We’re excited to launch the next great advancement in private investments: the first ever Sharedrop, or free private equity giveaway. Click here to learn more about the Linen Sharedrop.
Equity and stock options are the most powerful incentive tool in a startup’s toolkit, but they’re normally only given to partners, employees, and key service providers. Sharedrops allow a company to take this tool and face it outwards, giving away these incentives to early adopters, key customers, and fervent believers. Seeing as most product users and early adopters routinely miss out on some of the greatest wealth generation of our time, Sharedrops offers a framework to let startups and private companies share the wealth with their die-hard day-ones in a simple way. As Fred Wilson put it, “It’s a shame that the average Facebook user has not been able to own shares in Facebook during its increase in value from zero to $100bn.” While its unknown how successful companies using Sharedrops will be, allowing customers to gain a financial stake that is “funded” by their use and patronage of the company is a new paradigm of investing.
For this industry first, we partnered with Linen App, a banking app that gives retail investors some of the most sophisticated investment tools currently available like high interest savings accounts (currently around 4.5% APY). With this Sharedrop, Linen App is offering an equity stake in their company — the promise of micro percentages of ownership — in exchange for user signups and other activities for early adopters.
These incentives offer a unique competitive tool in an increasingly competitive economy. After all, sharedrops have the potential to increase a company’s visibility and public exposure, well past a percentage off a product or service. This goes well beyond the days when PayPal famously offered $20 worth of in-network credit to early users, or when Robinhood started offering free shares for new signups. Incentive campaigns increase product awareness and consumer adoption, but equity incentives add value of ownership.
We’re excited to partner with Linen App for this new product launch. If you are interested in learning more, you can find our full report on Airdrops and Sharedrops here, or reach out at jed@republic.co.
This educational article is provided by Republic to help its users understand this area of the market, it should not be construed as investment advice as it is impersonal, disinterested and was produced by Republic for Republic’s users, without remuneration received or expected.
Sharedrops on Republic
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