FAQs
Q1: Who are Joint Venture Hubs?
Q2: What is a Joint Venture Hub?
Q3: What types of business can a hub support?
Q4: Who can BECOME a hub?
Q5: Who benefits from USING Joint Venture Hubs?
Q6: What will I be offering as a Joint Venture Hub?
Q7: What does a Joint Venture Hub cost and what is the
projected income?
Q8: How will I find Hub users?
Q9: How will the recession impact the demand for Joint
Venture Hub services?
Q10: What licences, equipment and services do I need to
run a hub?
Q11: When and where is Joint Venture Hub taining held?
Q12: How do I proceed from here?
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Question 1: Who are Joint Venture Hubs?
Joint Venture Hubs is the brand name for a ground changing solution to collaborative
business start up and job creation launched in Autumn 2010. It has been developed
and piloted by Buzz Technology Limited, a London based company that has been involved
with the design of cutting edge business process and the rollout of systems to support
them across the UK and Europe since 1996.
Senake Atureliya, the founder of the firm has 23 years experience setting up, raising
finance, growing and selling businesses in the engineering, web and foodservice
sectors. In addition, he has in depth experience of cutting edge business process
in the manufacturing, distribution, media, finance and consulting sectors. Other
members of the team - see our web site for CVs - include entrepreneurs and innovators
who have also experienced the challenges of taking new products and services to
market, an in-house development team and regional support consultants in the UK
and Europe.
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Question 2: What is a Joint Venture Hub?
A joint venture hub (international patents pending) is a means for individuals and
businesses to collaboratively create themselves income, opportunity and jobs using
spare time, resource, contacts and ideas. In addition, the simple matching part
of the site enables more efficient networking by matching people together online
with more precise criteria befor they meet offline to determine if a deal can be
done. The way in which this works is described below:
1. MORE EFFICIENT NETWORKING - our MatchMaker web pages enable individuals and businesses
to list wants and offers - skills, assets, contact bases, finance etc. - along with
prices and availability. You can then decide how you would like to capitalise on
match - either by inviting users to meet at your networking events or by selling
them credits so that they can get in touch directly.
2. COLLABORATIVE INCOME & JOB CREATION - our DealMaker online tool can be used to
create a detail plan and share rewards. With the business run according to the collaboratively
created plan (monitored by a generic low cost online ERP system) and payments centrally
distributed (by a bank or payment processor), it suddenly becomes much safer for
individuals and businesses to offer spare time and resources in return for payment
out of future revenues - or unlocked finance.
Hubs will comprise of a powerful online element (provided by us) complimented by
a community of users (provided and managed by you or your organisation). It will
be possible for you as a hub operator at your discretion to set your hub software
to share requirements and offers from your members with other selected hubs for
mutual benefit - to maximise matches and income.
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Question 3: What types of business can a hub support?
A hub can support both proven business models and new product/service commercialisation.
Both MatchMaker and DealMaker come pre-populated with information for the following
standard business types:
Web & mobile
Retail
Foodservice - cafes, restaurants and takeaways
Distribution - import/export and Ebay drop off shops
Manufacturing
As the administrator, you can duplicate this information and then customise it to
suit your requirements. For example, if you would like to see what staff, equipment
and premises suppliers are interested in setting up a restaurant in Leeds, then
you can create this as a venture on DealMaker and the requirements together with
projected payment shedules would belisted on the MatchMaker opportunity web pages
and also emailed to individuals and businesses who had offered these resources.
Ideally, we would like the solution to be used to create more scalable (innovative
and proven) businesses to maximise income and job creation as well as maximising
export (or import reducetion) potential. To this end, we can point you to organisations
that may be interested in sponsoring your events and activities where they are aligned
with their own corporate objectives.
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Question 4: Who can BECOME a hub?
We believe that Joint venture hubs are best suited to the following types of people
and organisations:
+ Power networkers & networking group organisers - individuals looking to generate
income from events and services that they sell to their network or community.
+ Companies and brands - who are looking to attract the next market leading innovations
and the people, resources and client bases required to take them to market.
+ Universities, colleges and schools - that are interested in becoming innovation
centres to generate income and opportunity for themselves and their students.
+ Finance providers - can either support existing hubs or become hubs themselves
to attract new, higher quality clients.
It is very important to us to control the quality of hubs to ensure that time and
resource providers get paid for their efforts and that entrepreneurs and innovators
are adequately supported.
Apart from established companies and educational institutions, network operator
applications are open to individuals of any age and gender and from any business
background. It is not necessary to have previous sales or project management experience
but you will need to be enthusiastic, motivated and have the desire to establish
and develop your own supportive community of users. You will need the capacity to
absorb and learn from our comprehensive business training programme and ongoing
you need to have the confidence to consult and develop business from a broad range
of business clients.
You will become one of an extensive network of Joint Venture Hubs with whom you
will be able to trade wants and offers at your discretion to generate income for
mutual benefit. We will show you how to configure the system so that if you have
more of one particular type of user eg. 'entrepreneurs seeking finance' or 'catering
staff looking for well paid jobs', then you will be able to allow these requirements
or offers to be advertised on other Hubs and revenue from their fulfilment shared.
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Question 5: Who benefits from USING Joint Venture Hubs?
Our pilots have show that the following types of people and organisations can benefit
and so are very interested in using joint venture hubs:
+ Entrepreneurs and innovators looking to fund their business start up or expansion
- as a hub enables this to be done with spare time and resources as well as money.
+ Freelancers and jobseekers interested in finding work - by offering unsold or
free time on a premium priced, paid out of revenue or equity basis.
+ Individuals and businesses with underused assets - equipment, furniture and empty
(usually non prime located) premises.
We would also expect employees and early retirees looking to create themselves a
better job and/or ongoing income streams, to become interested in Joint Venture
Hubs once their profile has been raised.
DealMaker module to plan their venture, produce financials, supplier propositions
to attract collaborators on a paid-out-of-revenue basis, generate template legals
and export them plan so that it can be used with some online accounting systems.
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Question 6: What will I be offering as a Joint Venture Hub?
Depending on your objective - attracting new market leading product innovations,
growing a profitable networking organisation, creating income and opportunity for
your college and students, generating a source of high quality lending and investment
opportunities - you can configure the web/database to support your needs.
If you are a company or brand looking to attract innovation and commercialisation
resources, you may decide to receive all matching data and arrange meetings at your
discretion.
If you are a networking organisation, you may decide to use the system to attract
individuals and businesses to your events.
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Question 7: What does a Joint Venture Hub cost and what is the projected
income?
INITIAL COST
The introductory offer price of a hosted Joint Venture Hub and training is £7,495
+ VAT. This is less than 10% of the projected annual income and includes the following:
(1) The hosted web solution branded with your logo and colours.
MatchMaker web site or pages to link to your existing web site for up to 1,000 users.
Additional users can be added at a cost of £5 per month.
DealMaker planning and reward sharing tool for up to 100 users. Additional users
can be added at cost of £10 per month.
(2) A comprehensive 3 day training workshop for up to 2 staff
+ 3 days training in the use of the solution
+ Optionally - training in selling the solution to users and the 'freemium' approach
to getting business
+ Social media marketing techniques to promote the solution - the use of Twitter
/ blogs and the social networks.
+ Lunch and refreshements for all delegates
+ Accomodation for delgates can be arranged upon request
(3) Resources
+ Sources of new business prospects
+ A template multi-party legal agreement for collaborators
+ Information on the tax implications of working for payment out of revenue
+ Template marketing emails to the different prospective client types
+ Marketing materials in pdf format that can be customised with your branding for
printing or emailing.
(4) 12 months remote support
We will provide telephone and email from Monday to Friday from 09.00 am to 5.30
pm via our team of regionally located business consultants. All enquiries and support
requests will be acknowledged and actioned within a target response time of 2 working
hours which may extend in to the next business day. There are no limits to the number
of support calls and enquiries that can be made to our support team.
5) Initial handholding
In the initial days, it can be difficult to grasp all of the points of the system
and convey them to clients. As such, we would be happy to help you support clients
by directly explaining to them the use of the system to create revenue and jobs.
If you would like us to directly help with the support of users whom you bring onto
the system, we can offer this on a number of different basis to meet your client
expectations.
a) Webinar to explain the use of the solution, generally or to specific user groups
1st three webinars - FREE on Skype for up to 5 users
Subsequent webinars - £100 per hour + use of chosen platform (free on Skype for
up to 5 users)
b) One-to-one remote support
1st five clients for one hour each - FREE
Subsequent sessions - £50 per hour
ANNUAL OPTIONAL RENEWAL
The Joint Venture Hub methodology, web and mobile based solution has been developed
over the last 3 years. As such, we have a significant schedule of enhancements planned
that will continually add value to users and with the help of our international
patents will also help to keep potential competitiors (of which there are no direct
ones as yet) at bay. Our annual renewal cost will cover training to encompass these
ongoing enhancements, the use of the web solution on the same terms, continually
updated content and resources.
If you order a hub at our introductory price, we would be happy to offer you 3 years
of optional annual renewals at the same price - £7,495 + VAT.
If things do not work out, you are not committed into renewing.
PROJECTED INCOME & PRICING
Depending upon your objectives - to maximise subscription income, network event
income, attract and fund new product to market or just provide a service to your
clients/students - direct income will vary. If you are operating a hub as the basis
of a networking group, then we recommend charging per month:
(1) Time, resource and finance providers - £9.95 to £49.95 for between 1 and 20
MatchMaker opportunities
(2) Entrepreneurs and innovators - £99.95 for using DealMaker and 20 MatchMaker
opportunities
Based solely upon subscription income from 500 users and 50 ventures, the annual
forecast income would be (£25 x 12 months x 500 users) + (£100 x 12 months x 50
users) = £210,000. After the deduction of VAT and PayPal charges, this gives and
gross income of £150,000. In addition to this income, you would be able to charge
for networking meeting, training sessions and other value added services at market
prices.
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Question 8: How will I find Hub users?
GUIDANCE
You will be responsible for promoting and selling subscription to your Joint Venture
Hub. If you do not run a networking group, the provided resources will include guidance
on how to set one up and encourage members to join. If you already have a networking
group, community or user base, we can advise on how the Joint Venture Hub benefits
can be effectively brought to their attention. Using social media marketing techniques
which can be implemented at little or no cost apart from your own time, you will
be able to minimise early expenditure with our no-to-low-cost business development
plan. With a background in CRM and ERP systems, we can also advise on the best of
breed, value for money CRM and marketing software to support your efforts.
AFFILIATE FUNCTIONALITY
In addition to direct promotion, MatchMaker includes affiliate functionality. All
users are automatically invited to become affiliates and using these screens, you
can use to encourage them to promote your hub for you in exchange for a share of
the revenues - which you set - that they help to generate. The application has in
built tracking so that users that land and register on the site using the affiliate
links that you give out can be linked to the referring users.
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Question 9: How will the recession impact the demand for Joint Venture
Hub services?
The Joint Venture Hubs model is perfectly aligned with current market conditions,
but having said that even before the downturn, it was still difficult to finance
innovative businesses (the next Google's and Facebooks's of this world).
Currently, it is exceptionally difficult for businesses to get start up and expansion
finance. In the UK there are almost 5 million small to medium sized businesses (SME's)
many of which need of additional financing. At the same time, the government has
announced 500,000 job cuts in the UK alone, student unemployment is at it's highest
level for years and everyone's pensions seem to be dissappearing - so any solution
to enabling business start up or expansion (in this case by financing them with
paid out of revenue people and resource), creating jobs (which individuals will
do by helping businesses to start or expand) and additional income streams (using
spare time and resource) - is likely to be of great interest.
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Question 10: What licences, equipment and services do I need to run
a hub?
As a networking group organiser, you can successfully work from a home office only
using serviced offices or venues when required. Having said that, we recommnd that
you have the following licences, equipment and services in place to ensure that
you can provide a professional and reliable service:
+ Data protection register registration - to allow you to collect and hold personal
information (£55 per year for individuals and small businesses)
+ Business insurance including professional indemnity - to cover the promotion and
operation of the hub (typically under £400 per year)
+ Good quality broadband internet
+ An answered telphone line - we can advise on who to use for call answering services
+ A fax-to-email service with dedicated telephone number
+ A well specified laptop ideally running Windows Vista or Windows 7
+ An all-in-one colour printer/copier/scanner - an inkjet will do, but a clour laser
would be better - we can advise on options.
+ A memorable brand and logo - we can recommend some good creatives to help you
with this.
+ A registered web domain name (ideally a .com or .co.uk address) that reflects
your brand name.
+ An good quality office shreddeder - which you will need to comply with the data
protection act.
+ A subscription to good CRM and email marketing solutions to help optimise your
sales efforts - we can advise on options.
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Question 11: When and where is Joint Venture Hub training held ?
Joint Venture Hub training is delivered in London at our serviced offices or a suitable
4* Hotel. London is obviously well connected by rail, road and air links and provides
a very diverse range of accommodation options and many leisure activities. The training
takes place over 3 days (Tuesday to Thursday) commencing at 09.00 am and finishing
at 5.30 pm. Training sessions are scheduled once per month depending upon demand
and our other business commitments.
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