Karl Sjogren – The Fairshare Model: Raise Venture Capital via an IPO

<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlsjogren/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Karl Sjogren</strong></a>’s 2019 book<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fairshare-Model-Performance-Based-Venture-Stage-Offerings-Reimagining/dp/1950732002" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> The Fairshare Model: A Performance-Based Capital Structure for Venture-Stage Initial Public Offerings</a> presents an idea for how to raise venture capital via an IPO. The concept can be applied to a blockchain venture that raises equity capital via an initial coin offering (ICO). Its name describes its purpose--to balance and align the interests of investors and employees.</p><p>A Detroit-area native, Karl Sjogren has a BA and MBA from Michigan State University, is a certified public accountant (inactive), and credentialed in turnaround management.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p class="ql-align-center"><strong>“Valuation equals analytics, plus emotion, plus deal terms.”</strong></p><p class="ql-align-center">Karl Sjogren</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>In today’s episode, we will do things a little different from the usual. We will look at what motivated Karl to write his book, do a quick summary of Karl’s Fairshare Model, and then an overview of some of the lessons he learned during the process.</p><h3><strong>Karl’s story behind his book The Fairshare Model</strong></h3><p>Karl was co-founder and CEO of a company called Fairshare between 1996 to 2001. The company had an online community of investors with interest in the IPOs of young companies. The idea was to build an audience by giving them education about the deal structure and valuation and share due diligence.</p><p>Once the company got to critical mass, the plan was to provide members free access to pick their public offerings. The members were expected to have a legal offering, a passed due diligence, use Fairshare’s deal structure, the Fairshare Model, and allow members to invest as little as $100. Basically, it was crowdfunding before the term was coined.</p><p>From this experienc