Those fantastic ideas that you have had and explained on the back of a napkin or envelope.
The Napkin Ideas System is here to help everyone decide if they should be treasured and developed, or cleared away with the plates.
This process can only work because we already find, form and fund ideas coming from university R&D labs. Napkins extend the process to before the laboratory , for those ideas that didn't go into the lab as well as first contact with lab based research.
The NAPKIN ideas system works by asking you a couple of simple questions to get the rough basis of your idea without going into the full detail. Just like you would explain it over a meal or drink to a friend. No fuss, no 'right' or 'wrong' way to do it, just getting the point across.
You post the idea, and we send you back a unique receipt that 'fingerprints' the idea and other bits you have given us so you can come back to it, and we can know it belongs to you.
But first we have to have an 'identity' for you, and we use your confirmed email address for that.
Other people get to look at your idea. But don't worry, you do not have to be there, and you could be an alien from another planet for all they know, so no pre-conceived bias should creep in, its down to what you say.
They get to 'like' or 'not like' your idea, if they REALLY like your idea they get to put some money behind it, that's when things get interesting.
An Idea that goes nowhere is just a conversation piece. An Idea that gets implemented could be the start of a revolution. What will yours turn out to be and how does it get there?
By this stage your idea has gathered enough serious support that you may even have felt the need to buy a suit. Don't. You need to get down to the process of taking your idea all of the way through to implementation. You provide the know-how and the innovation, we can find the suits elsewhere.
Your project will need to either be backed by your own university, or will need to have found a commercial sponsor during the backing or validation processes.
They keep the process running to begin with until such time as a full business plan can be developed and you pass out, to get backing of up to € 2m to speed you on your way.
We do not let you drink it all or buy a yacht, but run you ragged as you chase down the goals on your business plan until you eventually have an up and running implementation of your idea.
At this point you might buy a yacht, or snatch a quick drink and get back to work, your choice.
Note that at the moment you are given ☆100 to allocate to the various ideas that are listed and the onboarding of "real" money (∝) is not generally available.
| Backing | Weight | How you get them |
|---|---|---|
| ☆ | 1 | 100 Issued to anyone participating |
| ∝ | 1 | Bought or issued as reward |
You can either go to "The List" which is all of the ideas that have been posted (good, bad and otherwise) for you to look at and decide if they are on to a good idea or just on something.
Or you can go directly to a specific idea, that someone has told you about, by searching for its author's email and keywords.
Either way you end up with
You get to look the idea over, and if you spot one you like, maybe want to form a relationship with, you post a like. If you think that the idea is the worst thing since the previous worst thing you could think of you post a 'not like' otherwise you just ignore it.
Can you spot the 'Unicorn' hiding in the bushes?
Some of you will treat this seriously, some will not, some will attempt to maliciously put down ideas and others may be an eternal optimist. Some of you will use fraudulent email addresses and others may just mistype.
Statistically speaking it doesn't matter, consistent doomsayers or optimists can either be identified or cancel each other out, bad email addresses can be discarded as can using someone else's. This opinion carries a bit of weight, but if you really support something we ask you to put something serious behind it. When you back an idea, for a single ☆/∝; or for hundreds, we let the credit card company decide if you are real (if you buy more ∝), and we let the amount you have backed it with, decide if you are serious.
Simply put, it is putting your money ... , you know how it goes.
If you really think an idea has something going for it you would want to get in on the process, help it along its way either directly or by whatever help you could give it, this is how you show it.
And in case you are worried, it remains your money as we explain below.
Lets face it, some of those ideas are great at first glance, but may well fall apart when they get really put to the test. But then some of them will actually turn out to be fantastic and possibly a future mega-corp, at the very least they will actually work out and be worth doing.
No one wants to throw their money away backing an idea that folds, so don't (If you really want to, we actually have difficulty in letting you, so please don't).
We use the amount of money put behind an idea to measure how seriously it is being taken (or at least how rich its friends are), and use that to see who flies off of the top of the chart and who sinks without trace.
If it has risen above the rest of the crowd then it goes forward to become SERIOUS, but here we will talk about those that sadly turn out to be a bit more of a turkey and not as good an idea in the light of day that they seemed when first thought up.
If an idea is withdrawn by its author, or is dissed to the rubbish heap
Remember, if at first you don't succeed, try again. Maybe you get it right this time. If you do then its starts to be SERIOUS.
Congratulations, you have chosen a SERIOUS project and it is going forward, but now they REALLY need your backing, along with a lot more coming in from investors, DAO etc to help them along their business plan to actually getting it done, rather than just talking about it.
Things now get SERIOUS and the monies you have put in to back this project are now at risk. Whatever you have put in as your backing amount, no matter how large or small, is treated just the same as every other € going into the project.
Just so you know, some projects will still fail at this stage, about 1 in 20 (5%) according to the statistics.
If the Project FAILS, and has spent all of its funding and then folds, you lose your backing stake.
If the Project goes to plan, it comes out the other end with the same value increase as every other € used to back the project, so probably somewhere between 2.6 and 4.
Whatever the returns from the project, that gets credited to your account and you can go around again or come out (minus that transaction cost that we get charged for doing that, which varies according to how the money is transferred etc.).
CONGRATULATIONS you have just backed a worthwhile idea and helped to change the world.
NOW buy yourself a treat.