We implemented this programme in a test company, BuildPartner Technology Ltd, in June 2019. We reserved 10% of our share capital for users and 15% for team members. Since then, we have enabled customers and team members to exchange their time, expertise and connections for equity in the business.
As of March 2020, 27 customers out of 52 and 9 team members out of 12 have invested their time and/or money into the project.
As more team members have become shareholders, team engagement, as measured by independent innovation by team members, has increased from close to zero to two or three times a month. Examples of which include suggestions as how to better implement features and independent suggestions of features.
As more users have become shareholders, user engagement, as measured by the number of successful referrals for non-invested users vs invested users is one non-investor referral for every 8 invested user referrals. This is an extreme skew, of course, those more likely to support the business are more likely to invest in it so the correlation is not 100% causation. But this certainly does not undermine the theory that those who have invested will better support the business
From the perspective of the cash flow, the conversion of wages and marketing spend to equity has had the effect of reducing our cash burn by 50%. Although the long term cost to the business remains the same, with the immediate risk is reduced. The total invested cash by team members and users currently stands at £102,657.59 out of a total cash investment of £284,995.93. Time and referral equity is currently valued at a further £89,121.