In the ending months of 2015, my roommates and I were thinking of pooling our disparate resources to invest in something somewhere. What exactly and where was unknown. How much? We had vague ideas of what each could pitch. We talked for quite some time, opted to look into the real estate market Mexico talked with some local contacts, and one thing led to another and... nothing happened. We still have not invested a single dime, and we still want to invest a finite, non-trivial amount of dimes.

In the opening weeks of 2016, we (my roommates and myself), get contacted by another common friend. He messaged not only us, but the extended group of friends with the same idea "Hey, we have been working for a bit, we have saved some money, let's put it to work somewhere!", but more importantly "... some of my MBA friends are doing it, they invested in [some country] in real estate... if they can we should be able to". Ha! We thought of that first my friend! The reception from the rest of thread was overall positive, and they welcomed my friend's initiative (damn it, we thought of it first!). And now they are the stage that my roommates and myself were originally: where to invest? A house in Mexico. An apartment in Canada. Another says "guys let's think out of the box, real estate is too common!". The discussion goes on, and the homework for each is to go their own contacts in their respective countries and fish for potential investment opportunities. Something not too big that together we cannot get the needed money. Something not too small that the largest investor of the group of us can do it by himself. Something in paper more rewarding than the bank, the bonds, and hopefully the S&P 500. Something safer than your latest photo sharing Silicon Valley startup. Something we all can persue with our limited time off work. Something... you get the point. There are specific investment requirements that we are looking for, and we are hoping to leverage our personal network for the benefit of the group.

So this gets me thinking. My household thought of this independently. Then our friend accross the globe thought of it as well, and he says he has friends already doing it. There must be a non-trivial amount of people out there with a similar group of friends/colleagues/trusted individuals that is looking for investment opportunities that are not necessarily out there in the open for everyone, that require some sort of insider knowledge to take part, and often with a trusted partner that plays the role of actively managing the project (the contractor building the house, the ranch owner taking care of the cattle, the restaurant owner, etc.). There must be a huge potential for this evident matching problem. Using networks of friends (a proxy for networks of trust), find subset of "investing friends" that matches a specific project (in size, risk/reward, time-line, etc.) and that is close enough such that the deal can get carried out without significant involvement on the investors part. I smell an opportunity...