Fighting the whole crowd system or experiment with crowdfunding in runet
Prelude
Where does business start in Russia? With legalization - state registration jur. Individual or sole proprietorship? Not really - if you dig deeper - from the search for time and money for this legalization. Scurry in tax, bank, crush in lines, for legal. persons - search and lease of premises (well, or, at least, purchase of a formal lease agreement), payment of authorized capital, production of a seal, search for an accountant, in particular cases - purchase of a cash register, 1C, etc. ... Alternatively, purchases ready-made company, but this is in any case the corresponding expenses and some competence.
Without legalization, it is possible, in principle, to conduct business activities, but such entrepreneurs are tried for every penny earned to the fullest extent of article 171 of the criminal code. Are you distributing perfumes and cosmetics (avon, oriflame, etc.)? You are a felon. Collect mushrooms in the forest, berries, sell on the sidelines or buyers? You are a felon. Regularly take orders from freelance exchanges and get paid for their execution? You are a criminal too.
')
The mass of citizens is outlawed. You can, of course, say that they themselves are to blame, but here I can argue: not everyone has the opportunity to earn the necessary initial capital (especially now - when it’s not easy to get a job in the capitals, in many localities it’s unrealistic) . To give the last property on the security of a bank loan for a ruinous interest is madness.
In fact, the existing law discriminates citizens according to the level of wealth - the freedom to go about their business is given only to those who can afford it - the capitalists. The rest are forced to go to the last to bow, or to work. This state of affairs is beneficial only to capitalists and to anyone except them, even the state is hostage to its own law, which kills initiative and economic growth, especially in small settlements, where the initial capital is not available in principle.
I believe that violating the law, which has a destructive nature and oppresses the rights and freedoms of citizens, is at least excusable. Therefore, I am loyal to those who are trying to work, create, without regard to the system, at least until their average monthly turnover does not exceed the average cost of a car of domestic production. The most unpleasant, however, is that it is physically possible to trade cosmetics or cucumbers illegally, since payments are made in cash, contracts are made verbally, but if your business is to provide services or sell goods via the Internet, your market is limited only to owners of webmoney purses and other electronic cash, transfers and cashing of which, by the way, cost a percentage that is completely unacceptable for the civilized financial services market.
Those whose sales market does not include owners of e-cash, as well as those who would like to expand the existing market at the expense of owners of other payment instruments, have no choice but to bother with business legalization, to assume the obligations of tax accounting, business risks and other unpleasant things.
Problem
Let us imagine a situation: a woman with a daughter in a God-forgotten town among the Ural mountains is engaged in embroidering unique pictures with beads - large-scale panoramas depicting the beauties of the Ural nature. Local buyers do not have the ability and desire to pay decent money for such paintings, so the woman keeps them in the closet, in the hope that a rich merchant will come and pay generously for her painstaking work.
The woman tried to exhibit her work at domestic online auctions, but the Russian merchant used to go shopping in the glamorous Moscow galleries for shopping, the merchant is more modest - to visit flea market near the Central House of Artists and their ilk. There was no woman of happiness in the domestic trade. And then she turned her attention to the world's largest online auction site eBay - overseas merchants were amazed at the quality of work and offered a decent payment. The woman finally sighed with relief, but not for long: the question of payment was inevitably raised. There are few ways to get money for Russians (and sending it painlessly for merchants). Accepting payments using PayPal is closed, money transfer systems (Western Union, MoneyGram) are prohibited by eBay rules , international wire transfer (Wire Transfer) is not cheap, long, requires a currency account from the seller and is quite laborious for the buyer (and many merchants scares). In addition, a currency account in the bank is made out directly in the name of the seller - data on the receipt of money can get into the tax (and there is not far to article 171 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Only two systems come to mind, providing the possibility of electronic invoicing and accepting payments from plastic cards that are available for Russians and do not require a legal entity or DBA (PI) - 2Checkout and CCNow. But:
1. They are designed to accept payments through the seller’s own website, their rules do not allow payment for sales on online auctions.
2. They provide impressive lists of goods and services that are prohibited for sale using their payment interfaces, including, among others, objects of art.
A woman has no choice but to register in the manner prescribed by law - to engage in an unloved affair, retrain from artist to businessman and entrepreneur.
The above is just a demonstration of how the system stifles the initiative, restricts the freedom of citizens. I myself recently found myself in a similar situation - my Internet service is designed for an English-speaking audience, but it turned out to be an impossible task to organize acceptance of plastic cards - all my applications were rejected by the mentioned systems without explaining the reasons for the refusal. What to do? Spending time and money on legalization, without a single guarantee that the service will be in demand and my costs will pay off?
Decision
And here Thought descended on me ... The principle of operation of such systems as 2Checkout and CCNow is similar to commissions - they formally resell your product or service under their own name through some kind of commission agreement, thus ensuring the purity before the law, because, as already mentioned, you don’t You have the right to sell your goods and services (without state registration).
Several years ago, on behalf of the employer, I designed a large Internet portal designed to sell various goods from individuals and legal entities. It was planned to provide a full range of services, from warehousing and logistics to receiving payment from customers and accounting. It was then that I plunged into all the intricacies of intermediary operations.
Russian law provides that an individual has the right to provide services and supply goods for money under civil law contracts without the risk of being caught in illegal business. One of such contracts is the contract of agency. This is the most universal way to carry out intermediary operations, along with it there is a commission agreement and a commission agreement, which are, in fact, special cases of the agency agreement. For example, individuals can safely trade securities on the stock market, make a profit without any risk of going through the article on illegal business, concluding an agency agreement with a broker and carry out all operations on his behalf.
So I had the idea to organize a company, a sort of meta-corporation, which will act as an agent for transactions for individuals, freeing them from the obligation to spend money and time to register their own legal entity. individuals, rent an office, keep accounts, organize billing, cash out, etc. Any citizen of the country who wants to do business that does not contradict the law and is not subject to licensing will be able to conclude an agreement with this company, according to which it will act as its agent, thereby allowing him to enjoy all the benefits of a full-fledged legal entity. persons: legal and postal address, office in Moscow, telephone and secretary, bank account details in a reputable bank, invoicing, billing, payment monitoring, smooth withdrawal of funds to your bank account or plastic card, available through the browser, and not worry that he will receive a tax audit or an investigator in a criminal case on illegal business.
The fact that this service is in demand incomparably more than the next social network or content project, you can be sure - just refresh the memory of recent topics on Habré (for example, this , this or this ). One client at such a company is definitely there - I am. What is there - to take any freelancer working under a contract with a reputable company who wants to pay for services by bank transfer - the ability to go to your account on the site of your agent, enter customer details, the amount, the name of the service rendered and automatically generate and send in the right direction an account and the act on behalf of the agent company, eventually receiving payment on your own bank card - beauty. And the webmaster, who sells products, services through his website, or, finally, advertising space, will have the opportunity in the contacts section to specify the legal address and office phone number, and calls to this phone will be processed by the operator and sent to the webmaster - the client of the agent company by email.
How much should such services nat. Persons - entrepreneurs? First of all, no monthly fee - only commissions from each transaction made on behalf of the agent, and small, not higher than 5-6%. Secondly - a certain amount during registration - filing an application to conclude an agency agreement. Since the services of such an agent will want to be used by many people, and the agent’s staff will not be able to physically process all applications (it is necessary, at a minimum, to examine the compliance of the client’s activities with the legislation, to verify his identity and authenticity of documents), a certain barrier is needed that would eliminate deliberately frivolous applications. For this there is a proven way - invites. They can either be bought at a price of 1,500 rubles, or obtained from an existing client, the turnover of which for agency transactions has reached a certain value. Thus (transaction fees + income from the sale of invites), we have a fully functional business model. But you can sell more and add. services - the same call-center, logistics, representative functions.
Implementation
So, we are talking about the following list of tasks:
- Coordination of the draft agency agreement, which I prepared, with competent specialists and project participants.
- Development of two business card sites of the agent company (multi-national business, in Russian, multi-international business, in English).
- Design and development of interfaces and services of the agent and individuals - principals (entering into contracts with other legal entities and individuals on behalf of the agent, issuing acts, bills, paying bills, administering the current register of goods and services, accepting plastic cards through the principal's site).
- Writing regulations and reference materials and.
- Rent a small office with a telephone and Internet access in a place not too far from the TTR and the metro.
- Office equipment table, a couple of chairs, a computer and telephone.
- Registration of LLC, opening a current account in the bank.
- Signing a contract for the provision of a payment API with a bank or an appropriate service provider.
- Hiring an accountant, in his person, the operator and clerk in a rented office at a full and adequate rate.
- Welcome first customers.
The required amount of investment, minus my own resources (as a designer and experienced project manager), is 600 thousand rubles (I will not spread the estimate, there is a lot of letters, I’ll censor my readers with numbers, who are interested - write, I’ll send you personally). In principle, to find such money is not so difficult, and if you wish, I could go look for an investor, or, in the end, lay my car and precious metals spouse :), but the most interesting I thought was to conduct an experiment with crowdfunding in runet. We divide risks to an insignificant level, and at the same time we find out how much the idea of such a service is in demand in our places.
So. Russian law prohibits advertising and (or) offering an unlimited number of persons securities, the issue of which has not passed the state registration, as well as documents certifying monetary and other obligations, but not securities. Therefore, everyone who wants to invest an amount in excess of $ 1000, and those who want to participate in the division of profits, please contact me in the mail to discuss the details (trispace [at] ya.ru). Those who are directly interested in obtaining the final product, ugh, services, in exchange for investments in the project, I propose the following:
- Invite.
- Discount from% commission.
- Satisfaction from participating in a business that is beneficial to their fellow citizens - I am sure that there is an economic and social aspect to a startup.
By investing 250 rubles, you get the right to a discount from the commission agent in the amount of 1% of each transaction (the invite itself, however, will have to be bought separately). To get an invite directly (after and if the project described is eventually implemented) you need to invest at least 500 rubles. To get an invite with a 1% discount from the commission agent, you should invest at least 750 rubles. Having invested a thousand rubles, you can count on an invite with a 2% discount, and by investing one and a half thousand rubles, you will receive two invites at once with a 2% discount. Invites do not become attached to the participants, so you can later transfer (or sell) your invite to anyone you see fit. It makes sense to invest less than 250 rubles, but this will not give preferences to the future service - here, I believe, you should enjoy the pleasure of directly participating in a useful and interesting business. :)
The project's blog is located on vDele.com . There you can also become a member and see what amount you have already managed to collect (updated every day). Also there will be published materials about the current state of affairs, experience, which was obtained in the course of solving problems of the project. Your comments and suggestions, of course, welcome.
Ps. What happens if I fail to collect the required amount? There are options: either all the same, I pledge my car and add the missing, or send everything that I managed to collect to charity. It depends only on how much the project will be in demand and what percentage of the required amount can be collected ...
Pps. Many thanks to all who read to the end - sorry if someone tired of such a long presentation. In fact, I wanted to write more and in more detail, but my conscience completely drank ... :)
PPPS. In general, I tried in vain - judging by the comments, the idea is unsuccessful, and the standard crowdfunding model in Russia does not work. This post remains just to familiarize the habra people, that here, they say, there was such an idea, this result turned out. Thanks to all.
Where does business start in Russia? With legalization - state registration jur. Individual or sole proprietorship? Not really - if you dig deeper - from the search for time and money for this legalization. Scurry in tax, bank, crush in lines, for legal. persons - search and lease of premises (well, or, at least, purchase of a formal lease agreement), payment of authorized capital, production of a seal, search for an accountant, in particular cases - purchase of a cash register, 1C, etc. ... Alternatively, purchases ready-made company, but this is in any case the corresponding expenses and some competence.
Without legalization, it is possible, in principle, to conduct business activities, but such entrepreneurs are tried for every penny earned to the fullest extent of article 171 of the criminal code. Are you distributing perfumes and cosmetics (avon, oriflame, etc.)? You are a felon. Collect mushrooms in the forest, berries, sell on the sidelines or buyers? You are a felon. Regularly take orders from freelance exchanges and get paid for their execution? You are a criminal too.
')
The mass of citizens is outlawed. You can, of course, say that they themselves are to blame, but here I can argue: not everyone has the opportunity to earn the necessary initial capital (especially now - when it’s not easy to get a job in the capitals, in many localities it’s unrealistic) . To give the last property on the security of a bank loan for a ruinous interest is madness.
In fact, the existing law discriminates citizens according to the level of wealth - the freedom to go about their business is given only to those who can afford it - the capitalists. The rest are forced to go to the last to bow, or to work. This state of affairs is beneficial only to capitalists and to anyone except them, even the state is hostage to its own law, which kills initiative and economic growth, especially in small settlements, where the initial capital is not available in principle.
I believe that violating the law, which has a destructive nature and oppresses the rights and freedoms of citizens, is at least excusable. Therefore, I am loyal to those who are trying to work, create, without regard to the system, at least until their average monthly turnover does not exceed the average cost of a car of domestic production. The most unpleasant, however, is that it is physically possible to trade cosmetics or cucumbers illegally, since payments are made in cash, contracts are made verbally, but if your business is to provide services or sell goods via the Internet, your market is limited only to owners of webmoney purses and other electronic cash, transfers and cashing of which, by the way, cost a percentage that is completely unacceptable for the civilized financial services market.
Those whose sales market does not include owners of e-cash, as well as those who would like to expand the existing market at the expense of owners of other payment instruments, have no choice but to bother with business legalization, to assume the obligations of tax accounting, business risks and other unpleasant things.
Problem
Let us imagine a situation: a woman with a daughter in a God-forgotten town among the Ural mountains is engaged in embroidering unique pictures with beads - large-scale panoramas depicting the beauties of the Ural nature. Local buyers do not have the ability and desire to pay decent money for such paintings, so the woman keeps them in the closet, in the hope that a rich merchant will come and pay generously for her painstaking work.
The woman tried to exhibit her work at domestic online auctions, but the Russian merchant used to go shopping in the glamorous Moscow galleries for shopping, the merchant is more modest - to visit flea market near the Central House of Artists and their ilk. There was no woman of happiness in the domestic trade. And then she turned her attention to the world's largest online auction site eBay - overseas merchants were amazed at the quality of work and offered a decent payment. The woman finally sighed with relief, but not for long: the question of payment was inevitably raised. There are few ways to get money for Russians (and sending it painlessly for merchants). Accepting payments using PayPal is closed, money transfer systems (Western Union, MoneyGram) are prohibited by eBay rules , international wire transfer (Wire Transfer) is not cheap, long, requires a currency account from the seller and is quite laborious for the buyer (and many merchants scares). In addition, a currency account in the bank is made out directly in the name of the seller - data on the receipt of money can get into the tax (and there is not far to article 171 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Only two systems come to mind, providing the possibility of electronic invoicing and accepting payments from plastic cards that are available for Russians and do not require a legal entity or DBA (PI) - 2Checkout and CCNow. But:
1. They are designed to accept payments through the seller’s own website, their rules do not allow payment for sales on online auctions.
2. They provide impressive lists of goods and services that are prohibited for sale using their payment interfaces, including, among others, objects of art.
A woman has no choice but to register in the manner prescribed by law - to engage in an unloved affair, retrain from artist to businessman and entrepreneur.
The above is just a demonstration of how the system stifles the initiative, restricts the freedom of citizens. I myself recently found myself in a similar situation - my Internet service is designed for an English-speaking audience, but it turned out to be an impossible task to organize acceptance of plastic cards - all my applications were rejected by the mentioned systems without explaining the reasons for the refusal. What to do? Spending time and money on legalization, without a single guarantee that the service will be in demand and my costs will pay off?
Decision
And here Thought descended on me ... The principle of operation of such systems as 2Checkout and CCNow is similar to commissions - they formally resell your product or service under their own name through some kind of commission agreement, thus ensuring the purity before the law, because, as already mentioned, you don’t You have the right to sell your goods and services (without state registration).
Several years ago, on behalf of the employer, I designed a large Internet portal designed to sell various goods from individuals and legal entities. It was planned to provide a full range of services, from warehousing and logistics to receiving payment from customers and accounting. It was then that I plunged into all the intricacies of intermediary operations.
Russian law provides that an individual has the right to provide services and supply goods for money under civil law contracts without the risk of being caught in illegal business. One of such contracts is the contract of agency. This is the most universal way to carry out intermediary operations, along with it there is a commission agreement and a commission agreement, which are, in fact, special cases of the agency agreement. For example, individuals can safely trade securities on the stock market, make a profit without any risk of going through the article on illegal business, concluding an agency agreement with a broker and carry out all operations on his behalf.
So I had the idea to organize a company, a sort of meta-corporation, which will act as an agent for transactions for individuals, freeing them from the obligation to spend money and time to register their own legal entity. individuals, rent an office, keep accounts, organize billing, cash out, etc. Any citizen of the country who wants to do business that does not contradict the law and is not subject to licensing will be able to conclude an agreement with this company, according to which it will act as its agent, thereby allowing him to enjoy all the benefits of a full-fledged legal entity. persons: legal and postal address, office in Moscow, telephone and secretary, bank account details in a reputable bank, invoicing, billing, payment monitoring, smooth withdrawal of funds to your bank account or plastic card, available through the browser, and not worry that he will receive a tax audit or an investigator in a criminal case on illegal business.
The fact that this service is in demand incomparably more than the next social network or content project, you can be sure - just refresh the memory of recent topics on Habré (for example, this , this or this ). One client at such a company is definitely there - I am. What is there - to take any freelancer working under a contract with a reputable company who wants to pay for services by bank transfer - the ability to go to your account on the site of your agent, enter customer details, the amount, the name of the service rendered and automatically generate and send in the right direction an account and the act on behalf of the agent company, eventually receiving payment on your own bank card - beauty. And the webmaster, who sells products, services through his website, or, finally, advertising space, will have the opportunity in the contacts section to specify the legal address and office phone number, and calls to this phone will be processed by the operator and sent to the webmaster - the client of the agent company by email.
How much should such services nat. Persons - entrepreneurs? First of all, no monthly fee - only commissions from each transaction made on behalf of the agent, and small, not higher than 5-6%. Secondly - a certain amount during registration - filing an application to conclude an agency agreement. Since the services of such an agent will want to be used by many people, and the agent’s staff will not be able to physically process all applications (it is necessary, at a minimum, to examine the compliance of the client’s activities with the legislation, to verify his identity and authenticity of documents), a certain barrier is needed that would eliminate deliberately frivolous applications. For this there is a proven way - invites. They can either be bought at a price of 1,500 rubles, or obtained from an existing client, the turnover of which for agency transactions has reached a certain value. Thus (transaction fees + income from the sale of invites), we have a fully functional business model. But you can sell more and add. services - the same call-center, logistics, representative functions.
Implementation
So, we are talking about the following list of tasks:
- Coordination of the draft agency agreement, which I prepared, with competent specialists and project participants.
- Development of two business card sites of the agent company (multi-national business, in Russian, multi-international business, in English).
- Design and development of interfaces and services of the agent and individuals - principals (entering into contracts with other legal entities and individuals on behalf of the agent, issuing acts, bills, paying bills, administering the current register of goods and services, accepting plastic cards through the principal's site).
- Writing regulations and reference materials and.
- Rent a small office with a telephone and Internet access in a place not too far from the TTR and the metro.
- Office equipment table, a couple of chairs, a computer and telephone.
- Registration of LLC, opening a current account in the bank.
- Signing a contract for the provision of a payment API with a bank or an appropriate service provider.
- Hiring an accountant, in his person, the operator and clerk in a rented office at a full and adequate rate.
- Welcome first customers.
The required amount of investment, minus my own resources (as a designer and experienced project manager), is 600 thousand rubles (I will not spread the estimate, there is a lot of letters, I’ll censor my readers with numbers, who are interested - write, I’ll send you personally). In principle, to find such money is not so difficult, and if you wish, I could go look for an investor, or, in the end, lay my car and precious metals spouse :), but the most interesting I thought was to conduct an experiment with crowdfunding in runet. We divide risks to an insignificant level, and at the same time we find out how much the idea of such a service is in demand in our places.
So. Russian law prohibits advertising and (or) offering an unlimited number of persons securities, the issue of which has not passed the state registration, as well as documents certifying monetary and other obligations, but not securities. Therefore, everyone who wants to invest an amount in excess of $ 1000, and those who want to participate in the division of profits, please contact me in the mail to discuss the details (trispace [at] ya.ru). Those who are directly interested in obtaining the final product, ugh, services, in exchange for investments in the project, I propose the following:
- Invite.
- Discount from% commission.
- Satisfaction from participating in a business that is beneficial to their fellow citizens - I am sure that there is an economic and social aspect to a startup.
By investing 250 rubles, you get the right to a discount from the commission agent in the amount of 1% of each transaction (the invite itself, however, will have to be bought separately). To get an invite directly (after and if the project described is eventually implemented) you need to invest at least 500 rubles. To get an invite with a 1% discount from the commission agent, you should invest at least 750 rubles. Having invested a thousand rubles, you can count on an invite with a 2% discount, and by investing one and a half thousand rubles, you will receive two invites at once with a 2% discount. Invites do not become attached to the participants, so you can later transfer (or sell) your invite to anyone you see fit. It makes sense to invest less than 250 rubles, but this will not give preferences to the future service - here, I believe, you should enjoy the pleasure of directly participating in a useful and interesting business. :)
The project's blog is located on vDele.com . There you can also become a member and see what amount you have already managed to collect (updated every day). Also there will be published materials about the current state of affairs, experience, which was obtained in the course of solving problems of the project. Your comments and suggestions, of course, welcome.
Ps. What happens if I fail to collect the required amount? There are options: either all the same, I pledge my car and add the missing, or send everything that I managed to collect to charity. It depends only on how much the project will be in demand and what percentage of the required amount can be collected ...
Pps. Many thanks to all who read to the end - sorry if someone tired of such a long presentation. In fact, I wanted to write more and in more detail, but my conscience completely drank ... :)
PPPS. In general, I tried in vain - judging by the comments, the idea is unsuccessful, and the standard crowdfunding model in Russia does not work. This post remains just to familiarize the habra people, that here, they say, there was such an idea, this result turned out. Thanks to all.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/59007/
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