Lots Of Ideas on the Forum: So Crowdfund

[horte]

Just read this entire thread and I think this might have to be the way to help cure baldness. I hear a lot about treatments that work but never reach the public or companies stop funding and research gets lost, however if BALDING men were basically funding hair loss research, stuff would happen much faster.

Can't offer much since I am only 18 going into college but I have money I would happily pour into this cause.

[Californication]

Yep, Histogen is a very very promising treatment, who knows when it will get to market/prices, but make no mistake, if it does, it is a game changer assuming nothing else is coming.

[hellouser]

Didn't Histogen have like an 86% responder rate, show like a 22-40% increase or something regardless of location in terminal hair (i.e. the temples which is very hard to regrow).

It's not remotely comparable to minoxidil and is more similar to fin in that if you get them yearly and if toxicity isn't an issue, which it hasn't been yet, you'll maintain it seems.

Yup. Some of the hair was grown AT the temples, not just on the hairline.

[Californication]

Didn't Histogen have like an 86% responder rate, show like a 22-40% increase or something regardless of location in terminal hair (i.e. the temples which is very hard to regrow).

It's not remotely comparable to minoxidil and is more similar to fin in that if you get them yearly (perhaps more even) and if toxicity isn't an issue, which it hasn't been yet, you'll maintain it seems.

[Thinning@30]

From what I remember hearing on a radio broadcast, isn't Histogen at this point only maybe just a notch above Minoxidil as far as effectiveness goes? Whereas ARI (which we assume has seen some success based on what we've heard) is basically a home run? I think I want to fund the home run.

At this point, no one knows how effective Histogen could be. The hair counts are promising, but in my opinion the photos, while showing some cosmetic improvement were underwhelming. That said, no one knows whether results are compoundable, and the company has yet to launch its dose ranging study. ARI was hardly a home run, many of the participants got no results, and the company never published photos. Of the two, I'd put my money on Histogen.

[pocketmerlin]

What about sponsoring Histogen? They said they would welcome any support and it would go towards bringing HSC to market.

They are also much more communicative than Aderans.

From what I remember hearing on a radio broadcast, isn't Histogen at this point only maybe just a notch above Minoxidil as far as effectiveness goes? Whereas ARI (which we assume has seen some success based on what we've heard) is basically a home run? I think I want to fund the home run.

Correct me if I'm completely off on this assessment though.

[pocketmerlin]

Technically speaking the focus is 100% in Hair Loss interest but 100% of collected funds can't go to the Hair Loss Research projects alone. If we are serious about this project then we'll need much more than researchers, because we need to cover other expenses like hosting for the platform, operations, technical support, communication, possible external collaborations, litigation fees (trust me in this), etc. I'd say that probably charging a 4% of collected funds (leaving 96% for the research) would be enough to ensure a healthy project. We'll talk this in more detail as the proposal advances.

In order to manage this 4% "project fee" we must setup a Foundation (social enterprise) that will manage it. And we should go for a CIC in UK. https://www.gov.uk/set-up-a-social-enterprise. (Please read the links for complete understanding)

The mod told me that once it's determined the money is going "purely and entirely to hair loss research," then they'll let us post a link to our campaign. I think the main idea is that all money is going toward the end goal (which it still would be) and none of it is getting diverted into anybody's pockets or anything like that.

I'm well aware personally that "overhead" costs like those you mentioned would come up...I assume that it would be considered fine by the mods if they were met by donated funds, but who knows.

[Axel]

What about sponsoring Histogen? They said they would welcome any support and it would go towards bringing HSC to market.

They are also much more communicative than Aderans.

We should be open for all the options/requests...

[garethbale]

What about sponsoring Histogen? They said they would welcome any support and it would go towards bringing HSC to market.

They are also much more communicative than Aderans.

[Axel]

Kickstarter apparently isn't the right venue for medical research-type projects...I'm thinking maybe Indiegogo?

If you have read carefully the thread (I guess you didn't) you'll have noticed that www.medstartr.com does that. If you don't read the threads from the beginning = bad thing.

OK, I got a response from a moderator, and they said that if we got a crowdfunding page going and submitted it to them for approval, if they evaluate it and determine that it is legitimate (100% of funds will go to hair loss), we will be able to post a link to it on the forum.

Technically speaking the focus is 100% in Hair Loss interest but 100% of collected funds can't go to the Hair Loss Research projects alone. If we are serious about this project then we'll need much more than researchers, because we need to cover other expenses like hosting for the platform, operations, technical support, communication, possible external collaborations, litigation fees (trust me in this), etc. I'd say that probably charging a 4% of collected funds (leaving 96% for the research) would be enough to ensure a healthy project. We'll talk this in more detail as the proposal advances.

In order to manage this 4% "project fee" we must setup a Foundation (social enterprise) that will manage it. And we should go for a CIC in UK. https://www.gov.uk/set-up-a-social-enterprise. (Please read the links for complete understanding)

Once the funds are donated, who will manage the allocation to which projects? Who will decide which projects are more promising?

You decide in which projects to pledge your money, and the best way is the way which allows us to be as flexible as possible. Re-read.

Two kinds of projects:

- Projects Suggested by companies: i.e. (hypothetical) ARI requesting funds in exchange for early access to treatment for campaign contributors.
- Projects Suggested by the community: i.e. Request for a extensive dermaroller study.

The projects suggested by the community will have to be chosen via voting and its priority ranked taking into account the sum of several parameters: security, previous research and science behind solution, time-to-market, and pricing.

All right, so in summation:
1) come up with clear mission, goal
how to achieve:
a)does this involve filing/partnering with a non profit to get legitimacy?
b) if not, how do you propose to garner this legitimacy? Will a well designed, slick website suffice? Backing from Spencer Kobren/baldtruth could help us avoid part a) and other steps here imo because it makes us instantly trustworthy.

2) reach out to institutions to get people with experience who can allocate/move the funds around.
Pretty self explanatory, but again backing from baldtruth/Kobren helps tremendously in this facet. If you're going the route of talking to well established professionals in academia/companies, then part 1) needs to be done with legitimacy.

3) Funds allocated to company most likely as we're not looking to fund research from scratch obviously.

1) Mission: CrowdFund hair-loss research breakthroughs that will get us closer to a "permanent solution".
a) Legitimacy/Legality comes launching our own "Foundation"/CIC (read details above). Setting up a Foundation is a must.

2) Before reaching out to anyone we need to have a CLEAR proposal (running site, reputed members on board, etc). That's why we need to set up a wiki or similar where we can discuss openly the proposal.

3) The allocation of funds is automated in the platform. You like the idea, then you pledge. You don't like it, then you don't… easy-peasy.

I was thinking kickstarter holds funds into escrew and you have to reach your goal (i.e money) by a date. If funds are not met by your goal date then the money goes back to the people and the startup gets zero.

That's not correct. The funds are never collected from contributors bank accounts unless the project is successful. A pledge is a "promise" that you'll provide that amount if the project is successful. You can cancel your pledge whenever you want. That's a thing managed by Paypal Adaptive Payments and it's the way all the crowdfunding platforms work.

[PayDay]

Only way I would sponsor ARI/Aderans treatment is if it was guaranteed they wouldnt FVCK AROUND for another 5 years until they released an actual treatment. They've completely squandered a decade. Unacceptable.

What I'm trying to get across is that it is unlikely that you will be in a position to "sponsor" anyone. You don't just collect money and then decide later who you the going to fund. That's not the way it works.

[hellouser]

I already raised a similar question earlier. I suggested that we first try asking Spencer if he'll mediate between Aderans Research/Dr. Washenik and any sort of group we can get together...if we could do that, then we could work out those sort of details. If we collectively generally agree that Aderans Research is the most worthy/one of the most worthy groups to try to fund (which I do, and I think that's kind of how this idea got started, right...it was because they were the ones who lost their funding?), then we should try to create this contact and figure out these details early on.

Only way I would sponsor ARI/Aderans treatment is if it was guaranteed they wouldnt FVCK AROUND for another 5 years until they released an actual treatment. They've completely squandered a decade. Unacceptable.

[pocketmerlin]

Do any of you know if they're currently looking for VC money? If so it might not even be possible for them to accept any outside funding.

How do we know how long Anderans will hold on to their technology? Can the ARI team even accept any funding? Will the technology just sit in a file cabinet somewhere for years until Aderans decides to sell it to a company willing to finish the trials? These are all important questions that if not answered will make your efforts fruitless. This is how the real world works. It takes a real understanding of how this type of stuff works to make something like this happen.

I already raised a similar question earlier. I suggested that we first try asking Spencer if he'll mediate between Aderans Research/Dr. Washenik and any sort of group we can get together...if we could do that, then we could work out those sort of details. If we collectively generally agree that Aderans Research is the most worthy/one of the most worthy groups to try to fund (which I do, and I think that's kind of how this idea got started, right...it was because they were the ones who lost their funding?), then we should try to create this contact and figure out these details early on.

[Hicks]

I was thinking kickstarter holds funds into escrew and you have to reach your goal (i.e money) by a date. If funds are not met by your goal date then the money goes back to the people and the startup gets zero.

Maybe make achievement Goals (i.e., donor recharge/double or what ever they call it, or meds like Fin without sides but that would take YEARS to address) and not give the money directly to companies to waste. In a nutshell we set bench marks and the company that can acheive the bench marks in the timeframe we give them gets the funds raised.

You'll have to do some heavy talking to get me to donate funds to a company for R&D.

[PayDay]

If you really want to do this, you need to take the path of least resistance. Why don't you guys just approach the existing companies like Aderans and Histogen and let them publicly compete for the funding via your crowd funding effort? They already have the infrastructure in place to provide the grant proposals etc., that it will take to get this thing off the ground. If they're not interested you're just wasting your time anyway. This should be the first step.

Do any of you know if they're currently looking for VC money? If so it might not even be possible for them to accept any outside funding.

How do we know how long Anderans will hold on to their technology? Can the ARI team even accept any funding? Will the technology just sit in a file cabinet somewhere for years until Aderans decides to sell it to a company willing to finish the trials? These are all important questions that if not answered will make your efforts fruitless. This is how the real world works. It takes a real understanding of how this type of stuff works to make something like this happen.