Mark Cuban Spins Up “Open Source” Venture Capital

The term “open source” has really hit the mainstream in the past 6-8 months. With President Obama’s campaign promise for an “open source democracy,” the term, outside of the tech sector, has practically become a synonym for “visibility and accountability.” The billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, borrowed on this earlier in the week when launched his own stimulus plan.

Rather than trying to be a Venture Capitalist, I was looking for an idea that hopefully could inspire people to create businesses that could quickly become self funding. Businesses that just needed a jump start to get the ball rolling and create jobs. Im a big believer that entrepreneurs will lead us out of this mess. I just needed a way to help.

He goes on to say that what he’s setting up is an “open source funding environment.” You post your business plan to his blog, where everyone can see it, comment on it, steal it, &c. and if it’s a good plan, it’s possible you could get funding.

Some of the stipulations of the plan include:

3. It MUST BE CASH FLOW BREAK EVEN within 60 days
4. It must be profitable within 90 days.

A bank for a new Twitter this is not. Cash flow break even in 60 days probably means your plan describes an already established business or a web app simple enough to spin up with a framework in a couple of weeks.

Cuban is accepting business plans in the comments of his blog. There are a ton of comments so far and Cuban is offering commentary on some of plans. If you don’t have any ideas, it’s very interesting reading. If you’ve been itching to share your business acumen with the world, you might have just found an outlet.

Interesting enough, none of the plans submitted so far mention open source software as the basis for their business plan. I wonder, is this is a function of the audience that Cuban reaches with his blog or if open source startup and quick profitability just don’t go hand-in-hand?