Alternative Commerce in Small Business

What is Alternative Commerce?

Let’s look at some Alternative Commerce solutions and how you can use them to grow your business.

Alternative Commerce is our vision for a better way to do business so that service professionals can unlock a new asset by investing time in people and their ideas. And on the other side, we give entrepreneurs and small business owners a way to access this alternative funding. So if you want to join a network of like-minded people willing to venture outside the box and to turn your skills into an investment then this is the place for you.

There are a number of different ways that you can approach this. These are:

Strategic Partnership

A Strategic Partnership is where two separate parties come together to pursue a win-win arrangement while keeping the businesses separate. This collaboration may be only for a single project or might have a long term view. It is relatively informal and can be easily established once the objectives of the venture have been set out and agreed to.

Joint Venture

A Joint Venture is generally a business entity that is created by two or more parties, characterised by shared ownership, shared returns and risk – and shared management. It is generally built for the long term and is a more formal arrangement than a strategic partnership.

Because there may be equity involved in a Joint Venture through the establishment of a new entity, you will need to have a stronger agreement in place and we will seek to guide you through the common questions in building your draft Letter of Intent, to help you build a strong relationship.

Barter

With Barter No Cash is No Problem. Barter is the exchange of goods and services without using money. Barter will allow you to exchange your products, services, time and talent instead of trading cash. Why is this useful? Because you make a markup on your products, so you are then acquiring the exchanged goods at your cost.

This is an arrangement where two or more parties come together to get the work done. However payment for that work can be made over stages linked to the project milestones or on a time frame outside the Providers ordinary terms of doing business.

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency is also included however this isn’t so much as an opportunity, as it is a payment option for any of these.

When you select this it just means that any provider who has said that they will accept crypto as a form of payment will be showing up against the opportunities that you selected.

Co-founder

If you have fantastic skills in one area and need to bring strength to a different area in the business then you might consider taking on a Co-founder who has those skills. You can always hire on for a role but that will generally not bring with it the passion and incentive to really get the job done. Whereas – if you find a Co-founder that is just as committed to the vision as you are can produce some exceptional results. A Co-founder is someone who will take a share in the equity of the business based upon the vision for the future.

This is about the exchange of ownership equity for services performed or for bringing in strong relationships to the business to enable it to grow into the future.  

For an existing company, there are strict capital raising requirements by the various regulatory bodies (for example, ASIC or the SEC).

Mentor

A Mentor is not a coach or trainer. This is a two-way relationship that grows where you share knowledge and expertise, networks and can work on development of a solid set of soft skills that will take you far in both business and life.

A Mentor is someone who can give you a head start towards real success strategies – because they’ve don’t it before. They will provide guidance and advice to provide alternative perspectives, while focusing on moving forward and making progress.