Beyond raising capital and compensating employees, equity may also be used to build something more meaningful: a community.
We believe that a motivated community can be a key driver of a company’s development. In particular, startups, open-source, and game companies all greatly benefit from building a community and harnessing the efforts and contributions of its members. What better way to reward your biggest fans than to offer them the opportunity to own a future stake in the company?
The emergence of stakeholder capitalism has made it apparent that holistic growth can only be achieved when every participant with an interest or stake in the company is also aligned with a shared mission and goals. Aside from internal stakeholders like investors and employees, companies should take external stakeholders like customers, brand evangelists, and community members into consideration. To truly achieve corporate success, companies should look for ways to enlist and align external stakeholders by creating a community for fans and customers to interact and share their experiences with your company and the public.
A new way of using equity
Traditionally equity has been used to raise capital or to compensate and engage talented employees. At Upstock we believe that the aligning effect of equity can also be utilized to create a community of dedicated contributors for your company.
In today’s market of influencer campaigns and social media power, community members can support your growth by contributing value to your company. For example, you can incentivize community members by rewarding them with equity for writing articles, making fanart and advertising materials, or for more substantial contributions such as contributing code and finding new clients and opportunities.
By building a community around your company and surrounding yourself with people who are equally passionate about seeing your company succeed, you can create an environment where you and your community can thrive.
Holistic alignment
Having community contributors is a good way for your brand to show that people “outside” your organization care about what you are doing as an enterprise. This creates genuine goodwill for your business among existing and potential clients or customers. In fact, some of them might even be enticed to be contributors themselves which would only further strengthen your brand identity. There is really something unique about a company that has the backing and support of its community members excited to see your company achieve success.
By providing an avenue for investors, employees, clients, customers, and community members to unite and contribute towards a common goal, holistic alignment is achieved among all internal and external stakeholders.
Build your community with Upstock
Getting started is easy. Simply create an Upstock account, or log into your existing account, dedicate a portion of the company’s equity towards your community, and configure your list of actions community members need to perform. Then all you need to do is invite your community members via email to login onto Upstock. Your community members will sign a simple contract online and will see your to-do list of tasks to complete in exchange for non-voting equity. Once they have completed the task’s requirements they can track their equity earnings on their Upstock dashboard. When your company achieves success and reaches a liquidity event, your community members will be rewarded with equity!
If you are a company that relies on user-generated content or an app or gaming company that would benefit from a solid and dedicated user base, Upstock can provide you with the necessary tools to build a passionate community behind your product or service.
If you want to learn more about how we do this, please reach out and we’d be happy to talk to you about it.
Upstock turns workers into owners
Workers with a stake in the company are more likely to do their best and take ownership of their work. It’s called the Ownership Mindset.
.png){kind=logo}