Marijuananews Seeks Adventure Capital Investors

April 15, 1998

Dear friends,

I now feel confident of the success of Marijuananews.com. I have been very gratified by the enthusiastic feedback from you and by the rapid increase in traffic.

I have also reached the point at which it is both appropriate and necessary for me to seek investors. At the suggestion of a friend, I am calling it adventure capital, for several reasons.

First, it is obviously the sort of investment that entails risk, and I do not want anyone to invest any money that they cannot afford to lose.

Second, I plan on it having a return high enough to justify taking the risk.

Third, it is definitely going to be an adventure. This is not the sort of investment that anyone would be likely to make just for the profit. We are going to make history, not just make money.

As I explain on the Business Page, the objective of this site is to harness the profit motive to bring about an end to marijuana prohibition. Until the end of marijuana prohibition, the profit is a means to an end. After the end of marijuana prohibition, as in any other business, an honest profit is an end in itself.

If you like what you see thus far, this is only the beginning. But right now, I am being badly limited by not having operating capital. For example, I urgently need a back-up computer, but there will be an ongoing need for travel expenses, etc., and luxuries such as food, clothing and shelter.

There is so much more that I could do that would make the site more attractive to visitors and thus to advertisers, and therefore more effective for the movement, if I had the operating capital.

I want to raise a maximum of seventy-five thousand dollars as "seed money." (The only thing that I am going to plant is the truth, but there will be many other businesses that will grow out of Marijuananews.com .)

The Deal:

  1. The investment would be a minimum of $1,000 with increments of $500.
  2. In its initial form, the investment will be a non-interest bearing loan to be repaid from the earnings of Marijuananews.com. I do not anticipate that any repayment would begin until late 1999. If the note is not repaid by the end of the second, year then interest will begin to accrue at the rate of 5% per year.
  3. The basis of the repayment would be a very simple formula: 1% of gross income (after tax and excluding barter) over $50,000 per year income for Marijuananews.com for every $3,000 invested -- until the loan is repaid and then:
    4.
  4. In lieu of -- or in addition to -- interest, after the loans have been repaid, investors would receive a gross-profits interest of one percent for every $3,000 loaned. If you loan $1,000 you will receive one third of one percent, $1,500 equals one half of one percent, etc.
  5. Gross profits will be defined as One Hundred Percent of gross income --after tax and excluding barter -- over $100,000 per year. This way there is no question about expenses or salary. Thus, after the return of 100% of capital, a $3,000 investment would receive $3,000 per year, if the gross revenues were $200,000; $6,000 per year, if the gross revenues were $300,000, etc.

If you are interested and able to make such an investment, please Contact Me, and I will provide you with a more complete business plan, but this is the essence of "the deal."

If you have any suggestions, I would welcome them as always.

Thanks for you time,

Dick Cowan