TheInheritanceChannel.com the introduction
Donate to TIC
"[Y]our concept of creating an online forum for all things inherited is a brilliant one. Frankly, I would have supposed that simply restricting the subject to juridical inheritance … would be sufficient to attract a mammoth audience. But expanding the concept to consider all the ways in which our lives are shaped by what’s passed down to us creates an arena of inexhaustible fascination."
David Grant, Grant PR
TIC needs your help
Hello. TIC founder Richard J. Szrabe here. TIC is presently an early-stage, well thought-out global multimedia startup. On this page, I'm going to be encouraging financial contributions from folks who 'get' TIC and want to see it succeed.
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You can email me direct at any time to discuss any of this — richard@theinheritancechannel.com — and we can have a zoom conversation about it.
I envisage three stages to getting TIC fully off the ground:-
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Stage 1: Bootstrapping
This is where we are now. TIC is my show and I'm developing and demonstrating the enterprise (please don't call it a 'concept' or I'll order you to my smowdfunding website). Financially, this is of course the least congenial of the three presently envisaged stages. On my own slender bootstraps, TIC cannot afford to get itself into the necessary state to move from Stage 1 to Stage 2.
That's where YOU come in.
I'm asking you to make a financial contribution RIGHT NOW to TIC Stage 1 to fund the sensible, prudent, urgent developing of TIC's brand, platforms, products, potential — including our super-exciting Inheritance Social interactivity platform — in the enormous field of inheritance.
TIC is asking for contributions only in Stage 1. Your contribution will enable TIC to buy in Stage 1 the services it needs (exemplified below) to evidence that it is a robust, sensible, viable, rational, independent, trustworthy global multimedia enterprise in the field of inheritance.
I consider that, at Stage 1, contributions from TIC's constituencies are a more rational approach — cheaper, quicker, calmer, more sensible, more efficient — than 'first cheque', pre-seed, seed or any other equity investment. As I see it, it is presumptious, pretentious and premature for TIC to dress up as a C corporation (especially in franchise-tax-happy Delaware; that definitely will not happen) and then go out cruising for investors. That is big-time cart before the horse.
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Stage 2: Equity Finance
In Stage 2, TIC will talk credibly to real-deal candidate investors who already intimately know global multimedia — who recognise TIC as a solid conventional sensible, disciplined, responsible multimedia enterprise with nothing to prototype — and with whom TIC's aspirations resonate instinctively.
The equity funding that TIC will need to get fully off the ground and be successful globally is probably in the region of a once-and-for-all sum of $500,000 — very much less than the typical number from the typical excitable profligate media startup.
The funding deal will involve setting up a properly considered, properly structured corporation customised to TIC and the investor(s). I don't rule out crowdfunding: TIC is already a natural for crowd sourcing.
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Stage 3: Fully Operational
From Stage 2, TIC moves immediately to Stage 3: TIC is fully operational as a global multimedia enterprise, with a corporation, investors, shareholders, a board, c-suits, monetised products, earned income and a very realistic commercial mentality.
It will get to work as a fully fledged global multimedia enterprise. TIC will have two centerpieces: its for-profit business and a not-for-profit TIC Foundation.
Some technical data
The whole TIC effort — everything about TIC at this stage including its very existence — is vested solely in me personally. Just me. TIC is presently not incorporated anywhere. That's the simplest, easiest, clearest, cleanest, cheapest, most straightforward, most elegant, most manageable approach of all (and it keeps the lawyers away). It makes things much simpler when venture capital comes along and we then start creating one or more corporations, shares, etc.
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Every cent and penny of every contribution goes to me personally for me to use to build up TIC.
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I'm not incorporated. I'm not a charity. Your contribution is not an investment in TIC or in any future TIC entity. Your contribution is not tax-deductible.
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Every donated ​penny is minutely acounted for at every stage and tracked so you can see exactly what happens to it. And I produce formal TIC donation accounts every quarter.
Exactly how will I spend Stage 1 contributions?
TIC's Stage 1 shopping list includes the essentials that TIC needs to get moving. For example:-
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• publicity: obtaining social media and other appropriate publicity that systematically spreads the word
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• community: the development of Inheritance Social, TIC's online and physical community
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• content: a wholesome restrained conventional news-site-type website offering a variety of factual and expert-opinion multimedia content by text, podcast, webinars etc. We are especially keen to crowd-source: everyone has an inheritance story!
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• interaction: the organising of one or two small-scale TIC events. We might start with a gathering of testators and heirs; or a gathering of geneticists and patients; or a gathering of geneaophiles and genealogy professionals (DNA testers, archivists etc); or a gathering of ecologists, conservationists, environment activists, etc — TIC has no shortage of relevant communities and markets
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• specific projects.
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I envisage that in Stage 2 its not-yet-spent funds will be transferred to TIC's equity investment corporation's general account.