John Gibson
Tomah, WI (USA)
Role(s):
Founder/Owner/Principal
Veterans Investment Project / Acewash
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Startup
Location:
Tomah
Industry:
Other
Year Founded:
1993
Number Employees:
1-10 people
Business Stage:
Growth (profitable)
Entity Type:
Sole Proprietorship
Description:
Minimum Initial Requirement:
$20K bricks
$20K engraving machine
$5K computer/website development
$3K advertisement
$2K office supplies/misc items
The project will encompass, in total, a $12M dollar housing facility for retired and currently serving veterans. They'll be allowed to stay up to one week a year, share military experiences, and enjoy multiple entertainment venues on-site and in the community. I will need $50,000 minimum and any extra loaned would be either applied to later stage requirements earlier or left in savings until needed for the project. I am looking for a rate of 10% interest or lower with an option to repay early with little or no penalty. The main money generator will be brick sales at $100. donations. I interviwed 100 Soldiers with a better than 90% rate of service members committing to donate $100. I believe I will be able to sell over 200 bricks per month the first year but it will take 38 bricks per week for the first year to generate over $200,000. I have been in the Army Reserves for over 31 years and personally know thousands of Soldiers and several hundred federal workers that will donate in the first year alone. With Facebook and other social media sites, this project will do extremely well especially the first couple years. The uniqueness of this project is that the etched bricks will be used inside and outside to actually build the facility. All service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan will be included and members from all the services, not just Army. Millions of dollars of this project will be completed via grants, donated building supplies through companies such as Home Depot, and volunteer workers lending their support, time, and trades talents during the entire project. The beauty of this project is that the location where it will be built is only ten miles or less from an active duty military post in Wisconsin, and a VA center which supports several hundred veterans daily. Location is key. I am an Army Major with 31+ years of service and a full-time engineer for the Army Reserves for the Regional Support Command, so I know this will be big. Looking to make this non-profit unless someone thinks that's not a good move.
For the Acewash project, I need $10,000. to finish a $49,000. waterblasting machine in which all the parts are on-site already and all brand new. I just need the money to fabricate the machine and get it ready for use but mostlikely resale for about $25-30K. This is a specialty machine which operates at 15,000 PSI and 2.5 GPM. This is a sole-proprietorship since 1993.