Tag: collective purchasing

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1Bog: alias, 1 Block Off the Grid. Solar energy at it best. Collective purchasing for green home improvements at its best. Social markets an entrepreneurship meet green living, this meeting happening on the Web.

 

 

 

1Bog is run by Virgance,  a successful Bay Area "incubator" that builds and owns "social enterprises, preparing them for Tier 1 venture capital investment" (Virgance.com).

As a combination of "activism and capitalism" Virgance, founded by Steve Newcombe, a successful "serial entrepreneur", and Brent Schulkin, activist and filmmaker, is at present working on 4 projects, ranging from a network of environmental blogs to a project empowering sustainable consumers and a very tasty Facebook preview of what is defined "the American Idol of social change" (more soon).

 

 

1Bog appears to have all it takes to be a winning model: it is about connecting entreprises to individuals and individuals among themselves, and using the Web to do so; it is about about an environmental and surely a demand-growing issue, or rather "good" like that of green improvements, specifically solar energy; it is about constructing a "social market" and generally harvesting the benefits of a transparent market encounter around a sustainable "good"; it is finally about generating a critical mass.

 

 

 

It all starts from Post Code and e-mail. Subsequently, when enough homeowners interested in green improvements are aggregated, 1Bog "uses collective bargaining power to negotiate group discounts and group financing options on their behalf", launching a request for proposal to screened installers. The aims are thus becoming visible:making the process of buying solar panels easier, cheaper and safer while creating a market for partners in the solar industry.

 

The rest of the equation is composed by a rich set of information and practical solutions to problems associated to the costly process of greening our lives: the site area dedicated to solar financing provides with a good set of solutions including suggested partners, municipal contracts, home equity and even peer-to-peer lending through Lending Club.

 

If you want to visualize some of the activity going on check the section on solar cities. If you want to learn more about solar, check the solar university. The Blog is also quite up to date and an interesting "volunteering" page suggests way of being helpful, starting from "volunteer 5 minutes". All pretty nicely crafted, including the funny "About" slideshow.