As I intimated in a post last week, we are looking to expand our role at SFM. Big Pink has strongly advised that we should look again at our mission statement and our branding – including a more appropriate name. On balance I tend to agree.
The service will be ramped up to include (in a pretty short time) a 24/7 radio station. The radio outlet will produce, news, features, phone-ins and so on. The blog itself will take on a more news procurement role and the new company will, in addition to having a board, will have an appointed advisory board whose role will be as a firewall against financial interests achieving paramountcy over our stated aims.
If we get this off the ground, we will be a fledgling business, perhaps struggling to survive with all the attendant responsibilities the new roles bring, so we will perhaps be more than ever reliant on voluntary donations and subscriptions in the first months. Worryingly, the few subs we have at the moment have been dwindling even further in the last couple of months, and over half our subscribers have lapsed. A couple of quid a month from everyone who uses this blog (around 50,000) would guarantee our existence and expansion to a far bigger role than our present plans. That is however unrealistic, and looking at raising funds elsewhere is perhaps a more achievable aim.
Right now we are working on a business plan as an offering to prospective investors. That plan is not yet complete, but as of now, we think we can retain control of the business (unfortunate word – but the correct one) whilst raising enough funds to pay for the premises, equipment, salaries and other expenses for two years (around £30k per year). If it is necessary to cede over 50% of SFM to outside investors, we will
Until we begin our start-up fundraising, and perhaps beyond, we are still completely dependent on the generosity of our community in keeping the ship afloat.
The first order of business therefore is to ask for ideas from you guys on three counts;
1. What should go into our mission statement? All ideas I would appreciate posted on this page. Everything will be considered.
2. If anyone has any experience of looking at startup business funds, government grants for startups, local enterprise premises initiatives; if anyone can offer legal or accountancy advice; or any other kind of assistance forth, we would gratefully like to hear from you at startup@sfm.scot
3. What should we rebrand as? Here, I would appreciate ideas being sent directly to trisidium@sfm.scot. The reason is that any devilishly good ideas will most likely get to us AFTER someone else has seen it. The domain name associated with that idea will perhaps be snapped up.
Preferably, we want the name to reflect our new role in a non-football specific and non geographically specific way. Names should be easy to remember, short and not east to mistype.
More on this page as we move towards our goal.
Trisidium
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