$20k Zero-Interest Loan

I'm looking for a $20,000 USD zero-interest loan; I can pay $10,000 USD back within 30-60 days, depending the availability of the public notary at the US Embassy in Bogota Colombia. For those who wish to extend loan forgiveness, they receive a .5% preferred stock in the forthcoming Delaware C-Corp.

The longer version is below ...

You get paid back in cash; I've got about $32k squirreled away in a pension plan holding durable and diversified index funds from Fidelity Bank; sure, not a sure thing but ... Ok, I've also about about $11,500 in cash sitting on the ledger of the State of Minnesota from my MSRS pension fund; which is in the process of getting rolled over into an eTrade IRA account.

Why eTrade?

Because I can give myself a loan with eTrade.

But that's only just over $10k?

Yup, I'm going to roll $12k over to the eTrade, from the Fidelity IRA account, totally over $20,000 which will provide an immediate $10,000 loan to myself, which I will use to make the intial repayment of $2,500 on each $5,000 loan provided.

The Real Payback

That leaves $10,000 left to be paid back.

I'm presently earning about $1,000 per month working as an intermediate WordPress developer through my ExoCTO product. As well, I earn about $2,000,000 Colombian pesos each month, which pay for my base expenses here in Colombia. This takes up just under 20 hours of my work week.

Lastly, I am expanding ExoCTO, as well as a project called DigiSnaxx, while building out the La Case Ingles / idioki project, providing English pronunciation classes. The plan being to obtain the first 32 idioki students, which would nearly double my current Colombian income; working an additional 10 hours per week.

This leaves 10 additional hours of work to constitute a full 40-hour work week; the remaining 10 hours are used to expand the operations of each, primarily via marketing for idioki, which is the miniture flagship product; DigiSnaxx being the real thing.

It is these last two, combined with ExoCTO, provide the means for me to pay back the remaining $10,000 within the year, I presume.

What does the money do?

Before I talk about that, I need to explain something.

I've always looked the way I do ... and I've been "mistaken" for being indigenous on both the North and South American continents.

These can be very triggering sensitive labels for some, so I want to be careful; regardless, in theory, my indigenous roots of that of the Mhuysca. Long story short, Mhuysca are the fifth tribe of the Teyruna people, based out of the Sierra Nevadas; the other four tribes be Konkwami, Wiwa, Arhuaco and Kogi.

At the time of colonization the Arhuaco and the Kogi dipped tf out; deep into the Sierra Nevadas; and their man spiritual leaders are called Mamos, the woman leaders are called Zagas.

A few years ago I met a Mamo, Mamo Celedonio; a previous partner of mine introduced us.

Mamo and I have become friends; we refer to each other as brother, and it's sincere. We've been through things, watched and helped each other confront difficult experiences, ideas and outcomes. That is what our friendship is built upon, and now we are going to purchase land together.

The estimated cost of this purchase is about $10,000; all said and done; we will create a working farm and small retreat area, while I will expand my English classes into a small Colombian pueblo tucked away just outside of Bakata / Bogota.

The remaining $10k goes in to marketing for idioki; not all-at-once, though that is the intended use of those funds; the majority of the money being put into Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn Ads.

Go-To Market Strategy

It starts off with idioki; and the go-to market strategy is three-fold.

1) Word-of-mouth; I recently had a make-up class with a previous group of learners from a local raw-resources company learning English. One student exclaimed to the other student, "Let's do this!"

This being idioki; after which they started sending the link to their friends and family.

This behavior combined with hand-to-hand flyering in the street, on buses and every where else I go is the basis for word-of-mouth advertising, along with video testimonials.

2) Live events, in the aforementioned class we also talked about gathering once per week at a local cafe; and/or other events. More events will follow, continue and grow.

3) Ads and Content.

This is the difficult one because it's usually just an abstract idea, though I've recently finished the programming script to optimize the creation of social media posts akin to those already posted at https://instagram.com/la_casa_ingles.

They strategy is structured, replicable and there are other aspects which are scaleable; others are write once, and have multiple people speak the script, because accents matter!

We build a library of evergreen content - on Instagram.

Mixed in with this we will sprinkle promotions for the class platform; two scripts have been written; one is about 30 seconds long, and the other is about 1 minute and 40 seconds. Though longer videos are able to be made; but honestly, if we don't have to, we won't.

Our core content is evergreen content that can be reused as Instagram Stories infinitely; while the more I think about the possible structures that could be implemented, the more sustainable the idea of unique and diversified content becomes – and objective being to have a small team able to support that creation.

The Product

The product is a two-sided market application, though we curate the teacher side, while providing a specific structure for each class; so learners know exactly what they are getting.

Also our pricing is upfront, and highly-competative, while providing 20+% gross net revenue margins at scale.

The eventual application does nothing more than align the schedule availability of teachers, along with possible topics for each class (explained later), and expected learner level, with students.

Students will use the app to sign-up for sessions, as well as waitlist sessions; that is all.

When talking about topical classes, this would be for groups who want to read a particular book together; or read specific types of articles.

We curate the teachers, and our focus is not on teaching English, but rather teaching English pronunciation.

The primary job of the app is the arrange schedules; and so the job of the company is to find and train the best English pronunciation instructors.

The first step is to scale up to 6 instructors, and 2 administrative staff; with time we will finalize strategies and structures to scale to over 50+ instructors, grossing nearly $250,000 annually after labor costs.

Six instructors with 75 weekly groups, and 300 participants, nets us about about $1,500USD each month; which is enough to pay for my living space, as well as invest money back into marketing – the marketing plan being two-fold, content creation and in-person flyering, all leading back to the social media accounts which is consistently being updated with new evergreen content.

A private/public library of searchable content will also be provided on idioki.com.

The only barrier is marketing budge, as we already have an edge.

The Twist

Flip the structure to teach Spanish; you've just doubled your market, in a sense, or at least your opportunity.

The educational foundation for eaching Spanish has already been created, and proven; we are not talking about grammar, etc, we're talking about basic foundational structure, how to speak Spanish; how to begin translating Spanish into English in your head ... using methodologies students come back for.

The Question ...

Perhaps some of you have already asked yourselves ... is there an investment opportunity here?

For those willing to provide loan forgiveness, your loan will be transfered into .5% Preferred Stock investment in a forthcoming Delaware C-Corp.

For a total of 2% possible ownership in total though the loan-forgiveness program, providing a base post-money valuation of $1,000,000 valuation.

At some point the limiting factor simply becomes the marketing budget; the issue being, one doesn't want to end up being Duolingo.

Instead our marketing focus is built on providing accessible and entertaining tools for students to replicate and practice. We will continue to expand and evolve our content, but the core of our marketing plan is designed to be simple, consistent and productive to learners.

DigiSnaxx

This is what we haven't talked about yet ... and it actually going to be another vehicle for idioki promotions; although it is an events calendar.

The price being 50.000 COP per month for participation; and I'm lookin' to gradually get buy-in, views and product market fit ... though the idea is solid, and the prototype has been running for nearly 10 years, maybe more than.

DigiSnaxx is a way to ask small business owners what's working, and what isn't; while providing an economically accessible opportunity to be a part of something different, and something new.

The twist being to talk to business owners here in Medellin and the surrounding area who either want to improve their English, or their Spanish.

See what I did there? And there really is no loss-leader.

Working Hours

Here's the deal, 10 hours teaching idioki classes, 10 hours working on DigiSnaxx tech/outreach, 10-20 hours working on ExoCTO.

That's the starting schedule; which leaves time to continue teaching individual English classes through my current job; while having an active social life, enough to support natural community building and networking.