Mosaic Solar Crowdsourcing...Merging Investing and Energy

If you have never heard of Oakland, Ca. based Mosaic Solar, keep an eye out - they may be changing the way investors, individuals, small business and energy companies come together.

Mosaic is a crowdsourcing platform that allows individuals to invest in single solar panel projects on places like schools, churches, retirement homes, etc. The business requests the project be put on the Mosaic site and the cost is listed. Mosaic investors then can contribute from $25 minimums on up to as much as they would like at a return around 4.5% for most projects. The payout can be in 10-20 year terms and the business getting the solar can repay early if they choose.

This is an alternative to renting the solar panels from the solar companies like SolarCity which is a small upfront investment and then you rent the panels from the company. SolarCity reaps the benefits if and when your panels return enough energy to the grid to get a rebate. The consumer takes the lower energy bill and has stability against rising energy rates from the big utilities.

In Mosaic's case, the business is actually purchasing the solar panels. If you were to do this on the open market systems like this could cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is prohibitively expensive to most small businesses and there are relatively few companies that will do a loan or financing option. With the Mosaic route, you crowdsource the funds, get the panels immediately, and pay back a constant payment much like a mortgage for the life of the loan. Investors get steady cash returns, the business gets panels that drastically lower or eliminate their energy costs, the environment is saved one panel at a time as we burn less and less coal and natural gas producing our power.

So, does anybody want to do this?!?

Mosaic had fully funded their first offered crowdsourcing project in ten minutes. Most projects offered in their first year in California were fully funded within 6 days. It seems that investors LIKE having options to invest their money in sustainable environmentally friendly ways. This is a way to have a direct impact with as little as $25 invested and very low risk.

I love the idea. I hope it takes off and we can use this same system to fund other eco-friendly projects. Crowdsourcing is the way of the future and smart entrepreneurs are finding ways to tap into those funds for positive, game changing ways.

Click HERE to check out Mosaic's website and see if there is a project that is near and dear to heart or even on your street!

Cheers

TJ Franco
  

LAX People Mover... a Reality?

In 2008, 68% of Los Angeles County voters approved a half cent sales tax increase via Measure R slated for transit infrastructure projects. This is one of a dozen of them...

When LAX was built in 1960, apparently no one thought to put a public transit system in place to take riders from the surrounding buses, directly in to LAX. Enter the LAX People Mover. Mayor Eric Garcetti is quoted as saying," I think it will fix a historic mistake of our past." Hopefully it will! Let's discuss.

Ok, so the funding has been stated. We all voted on it. Or at least the 12% of Los Angeles County residents that vote on this sort of thing voted on it, and passed it. So we have the dough.

How are we going to get there? The Metro Green Line, or Crenshaw Line, is currently under construction at a cost of approximately $330M. The station for the LAX people mover would be added to this expansion of the line and it would be located at Aviation & 96th. Currently the Green Line is 1.5 miles short of LAX and there is a shuttle bus that you have to catch to get into the airport. That is brutal and complete nonsense.

The people mover, which would be built by Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) which runs LAX, would run on an elevated guideway, above traffic, directly to the airport. Detailed finalized plans for how many stops inside the LAX horseshoe are due in December 2014 but it is somewhere between 2-5 stops for the LAX terminals. LAWA would be responsible for covering the costs of the people mover itself, for all the construction, and for maintaining it. It could look something like this:

CONRAC refers to the consolidated Rent-a-Car Center

Artist Rendering of the People Mover Station

LA Metro is on the hook for the station (where our Measure R dollars go). Mayor Garcetti and others in City Government have asked that the Aviation/96th Station be state of the art and really worthy of the costs associated with the project. They want a fully encolsed station including: retail and convenience shops, WiFi, airline information boards, private vehicle drop off and taxi stands, ATM's, and even possibly currency exchange and luggage check in. All of this in LEED Silver Certified construction to make sure there is minimal environmental impact and that it is sustainably built.

Proposed dates for completion of construction at this point are, 2019 for the completion of the Aviation/96th Station, and 2020-2022 for the people mover to be completed and operational.

Is it worth it?

By 2022, LAWA estimates that 57% of travelers will arrive at LAX via private car, 33% by taxi, limo or shuttle, 8% by Flyaway, and 1-2% via buses and rail. Is is worth upwards of $1B to cater to 1-2% of all travelers at LAX? According to LAWA there were 66.6 million passengers that went through LAX in 2013. That means if that number doesn't change, a ridership of 660,000 - 1,330,000 for the people mover. Taking a million cars out of LAX every year seems pretty worth it to me!

So, in less than a decade we should correct a 60's era wrong. Garcetti likes it, do you?

Cheers,

TJ

PS - All of this movement to the airport is coupled with the MUCH NEEDED updates that are happening to the terminals themselves. Last year LAWA completed a $2.1 Billion update to the Tom Bradley International Terminal, LAX's busiest and most profitable terminal. Currently underway are updates as follows:
Terminal 1 - $508,000,000 - Southwest
Terminal 2 - $300,000,000
Terminal 3 - already partially done by Virgin America and Virgin Australia
Terminal 5 - $250,000,000 - Delta
Terminal 6 - Alaska has updated its part and United is in the process of updating its section
Terminals 7-8 - $400,000,000 - United

LAX is (hopefully) getting better and more efficient!

Urban TxT - I can Only Imagine...

Imagine the possibility if we could get inner city kids, the ones we all know have the toughest road to success and to get out of the terrible cycle of poverty, to get interested and involved in technology. In developing tech, not just using FB and Instagram for selfies. Imagine the run up if inner city kids starting pouring into technical college to become programmers, computer engineers, software developers, and technological entrepreneurs. Imagine what could be accomplish if the pent up aggression, angst, disparity and frustration of a cycle of poverty were broken and those that had been trapped starting using that potential from Silicon Valley and Silicon Beach. Inner city kids look to rappers and athletes and say," That is the way I am getting out of here." What a minuscule portion of them can actually be elite athletes or make a living selling records. But how many could make a legitimate career out of programming, coding, computing? Life changing things could happen. A resurgence of the true middle class that is all but gone in America today, especially in large cities like Los Angeles.

That dream, that possibility, is being explored by Oscar Menjivar. Born and raised in Watts in South Central Los Angeles, Oscar was given a chance to succeed at an early age, and he took advantage. After earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in Information Technology and starting a successful consulting firm, he decided to give back to his community. Oscar is one of the few people that sees potential built up in the inner city, especially here in the lowest income portion of Los Angeles.

With no funding, Oscar started his Technology Summer Program called Urban TxT, Teens Exploring Technology. Originally the would meet at Starbucks or on the campus of USC in range of free WiFi since they had no funding the rent a space. Now a few years on, they rent a small work space they call the "Cube" in South LA.

Oscar and his team of dedicated mentors and teachers encourage the students to develop something person that will help solve a need in their local community. Find a local problem, and find a way technology can solve it. With the credo in mind, the students set out to change everything from safe running paths through unsafe neighborhoods, to apps that match up a students interests with a non-profit that they can team with to complete school mandated community service hours. These are small problems with small solutions, but the value of the education in learning how to find a need and come up with a way to solve it cannot be understated. This is exactly what entrepreneurship is, finding solutions to problems that no one else has come up with yet.

In a world constantly embittered by the shrinking middle class, the lack of resources or the waste of given resources to the most underserved, the government struggles with compromise and leadership, and an ever growing fear that the next generation of Americans will not be as well off as the last... I am glad Oscar has found a niche to help. Found a place where he can get his hands dirty and really watch as he shapes young lives in unexpected ways. I can only imagine the possibilities that are in store if this movement really takes off. If the kids buy into it and more kids start signing up. If we can get a couple great success stories that become a catalyst for change. I love Los Anegeles, and if we can get our most impoverished communities to start utilizing tools being given them while having the rest of the tech world really embrace and empower this movement, we are in for a bright future in the Southland. I can only imagine...

Cheers

TJ Franco

To see Oscar explain his story in his own words... watch this TEDx talk.