member Paul Murray who continues to develop a business model for
his Life-House Eco Living System. Paul’s current concept includes a
20-room healing lifestyle center with year-round greenhouse food growing, living-foods
nutrition on-site, and ultra-green construction.
Following Paul, we heard about the new developments underway
at Selestial Soap. Joining Ruth were her new CEO/investor Stephen Ezell (www.eha-ventures.com), COO Bob Selkirk
(sorry about the spelling Bob) and guest Tom Krause who is helping the
Selestial Team with a possible commercial real estate deal. Ruth gave a
product overview of Selestial’s surprisingly deep product line which includes
surfactant-free liquid laundry detergents, softening rinses, stain sprays,
household cleaners, and even an all-natural insect repellent. Stephen who
runs a venture-capital advisory and joined the Selestial team only a week ago,
walked the group through his assessment of Selestial’s potential and the
introductory steps the new team is taking to quickly ramp up growth.
Those interested in learning more should follow up with
Stephen (Stephen@eha-ventures.com).
He mentioned that there may be a near-term real-estate investment opportunity
in “Phase 1” of Selestial’s restructuring as well as a possible equity
opportunity later this year.
For ALAPers interested in working on the planning of the
investment club, our next meeting is scheduled for 7:30 pm Wednesday April 25
at Barb Tholin’s home in TC (directions will follow for those on the investment
club planning group email list.) As mentioned above, our next ALAP
potluck will be Thursday, June 14 with the invited entrepreneur TBA.
Have a great weekend everyone,
Zach
PS: Here’s a link from Paul Murray on the
self-directed IRA front.
