Building an Empire - Philosophy of ECOBANK
I would like to take a moment to give you guys a deeper dive into the ECOBANK model we are building, this has been the work of more than 10 years of my life, and I have been planning and building, observing and learning all the time. We have been growing our local network, seeing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats first hand. We have been 'putting in the work'.
And now its time to act.
1. We are building an empire, starting from this location.
This is the first important concept to understand - we are building a physical empire. It is not just that we want to make money, we are creating a 'value-adding empire' in the heart of the Andean mountains. At once this community can serve as an example in development, a refuge against 'SHTF' scenarios, and has the tropical potential to be a true utopian paradise if developed correctly.
We have chosen our main location, in the Northern Part of the Tolima Department of Colombia. Its a geographically isolated place known as a hideaway and refuge for thinkers and writers for more than a century. It is a dominant rural/agricultural area, the food and cost of living is inexpensive and high-quality. Cows are grass fed and much of the local crops from sugar cane to cassava are naturally organic. There is a lot of mountain spring water and plenty of rainfall.
And we are going to use all of this to our advantage on our path.
2. Sustainable development, defined by me.
Me, that's @ecoinstant. Here's the document I'm using as a resume, an 'about me', a curated list of almost 5 years of blogs. Make sure to 'view it as a post'.
I personally do not agree with a lot of main stream topics involving 'green', 'ESG' or 'climate change'. But I have dug into the study, literature and living on the ground and I have a model, a working model that is based on many different successes we have already seen around the world, and that I am sure will be used as a model to copy from in the future. The solutions exist, we just need to implement them.
Sustainable - as a word - we are using to refer to the harmony in three areas - environmental, social and economic.
Much progress has been made on the environmental front, my wife is working on the cutting edge of Ecological Restoration through her Master's degree program. Together we have proposed the concept of 'profitable ecological restoration'. Its the economic angle that gets forgotten so much.
Social, like environmental, has a lot of work and interesting solutions appearing, mostly related to decentralization. Basically we can't be robber barons, we need to make sure we create profits in a way that benefits the entire community, more on this in the Eco Red Bank section. Social issues are also proven to improve when economic conditions improve, so again, the most important thing to do when considering these new solutions, is how can we implement these good ideas profitably.
3. How value is created
Prices and Profits are economic concepts. Prices are a communication system, and profit is the result of creating more value than expended - literally 'free energy'. All energy comes from the sun. Think of a tiny seed that grows into a big tree, and produces thousands of seeds over its life time. If you plant a bean, a bean plant will give you hundreds of beans. Nature is 'profitable' by way of absorbing 'free' energy from the sun, the soil and the environment.
We can do this too, we can look around, make decisions, and create profits by well-thought out design and development. I love the agriculture examples, as I have been working for over a decade to develop multi-species agroforestry systems, but this concept is important for all businesses.
We will be implementing promising designs in profitable ways, and using these to create reinvestment feedback loops. We are already doing this in fact, but the creating of the Eco Development Bank SAS gives us the tool we need to expand at whatever rate we want to or need to. We are about to hit the quantum leap phase of this project by completing our Presale where you or anyone can get involved at the very lowest price of $1.10 USD per token.
What's the first step?
So where do we start? We have projects lined up for timber, essential oil extraction, dehydration of natural products, real estate sub dividing, waterfall rappeling, and a number of other great ideas. But there is something special about the resort/hotel - and that is having the infrastructure ready for investors to come here and visit. To see with their own eyes what we are doing.
This is key. Not every investor needs to come, but all investors need to be able to come, this is how transparency works. I can tell you all about what I am doing, I can take pictures and instruct my team to post updates, but when the first HIVEr comes down to visit us, I know that this thing is going to take off in a big way.
We are chosing hotel and resort infrastructure as our first step to immediately make this fund into a 'membership club', which are estimated to have other benefits around governance. If you know right where we live and work its going to be easier to trust us.
ECO RED BANK
The ECOREDBANK is really a social program, 'red' in spanish means 'network'. We are deeply integrated into the growing but underdeveloped tourist network in the north of Tolima. I personally have been elected to the local Tourism board as a representative of the Tour Operators, my wife is the representative of the Registered Tour guides.
There is an upcoming post from our very own @gestorsocial talking about the current local conditions regarding tourism, but until that is published (soon), suffice it to say - we have a plan to address much of what is currently ailing the region.
Our 'network' bank project is identifying and connecting the current available tourist offerings locally - we will be putting together packages and selling packages to people who want to visit the region. Not only will we be making a profit, but we will be helping local entrepreneurs gain more customers and build their own businesses. Take a look at some of the posts on QuintaEsencia Blog to see reports from some of the current local tourist attractions.
I am hoping to bring a group of my own family members down here in early 2023 - we will be putting together a package just for them. And I hope that it won't take even that long to get some Hive member or other investor down here to check out the reality on the ground, stay with us, eat great local food, party with us, and learn all about what we are doing.
What's next?
From here, we will have decisions to make. We need to get our new hotel up and running, I will have a post hopefully this week or next on all the juicy details of what we are planning to buy.
We will look at positioning the hotel into the digital domain and expanding sales.
And we will always have an eye to start our build out of our finalized 8.2 hectares of wonderful land.
This might be a good time to mention, this is a fund project. At any time we can make the decision to sell some assets and buy something else. Like that little tail of green on the map, along the road side, that might be a potential tiny piece we could sell at nice 1 profit for its great positioning along the main road.
Additionally, with the hotel we are buying into, after working with it and building it up, the time may come when it makes more sense to sell, and keep building somewhere else, taking our lessons and experience with us.
But in general, we are looking for cashflow producing assets to hold and take care of so that they can continue to develop profits - environmental, social and economic profits.
Any Questions?
Please continue to leave your questions, we are still selling tokens and I am going to shortly be doing a AMA - fill me up with great questions! I am doing my best to respond to every question in the comments as well. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but comments without valid observations or questions will not get a full vote from me.
This looks like a great project and I think it will do well!
Yeah... thanks. Me too.
