MP 652 – SoB FoC

School of Business For Credit

A New Model of Free Software Distribution

Companies care about profit margins and bottom lines, and there's a bunch of software that happens to be free that they aren't using. Why not? Aren't free things good for your wallet?

Here, for example, is a non-exhaustive list of free software I believe companies could stand to use for better market capitalization:

Microsoft Windows 10

It's free in China.

WinRAR

I've been using the trial version for years without spending a single cent like it keeps asking me to.

SecuROM

Protects your software IP, and comes free with some games!

Microsoft Silverlight

Creates rich multimedia for The Web. It's the perfect Flash-killer!

Windows Live Messenger

I know, I know, you can't possibly see how people don't know that you can download this for free in 2019, but you can!

So if all this free software exists, why aren't more companies using it? I have to believe it must be a recruitment issue. No sensible CFO would ever want to waste money on software they could have gotten for free, so I'm left to assume they just haven't heard about it!

To rectify this situation, I propose a more proactive distribution scheme I like to call…

The "Tree" Software Distribution Model¹

…because I've heard that coders really like trees!

Here's how we do it:

1. We get a little bit of VC funding—a couple million USD should do—leveraging our Alumni Network and contacts I have in San Francisco.
2. We hire a network of "Free-vangelists"¹ to give seminars and conferences on all the excellent software tools businesses are missing out on!
3. Our Free-vangelists can recruit other Free-vangelists, too; we'll use a commission based system where the earnings for recruitment are proportional to the number recruited—including recruitments by other Free-vangelists you've recruited!
• Boring technical details: each recruited Free-vangelist will have to pay a small "recruitment fee" just to keep the capital flow.
4. We post huge earnings to our investors and convince more businesses to download free software!

So, are you ready to become the First Free-vangelists today, and start spreading free software?