Starter Kit. Idea 498 of 500. Cluster 28
A returnee investment fund that takes 20 small stakes in this list, run by returnees
The mechanism, from the book
The first one through pays the whole price, and everyone after walks through an open door. These are the doors.
The first step
Pick 5 ideas from this list that already have someone doing them, and ask each founder what a small investment would let them do and what share they would offer. Write the answers down. Then show that list to 10 returnees you know and ask who would commit a stated sum to a pooled fund run by returnees. Named commitments, even unsigned, tell you the fund is real.
- Who pays first
- A returnee with savings who wants to invest at home but lacks time to judge small businesses one by one, and trusts peers to choose.
- What leaves today
- Savings held by Sri Lankans abroad sit in banks abroad or in property at home, while small firms that would convert raw goods lack the capital to start.
Ask first
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask which company form lets many returnees invest together in small firms.
- Inland Revenue Department. Ask how returns from small stakes in local firms are taxed.
Check before you spend
Confirm whether pooling other people's money to invest needs a licence, written terms for every stake, and how investors can get their money out.
Find out these three numbers
- How much would each returnee put in?
- What would each founder offer for a small stake?
- How many of the first founders could grow with the money?
A comparison from the book
Mauritius. Chapter Ten
"The old economy paid for the new one. That is what the sugar was for."
Savings earned in the old life abroad can pay for the new businesses at home.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.