Private token offering
Alexandre Masmejean is currently under quarantine in Paris, France. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has caused economic turmoil and slowed down business globally, Masmejean has sold $20,000 worth of personal tokens on the Ethereum network. This goes to fund his next venture.
Kryptografen took a chat with him to learn about how this idea came to be and his plans moving forward.
Masmejean started getting interested in crypto in 2017: “I was always passionate about technology, I found that blockchain had the lowest barriers of entry, starting his career, a field I thought I could influence.”
Five months ago, he launched his own token $ALEX. At this point it was purely a utility token. This means that those who bought the tokens could use them to buy Alexander’s time. This included things such as one hour of office time, feedback on crypto applications or one-on-one explanations on DeFi. This was also while having another source of income on the side.
When the pandemic hit, he lost parts of his income. “I had heard about income sharing agreements through different programs, but also James Gallagher. He is an exceptional young person but also a publicly traded one. This was something people were doing in the traditional start-up world but not in the cryptosphere.” This is a very ‘young’ thing, people invest in potential. “I think that I am in the old side of this young idea.” Alexander is 23.
The idea of ISA with the ease of crypto.
On April 7th, he announced to his followers on twitter, that he would be launching his initial offering of his personal token. This was with a partnership with Roll. Five days later, he had sold for $20,000 among 30 participants.
How does it work?
It is essentially a blend between a small Income Sharing Agreement and a human IPO. He will take 15% of all income he makes in the next 3 years and give it back to the shareholders, that is capped at $100,000, distributed quarterly.
There is 1 Million $ALEX tokens that are equivalent to $20,000. The token is tradable but there is a nuance, the 1M $ALEX tokens that are part of this initial round can not be traded with the yield. “Only those one million $ALEX tokens in the shareholders wallet will yield part of my income 15%, not the other ones, they are only for utility. The tokens that the ISA shareholders have can also utility as well. So, basically, it is a layer on top. The reason is if I gave my salary to all of them, it would dilute it too much and not be as attractive. The normal $ALEX users purchased on uniswap, it didn’t go straight to my wallet. They were speculating, getting my utility, if someone with an ISA token puts it on uniswap, they will lose the ISA part. I want to keep it to 30 people and I do not want people to sell them right away.” Those who hold the token are allowed to sell, but they will not get the same value as bought for.
What has the outcome been?
“Now that the sale is over, the hardest part right now is figuring out my life and my future. Starting a new company, I need to know what my next move is, I need to communicate with the 30 people (who are part of the sale), explain to them the whole process, what they can do with the token, update them monthly. So right now I am communicating a lot with them, they will get a monthly email, I will have to be very transparent about my income, I need to focus on my career. This is what will maximize the income share agreement and why I did the token sale in the first place.” Alexander is motivated, to say the least.
He has not yet seen people following his stride yet in crypto. “After my sale, there was a lot of enthusiasm. People are reaching out to me saying that they also wanted to do their own token sale, and they were inspired with what I have done.” This might be the year where human IPOs become more popular. “I think that it will become very popular this year. I have also discussed with a lot of entrepreneurs that want to build a social token platform as well, they see a market opportunity, especially with the crisis. People are looking for alternative ways of funding.”
So what will his next venture be? “Launching a product is the next milestone. I am right now brainstorming and experimenting. I can still change parts of the idea, but it will be a savings account using DeFi and it will be for normal consumers i.e people outside of crypto.”
His ultimate goal is to start something in Silicon Valley. Although that dream has been put on halt due to circumstances, he will start a company in France, with the idea to move to San Francisco in the near future.