 World-Wide, Inc.
The Company Greenstar was founded in 1998 to make specialized international investments in media properties, and is focused on providing solar power, wireless telecommunications and electronic commerce in developing countries. The company has administrative offices in Los Angeles and Washington DC, and field representatives in Accra Ghana, Hyderabad India, and Cairo Egypt.
The Market The company markets a full line of "digital culture" products, developed in carefully-selected remote centers of true worldwide cultural value. These products are marketed worldwide to consumers and businesses who form a powerful, fast-growing demographic -- the Cultural Creatives. This market is estimated at 48 million high-income people in the United States, 62 million in Europe and Canada. The Cultural Creatives are increasingly concerned with ecology, renewable energy, environment, appropriate technology, natural lifestyles, cultural diversity, and international connections. These concerns directly affect their buying decisions, and their brand loyalties. Greenstar is uniquely positioned to serve the needs of this demographic, which is growing at 5-6% per year and represents over $605 billion in annual buying power for "green" products.
Products and Services The Company has developed the "Greenstar Solar-Powered Community Center", which brings solar power, a connection to the Internet, basic health, education and environment services, to small communities in developing countries that are off the conventional power and telecommunications grids. Because of their remoteness, these villages possess unique assets in their traditional culture. Greenstar develops media products in conjunction with local experts in the form of music, artwork, dance, digital photography, poetry, theater and storytelling, and helps the village to realize the economic value of these assets.
The company packages, markets, promotes and distributes these media products on the World-Wide Web, in digital form, for immediate, efficient distribution to a global audience of consumers. Packaged products are also marketed through web retail, licensing programs, and through conventional retail outlets. Greenstar hosts a well-established site on the Web, at http://www.greenstar.org The first Greenstar Solar Community Center was installed in a remote settlement on the West Bank in early 1999, and the first Greenstar digital music and artwork products were well-received by consumers on the Internet. A second program was deployed in a village in the mountains of Jamaica in mid-April, 2000; a third program was launched in south-central India in October, 2000; and a fourth village was opened in Ghana in August 2001. New programs are funded and being deployed in 2002 for villages in Tibet, Brazil and New Mexico. The company is also developing "The Edge Network", a subscription model for Greenstar's digital culture content. As remote Greenstar villages are connected to a high-speed wireless network, young people in each center are being trained to operate simple video and audio recording equipment, scanners and digital editors. These small production groups will generate a continuous flow of new music, artwork, poetry, dance and more, produced in and around these villages and uploaded to a server on the Internet, connecting them to the world as daily events like births, marriages and festivals unfold. These sounds and images will be available in streaming format from a central server 24 hours a day, so that people anywhere can witness and interact with fascinating events in traditional cultures. The Edge Network will offer a free subscription issue for three months to several million potential subscribers worldwide, after which they will be invited to convert to a paid subscription.
Business Model The company has an agency representation and distribution agreement with the people of each village, who retain ownership and copyright to their work, and pays a royalty to the village and to individual artists, based on gross revenues generated. The value of these distribution rights is expected to increase substantially, as more and more Greenstar villages are established. Greenstar's strategy calls for up to 300 such qualified investments in over 60 countries around the world over the next five years, in each case identifying a unique cultural asset. In this way, the Company will acquire rights to valuable, original arts from a significant portion of the world's traditional cultures, and will develop a global brand name, based on "green" energy principles and on a respect for indigenous traditions. The company plans to leverage these investments into several
complementary revenue streams, based on the primary digital culture
initiative. These encompass four categories:
 As an example of this leverage, the company has recently delivered a specialized mobile telecomm system ("Greenstar Nomad") to the Strategy Group, a Washington DC organization that is performing assessments for the Pentagon in Afghanistan and Pakistan; the company has also performed specialized services for a solar power manufacturer in Thailand, and for a silicon manufacturer in California, using its technology for advanced solar cells. These professional services are offered under Greenstar Strategic Energy and Communications Services. Another important complementary business will be to provide technology and finance development services to businesses interested in expanding their reach into fast-growing markets in developing countries. The company's proven expertise and local relationships forged in its projects in small villages will be leveraged to open up new opportunities in the fields of wireless data, satellite telecommunications, Internet access, photovoltaic manufacturing and assembly. An example of this line of business is the company's ongoing work in developing strategic plans and financing for a fully-integrated photovoltaic manufacturing plant in Egypt, on behalf of a group of American and Egyptian investors. Consumer markets are being developed to distribute music and artwork directly over the Internet, through digital downloads, and through on-demand production of music CDs and artwork prints. In addition, business markets for Greenstar digital culture are being developed for the commercial electric power industry ("Greenstar Power Partners"), for the textile and apparel industries ("Greenstar Textures"), and for the advertising and film industries ("Greenstar Media"), through which images and sounds from the Greenstar galleries will be selectively licensed.  Marketing Strategy The object of the Company's marketing strategy is to build a global Greenstar brand, which stands for environmentally-balanced and people-oriented development for traditional cultures around the world. Greenstar's brand means professional-quality original sounds and images, available nowhere else, and drawn from sources that are thousands of years old -- from people who are seeking to lift themselves and their communities into the future through entrepreneurial effort. The Greenstar brand means a one-to-one connection between the haves and have-nots, breaking down fears and resentments, and it means using decentralized technologies such as solar power, wireless networks and the Internet as tools for traditional people to build an independent future on their own terms. The Company believes that this nexus of ideas will find a responsive chord in consumers and businesses, that they will purchase Greenstar products in order to support these ideas and the people who benefit from them. This will drive a profitable media enterprise that delivers royalty income to the Greenstar villages, agent income to Greenstar, and long-term return to investors, as Greenstar builds the value of its licensed library of assets. Greenstar markets itself through two linked websites that receive over 40,000 combined visits per month, all of whom have an opportunity to purchase products direct from the site. A newsletter, ("The Greenstar Edge") is published that reaches over 14,000 subscribers from more than 80 countries, and also carries the company's commercial message. Greenstar uses an affiliate program ("Greenstar Premium Partners") with over 70 participating organizations, to help spread its message; it also uses banner exchanges, systematic link submissions to search engines, and publication of key articles, to draw potential commercial traffic to its websites. All of these marketing efforts are carried out at limited cost to Greenstar, other than the small hosting costs for websites and email marketing servers, and the time to implement and oversee them. By focusing its marketing efforts on the Internet, Greenstar assures that it will reach the high-income demographic it seeks, and that its efforts will be highly scalable.  Many marketing tasks are undertaken by a large corps of volunteers ("Greenstar Explorers") which currently numbers over 130 enthusiastic people from around the world. The Greenstar story is an appealing one for the press, and Greenstar takes full advantage of free marketing communications. The Company has received strong coverage about its programs, including international coverage in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times and the BBC, and dozens of stories in local and national media. Greenstar is also nominated regularly for international awards, and company has been a finalist for recognition from the World Bank, Stockholm Challenge, Technology Empowerment Network (affiliated with the World Economic Forum) and the Knight-Ridder Equality Awards.
Exit Strategy It is not anticipated that the Company will pay dividends, and there is a limited market for restricted securities in a private company like Greenstar. So it is important to consider future opportunities for liquidity at the outset. The long-term asset value of the company will be realized in the gallery of music, artwork, poetry and video to which the company acquires marketing rights. From the first four villages, the company has already developed five commercial CD releases, each with over 50 minutes of finished master material. A video CD has also been developed, with over one hour of finished video that will be released in conventional CD-ROM and DVD formats. Nearly 100 original pieces of artwork have been licensed, and there are more than 35 hours of video master material, much of it original performances of poetry, theater, dance and music never before seen anywhere. Because of their source in rare traditional cultures, the value of these assets will increase over time, rather than decrease as is common with regular commercial music and art. The company will evaluate opportunities to remain independent through a public registration of its stock in the future; such a registration would develop a public market for the company's equity, and investors would have an opportunity to realize liquidity. The other chief option for investor exit will be through merger or acquisition. The company is developing relationships with global media companies, many of which are expanding quickly into emerging markets as they seek new consumer presence. Some of the fastest-growing media markets in the world are in India, China, Brazil and Egypt -- these countries alone have a combined population of over 2.5 billion people, nearly ten times that of the United States.  The appetites and values of these new markets will be far more diverse than the mainstream media companies are prepared to deliver today. Media production and distribution companies such as CapCities/Disney, GE/NBC, Fox/NewsCorp and AOL/Time Warner, all need presence in these fast-growing markets, and Greenstar's original content will be an excellent foundation for them. Music publishers such as BMG/RCA, Warner, Columbia, MCA, Virgin and Rhino will also be potential acquirers of Greenstar's music catalog. Global fashion design firms, always seeking new images and textures, include Benetton, Chanel, Conde Nast, Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger, Versace and Ralph Lauren; they also have a need to reach emerging markets. Where possible, the company is developing business relationships and contacts with some of these groups today in anticipation of exit opportunities in several years.
Management Company management is experienced in digital media, electronic commerce, solar power and international affairs, and includes Michael North, founder of North Communications and a pioneer in multimedia network design; Charles Gay, one of the world's foremost authorities on solar power and former head of the National Renewable Energy Lab at the US Department of Energy; and Peter McKenzie, who has decades of experience in deploying solar power in developing countries. Also on Greenstar's Board of Directors is Commander Lawrence Seaquist (United States Navy, retired), former commander of the battleship USS Iowa and security expert on the Middle East and Central Asia; and Jonathan Lash, President of the World Resources Institute, one of the world's top research and education groups on environment and development issues. Greenstar has also attracted a prestigious advisory board of Ambassadors, drawn from experts in international affairs and trade, ecommerce, health, education, energy and environment, and based internationally in the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.  Conclusion Greenstar sees business opportunity in an era of increasing tension and imbalance between the developed and developing worlds -- both for investors in the industrialized world and for people in traditional cultures. The priceless assets of these people are their music, language, art and legends. By participating in Greenstar, people in the developed world benefit from learning how families and communities in traditional cultures connect with the earth, with the past and the future, with the sacred and the mundane. And people in the developing world benefit by asserting the value of their traditions, by improving their health care and education, by learning about the rest of the world and their important role in it, and by acquiring new skills that connect them to the global economy. Through these activities, significant income can be earned, and the long-term equity value of the company's media assets will appreciate. At the same time, international trust and understanding of the value of the differences among people will increase. Greenstar is positioned to generate solid returns for its investors, as well as to make a solid, measurable difference in the daily lives of thousands of people in the communities it serves. There is a market to be made in peace. Investment in Greenstar is open at this time only to qualified private investors. For complete information on the company's activities, see http://www.greenstar.org/introduction.htm. For details on investment opportunities, send email to Michael North, company President. You may download this document in PDF format by clicking here.
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