Dropbox - The Ultimate Tool For Investor Transparency

We have been busy bees lately ramping up a niche construction business in east Austin.  Our fund is actually issuing a separate class of shares for these opportunities because we have received a ton of interest from investors that want to invest in these deals exclusively.  

Dropbox.com has proven to be a great resource for us in these projects.  Our project manager can keep a project diary about events that happen each day in a Word file so that investors don't have to ping him separately and there is no need to do a conference call.  Profit sheets can also be updated as draws are made and the budget can be synced to show variances from projected costs.  Closing docs, contracts, forms, insurance information, invoices, permits, plans, taxes, and title-related issues can all be shared virtually as well.  

Perhaps my favorite feature is that our contractor's smart phone can use the Dropbox application to post daily pictures of the work that was accomplished to Dropbox.  There really is very little reason for the non-managing partners to drive by and they get a real sense for how their money is being spent.  The transparency of the whole process gives investors a great deal of confidence in the project and it even ends up being a nice tool where they can show off their investment to their friends.  Their friends are potentially additional investors in projects so this is great news for the sponsors!  

The project we are currently working on is completely unlevered and we have a projected AROI of 75%.  If there are variances one way or another we will know about it daily because everything is updated by our partners real-time in Dropbox.  You should check out the tool for your projects.  You should especially check it out if you have investors for those projects!