TWO FROM GLOBAL GUERILLAS: BOOTSTRAPPING RESILIENT COMMUNITY AND BUILDING AN INCOME LIFEBOAT

An Ingenious Way to Financially Bootstrap a Resilient Community

Here's Marcin, a farmer scientist (not many left).
In this video (click the link above if you can't see it embedded below), Marcin used Kicksarter to ask for $40,000 in support of his global village construction set project. Fortunately, he was successful and raised over $63,000.
If you haven't heard of it before, the construction set project is a do-it-yourself lab/facility based on Marcin's farm in Mayesville Missouri.  The lab/facility is developing open source designs for many commonly used industrial, construction, and farming tools (from a tractor to a brick maker to hydraulic system).  Basically, this kit is supposed to make it easier to bootstrap  resilient community.  How do they plan to finance themselves long term?  They plan to eventually make money by selling finished tools to people that don't want to construct them DIY (lots of businesses operate this way).
This project shows that it is possible to get meaningful funding for projects that matter.

Is this a Backdoor Way to Financially Bootstrap a Resilient Community?
I've featured Marcin's work on Global Guerrillas many times before, as a great example of open source innovation in hardware.  However, with this successful crowdfunding effort, he's taken it to the next level:  they are using the funding to build a fabrication facility and 10 living units (for people working on the project) on their farm in Missouri.
With the addition of a fabrication facility and living units, this project is starting to sound like something even more ambitious.  A way to financially bootstrap the construction of a resilient community in Missouri.   A resilient community that feeds itself, produces its own energy, and makes products (that it share/sell globally via the Internet).    A resilient community that helps other resilient communities get off the ground.  Nice.
I'm not saying that Marcin's approach to building a resilient community is the only way, the best way, or the one I would choose.   However, he is doing it and appears to be successful.  How much more can you ask for.  Remember, there are LOTS of ways to build resilient communities. Here are the top three:

• Retrofit/transition an existing community to resilience.
• Bootstrap one from scratch on a decently sized parcel of land.  
• Develop/build one that people can buy into.

Each method has its pluses and its minuses.  The good and the bad.  The one you choose is up to your personal circumstance.  
Final Note:  Soon, it may be possible to actually get crowdfinancing (the sale of equity instead of crowdfunded donations/charity/sales) for a resilient community development effort or open source ventures.  A new bill that just passed the US House will allow companies to raise up to $2 m in funds from individual investors that put in less than $10k each.  IF this bill survives intatct, it will allow you to become a micro-public company, overnight.  Think about it.

How to build an Income "Lifeboat"

Here's Britta.  She just turned a part time hobby designing a kinda cool, slightly funky, product into a full time job: she just sold (as of this writing) $157,000 worth of product in the last couple of weeks.

How did she do it?  Really simple.  Here are the simple steps to building a venture like this:

• Come up with an idea for a product/service.  The more narrowly focused it is, the better.  The easier it is to build DIY, the better.  If you can't come up with a good idea on your own, find a group that is working on a good idea and get involved.
• If there isn't a group already working on the idea your are interested in, create an online group to work on the idea (discussion groups, blogs, etc. are cheap/costless to build) with you.  Chances are, if you are interested in it, there are thousands of other people around the world that are.  Recruit people to help. 
• Design, prototype and deploy.  Share ideas.  Collaborate.  Make the design better.  Help other people design a better version, they will help you.  
• Once you think you have a great design, build a prototype, source the manufacturing (if it can be done locally, all the better), price it.  Essentially, get it ready for sale. 
• Next, build a marketing message.  Build a marketing site.  Make a video pitch.
• Finally, launch the product.  Go to a site like Kickstarter, where you can pitch your product and pre-sell (you are selling it prior to making it, negating the risk of a garage full of unsold merchandise) it to a large audience.   

Note, that nothing in this process costs anything but time.  It's something anybody can do.  Further, if you fail, it only costs you time (and a little humility) to try it again and again until you are successful.
Why should you build a venture like this?  It's a financial lifeboat that generates real income.  It's about learning to make an income online that can support you and your family, regardless of where you live.  An income that isn't dependent on the whims/fortunes of the bureaucratic and corrupt global economy (aka the Titanic).   An income that doesn't depend on educational degrees, licenses, certification, resumes, a boss, seniority, tenure, etc.
Frankly, if you can learn to build online ventures successfully (and teach your kids to do it too), you will be perfectly positioned to succeed in the resilient economy of the 21st Century.