Thank you everyone who contributed! We look forward to working on the first edition of this online journal. For updates and to learn more about our broader project, check out psychcrisis.org.

@NoaNabeshima Shoot, I am not sure. What do you think the right answer should be? And how do we know the amount we're valued at? Is that something we find out later?

@Adrian-Regenfuss thank you for the update and for the intention to return the funds; I'll follow up with information on how to do that. And congrats on the new job!

@Adrian-Regenfuss I've also accepted a job offer which is a better fit and lasts for at least ten months. Due to opportunity cost for charitable donations it seemed prudent to give the money back and not wait for a better opportunity to arise, instead of applying again with a clear idea when I am ready for opportunities again.

What progress have you made since your last update?

I've decided to not pursue this project, or any other project of the type startup, because I've learned of three competitors doing ~the same thing, and the two of those I talked with didn't want to team up and seemed more advanced in their startup.

What are your next steps?

I am going to transfer the funds back to Nuño Sempere.

@Wormhole Agree with making the scores customizable. Others have asked for this feature as well. Thanks for your support!

@Holly, thanks for sharing. Always happy to discuss these things.

Thank you so much for your support, Alexander Rose! @xl . I'm sorry that that happened. We'd be super grateful if you'd be interested in joining our mailing list to simply keep in touch with LIC! https://www.legalimpactforchickens.org/#contact And thank you for everything you do.

@xl Based on offers that were submitted, the system only accepted those that specified a valuation of at least $10K. It sold each 0.6 percent of certs for each $60. Your offer of $60 for 12 percent of certs wasn't a good offer for the system to take -- pricing them there would have raised only $500 total.

I'm guessing someone would sell you $60 at the $10K valuation if you want to offer that.

(The whole valuation concept doesnt make much sense to me with this proposal.)

If you want more of a peek behind the scenes of this project, and our curious about the concrete things that have worked and not worked on along the way... here is and article I wrote up with all the experiments we've run (17 of them!), and learnings we've generated, over the past 14 months: https://open.substack.com/pub/emilykerrfinell/p/17-migrant-microbusiness-projects

@Wormhole That's a good question. Something I've been experimenting with for sure -- the idea of a "micro-VC" or "pay it forward" model in which we provide the program for free -- and then once the entrepreneur is profitable, they contribute a small percentage of profits to pay for others to go through the program.

"Your bid of $60 at $500 was declined." Why? I was one of the first people to fund this project. Did all the people in the shareholder list fund more than $500?

@Wormhole Hi Dony, thanks for your question about how Effective Thesis has evolved. While we have provided coaching, newsletters, research area guides, and other services since our founding 5.5 years ago, our team and offerings have adapted to serve students and future researchers more cost-effectively.

Until mid-2023, we operated with a 5.5 FTE team. However, due to funding constraints, we had to scale down and now function with 1.75 FTE under my direction as the new director. This transition led us to focus on more direct service offerings, such as helping students select well-defined research questions and interact in our Slack community while maintaining existing resources like our website research area guides.

Our impact is demonstrated through our reach and student success stories. We have around 70,000 to 90,000 unique website visitors annually and have provided one-to-one coaching to over 2,000 students. Many of these students have credited Effective Thesis as instrumental in their choice of thesis topic, supervisor, funding, or postgraduate program. We have numerous examples of theses submitted by students who have used our services, representing just a small fraction of those we've helped.

We are operating at a minimal burn rate with runway until late 2024 and are dedicated to continuing our mission of supporting students and researchers in pursuing high-impact work. Please let me know if you have any other questions!

I’m glad to see this reach the threshold.

@camrobjones where will be best to monitor progress and see results?

EA Philippines' 2020 virtual Intro Fellowship back during the pandemic was my first encounter with the Effective Altruism community. Their authenticity, warmth, and impact-focus has made a lasting impression on me. I've met members at EAG London and most recently EAGxPhilippines 2023 and am always impressed with my interactions with them and the rate of progress my fellowship cohort has made in 3.5 short years.

In my view, they define the bar for me on what a vibrant and diverse EA community should look like. I.e., while I currently live in London and engage with their EA community, EA Philippines' community in my view exceeds that of London.

This sounds really cool and the only AI related ACX Grants cert project I could evaluate to have some legible chance at an impact, potentially a viral one. It already had some success apparently and just needs more funding. The Turing Test is a pretty fundamental concept in AI lore and we should have at least one running.

I'd be tempted to put all my $500 to making this one happen, but there's a discrepancy between the minimum funding goal and the 70-100k being asked for in the description so I am hesitant.

I also have a vague feeling I have heard about this sort of thing before and that there could be other projects out there like this (super unsure) making it not neglected. I'm also not sure about the growth plan for getting adoption of products based on the research once realized (I am not at all familiar with how universities productize this stuff but I assume UC Berkeley would partially own it and would make a bunch of money licensing it out?? apologies if I am very likely misunderstanding, just giving my surface impression).

Aren't eggs one of the worst products, moreso than meat? Also, IIRC rice farming(?) involves killing mice. I'd want to use such an app if I could subjectively set the associated cruelty scores and if I was more confident that it was accurate.

That said, this does sound like it could have a lot of potential to grow, assuming a good marketing plan.

Effective Thesis has existed for at least five and a half years, though I haven't followed it too closely. I'm confused what about this is different from its previous offerings. I don't know how much influence it has either (e.g. how many people visit the website, have plan changes, produce theses based on your suggestions, or however you measure it).

There's too many big sciency words for me to evaluate with not much time. Would be easier to get a sense of the value with a headline statement summarizing the value proposition / theory of change.

I don't have enough time to evaluate this one last minute, but what's preventing this from bootstrapping by getting a cut of the businesses?