Commissary Club/70M Resources: The 1st social network for 70M Americans w/criminal histories

Richard Bronson and his team are uniquely able to tackle the problem affecting 20% of the US population in a simple and effective way. 70 Million Jobs is one of the most exciting new opportunities for me because it changes lives and helps everyone become part of the solution. Thank you guys for solving a real program and giving people hope again!

Dr. Susan Amat

Founder/CEO of Venture Hive

Hi - it's Laura Hill from 37 Angels. I'm happy to add 70MillionJobs to my portfolio!

Laura Hill

Career Coach, former recruiter in dot-com and mobile wireless, entrepreneur

Joel Henderson

Technical Lead

Previous Founder and CTO of SixArm.com, technical engineering and software consultant for the University of California Berkeley, LightBox, Ominex.io, and ThoughtWorks.

Investor Q&A

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What does your company do?

1-in-3 Americans has some kind of criminal record. We believe the time has come to build a product that unites them. Introducing Commissary Club--the first social network for the 70 million Americans with criminal records. Part social (with the connective tissue of a Facebook), part content (news, music, videos) and part e-commerce (specially curated goods and services, including housing, classes, mentorships, employment, medical and legal services, clothing, marijuana & much more).

Where will your company be in 5 years?

At first, under CC's parent company 70 Million Jobs, my goal was to connect 1 million people with records to employment. And during the past 4 years, we've gotten many thousands of people working. Since then, however, we've discovered a much bigger opportunity: In 5 years, we want to be the "AARP for people with records," serving all 70MM people + their friends and family, by connecting them not only to jobs, but to content, mentors, education, housing, careers, and to each other.

Why did you choose this idea?

I'm building Commissary Club not only because it's a large, virtually untapped market opportunity...but also because I myself was incarcerated, and know the unique pain of that experience. The size and scale of the incarceration & reentry problem in this country has long cried out for a new approach -- and we're the ones to take it on.

What is Commissary Club's relationship to 70 Million Jobs?

Commissary Club is a subsidiary of 70 Million Resources, Inc. Since successfully launching 70 Million Jobs — the first national, for-profit employment platform for people with criminal records — in 2016, we built a community of nearly 11 million job seekers, 400+ community partners, & 300+ fair chance employers -- and connected 3000+ men and women to employment. However, we’ve always had the plan of “getting our arms around” this population: serving them not only in employment, but also in education, housing and banking services, dating, social networking, and more. 70 Million Jobs will continue as the employment service offered on the Commissary Club membership, with the hundreds of Fair Chance employer clients continuing to post and make their jobs available to users who need them.

Where did the idea for the company come from?

The story begins on a personal note. I used to work on Wall Street with some big companies. I did very well and made a lot of money. I was actually a partner at the infamous Wolf of Wall Street firm, Stratton Oakmont, and was involved with all of that. I then started my own financial services firm and grew it into a business with 500 employees generating about $100 million in annual revenue. Unfortunately, some of what I did was crooked and despite having paid back every penny that was taken from people, I was still rightfully prosecuted and rightfully punished. I received a two-year sentence in federal prison. I served 22 months and then two months in a halfway house. I had been a successful businessman with a lot of money and lots of opportunities. Then when I came out of prison, like most people who go through the criminal justice system, I was essentially destitute. I had no money, no place to live, no job, no prospects. Thank God I had a sister with a couch. It took me years of trying to get back on my feet and on with my life. Despite how hard it was for me, I knew that I was relatively lucky, because I was a white man in white corporate America who had a college education. The guys I lived with in prison were primarily men of color who maybe hadn't completed high school. They have very little shot because so many people who are released from jail or prison will fairly quickly get re-arrested and end up back there. The only people who don't get in trouble again are people who have jobs. I worked as director of a prominent non-profit in the prisoner re-entry space called Defy Ventures, which is based in New York and very active in the Bay Area. They work with men and women in prison to train them in entrepreneurialism so they can start their own business and take control of their financial future. I had a lot of responsibilities, including helping with job readiness and job placement. That’s when I started learning the facts and what it would take to get people jobs and eradicate the endless cycle of recidivism that destroys lives at great economic cost. I eventually became convinced that despite the good work that this and other non-profits were doing, almost all of them have never really succeeded in scaling. They're almost all very local. It's because they have to constantly be finding donations and grants to survive, so a lot of resources go into that, and they generally don't employ technology and therefore ultimately haven't been successful in scaling and really reaching the kind of impact that I was interested in doing. I felt like this was crying out for a for-profit approach. With that in mind, I left my job and launched 70 Million Jobs in New York in 2017. The city of Los Angeles reached out almost immediately asking me to partner with them to help drive greater opportunity for that city's formerly incarcerated. I was then accepted at Y Combinator that summer. After receiving venture capital funding and angel funding, I decided to remain in San Francisco to run the business.

How have your numbers grown since the launch in 2016?

Since our launch in 2016, we've grown 70 Million Jobs to a user-base of 11 million+ people with records, and connected 3000+ men and women to employment. We've also built a network of 400+ community partners, & 300+ fair chance employers. Our numbers indicated to us that we were doing something right--we were building something people needed. And we believe we're about to do it again, in an even bigger way, with Commissary Club.

Has 70 Million Jobs been successful?

70 Million Jobs has been successful — in fact, we recently achieved our highest revenue month in February of 2020, following a contract with one of the largest tech companies in the world. However, while employment services are essential, there are a multitude of other needs that exist for this user-base -- and no one else is doing anything about that. Commissary Club is an all-in-one social network & marketplace that caters to every aspect of this population's needs: we'll continue 70 Million Jobs as an employment service nestled under this new product, and couple it with a wide variety of other goods and services...all uniquely tailored to people with records.

How do you expect to grow Commissary Club?

The model is a simple one: build something people want, and they will come. We did it once with 70 Million Jobs, and we're going to do it again. Our plan is to encourage our current user network of 11MM+ to invite their friends and family to Commissary Club; we believe the organic, exponential growth will start there. In addition, we offer product discounts and additional benefits to users who invite X amount of people, and curate virtual events that encourage attendance and sign-ups to the site. As our user base grows, so too will our offerings. At the outset, we have 5 major industry leaders committed to partnering with us on Commissary Club in online education & tech/coding training, apparel, music and mentorship -- with plenty more partnerships in the works. A social networking model is contingent on growth; and with a community of 11 million+ users, we've already won half the battle.

What's your business model?

The business model is dual revenue-share + ad-revenue. We already have [X] number of committed vendors who will pay us per referral. For example, our online coding course partner will pay us a fee every time someone from our site signs up for a class. Additionally, our 11 million active users will be attractive to advertisers, and we plan to build a feed that seamlessly integrates advertising into the site experience.

Why are you raising money?

While we’ve been highly successful on our employment platform, Commissary Club requires a complete overhaul of our system's backend, as well as a bigger team. We are raising money to build out a great product, and hire on [X people] -- Richard, is this about your idea for what we're going to spend $$ on?

What’s next for you after this fundraising campaign?

After this fundraising campaign, we'll be laser-focused on marketing and service partnerships. We want to spread the word, far and wide, about what we're building. While we are already getting user referrals from our existent network of job seekers and community partners, we want this to reach the eyes and ears of every formerly incarcerated person -- and their friends and family -- in the nation. Additionally, we will continue to work on building out our service partner network: from coding courses, to professional mentors, to employers, law firms, lending agencies, musicians and athlete influencers and clothing companies, we want to bring everyone into this movement. While not everyone can get on-board with hiring people with records (whether their policies don't align or they don't have jobs to offer at all), we believe that everyone can -- and will -- get behind the movement to unite and serve this population. From volunteering their time to teach or mentor, to Q&A's, to discounted product offerings...Commissary Club offers a lot more opportunities to support this population. We'll be focused on connecting with, vetting and onboarding new partners and providers to make Commissary Club the best, all-in-one marketplace and social network for people with records.

Who makes up your team?

Richard Bronson is the founder and CEO of 70 Million Resources, Inc., parent company of Commissary Club and 70 Million Jobs. After a very successful career on Wall Street, where Richard made a lot of money and broke a lot of laws (he served as a partner at the infamous Wolf of Wall Street firm before launching his own $100 million business), he landed in Rikers Island and Federal Prison. Upon release, he was destitute and homeless. He eventually found a home working at the prominent reentry non-profit, Defy Ventures, rising to serve as Director, prior to launching 70 Million Jobs. He is joined on his team by passionate developers, content providers and marketers, including ex-LA Laker Seth Sundberg. Seth Sundberg is our Director of Marketing. Seth is a former professional basketball player (for the Los Angeles Lakers) and a very well-known Bay Area businessman. He's very tall and recognizable, but he’s also known for having gone through incarceration, a local community organization and starting his own business. He's a frequent public speaker and very knowledgeable in the prisoner re-entry space. Joel Henderson is our Technical Lead -- he and his team of two very experienced and talented software engineers are building out Commissary Club's backend. Before joining Commissary Club, Joel was the Founder and CTO of SixArm.com. He has a robust technical background, working as a technical engineering and software consultant for a variety of companies including the University of California Berkeley, LightBox, Ominex.io, and ThoughtWorks. We recently hired Briana Sparks as CC's Editor/Community Manager. She will oversee all the content creation, from articles to videos to art and gaming, on Commissary Club. Briana joins us from Chicago, where she previously worked at Groupon & CopyPress as a writer/editor. More recently, Briana has served her south side community by dedicating time and hands-on work as a marketing/PR board member of #TheTakeBack, an organization that promotes peaceful interactions through anti-violence initiatives. Adrienne Hatter oversees [Education Programming? - idk]; she's been with the company since nearly day-one, and is well-acquainted with the reentry space. Since joining us, she's built a national network of 400+ community partners, who refer us thousands of users. She previously worked in corporate law, and was a writer/editor for Red Arrow Media. Alexandre Brown is our Marketing Manager. Alex has overseen recruitment and marketing for 70MJ, and joins us after working at an integrated marketing and communications firm- Image Unlimited Communications in Boston. As an experienced Digital Account Executive, Alex has a demonstrated history in the marketing and advertising industry also working with the Brooklyn Nets and New York Knicks. And that's the team. They are all incredibly committed people. We're having a lot of fun, and good stuff is happening. So it seems like this is the time to raise some money. It started with just me. I went to Y Combinator alone, and I couldn't write a line of code. I'm also 63 years old, so I was as much of an outlier as possible. I think they love my mission, but to a certain extent, they didn't quite know what to make of me.

Why do you believe that you and your team are the right people to do this?

In my opinion, not only is our team the right people to do this...we are the only people who can. Our expertise in this space is unrivaled; we have already built a national employment platform for people with criminal records from scratch, and created a solution to a previously-thought unsolvable problem -- and we've also made it into a highly successful business. We know how to do this, and we're going to do it again. Additionally, 40% of our leadership has themselves experienced incarceration. So, we aren't just building this because of the business potential...we're building it because we know what it's like to go through the experience of incarceration, and the challenges of reentry. This product is close to our hearts, and we never forget the impact we have on so many people's lives.

What has been your biggest challenge so far?

All business is challenging. I'm an old guy, and I don't expect things to be easy. I'm distrustful of things that are easy. So when something is hard, to me it's good because that's the way it's supposed to be. I wouldn't know how to accept easy success. I'd be very suspicious of it. So it hasn't been terribly hard yet. At times, it can be hard for me because I'm not a technical person, and I have to make hires and technical decisions sometimes. I know that there are things that I just don't know. And I know I don't know what I don't know. That’s a frustrating position to be in, and it puts me at a disadvantage. But I'm finding incredible support and great people to work with. We're finding lots of support from organizations that want to send us applicants. We are also finding enough encouragement in the companies we're contacting. It's not like we have to call 100 people in a row who are slamming the phone in our ears. It would be romantic for me to say it was like that, but it's not. I am plagued constantly by my fear that I'm not up to the job and I'm blowing an amazing opportunity, but that kind of insecurity drives me to work harder. I have a chip on my shoulder. I have a lot to prove to a lot of people who may have written me off. But mostly I have an obligation to people with criminal records. And since I love what I'm doing. I'm not going through that kind of agony.

Do you have competition?

I know you aren't supposed to say 'no' to this question...but the honest answer is, No. Part of what made 70 Million Jobs so successful was that we were operating alone in a huge market; even as we started to witness Fair Chance Hiring and criminal justice-reform gain traction in mainstream media around 2018, and we began to hear stirrings of companies seeking to solve the problems that current approaches weren't solving...no one could touch us in employment, because we were years ahead of the competition. Commissary Club is the same: we are building it because no one else has. And realistically, no one else CAN. We have a 4 year-long market advantage, as well as a massive, dedicated user-base that puts us leagues ahead of the competition...not that we've heard of any.

1	Y Combinator 2017 alum.
2	A division of very successful 70 Million Jobs, the 1st national, for-profit employment platform for people w/records
3	11 million + people (with records) in our community already
4	LAST BIG POPULATION WITHOUT ITS OWN SOCIAL NETWORK
5	450+ partnerships w/community orgs, govt agencies & non-profits
6	$1M+ ARR
7	Investors including: Y Combinator, Founders Fund, mAc Capital, Quake Capital, Insight general partners
8	70MJ valuation has risen 10x since launch.

1	A large recruitment platform (Indeed.com, Zip Recruiter) or staffing/recruiting company may enter this space and squeeze our margins.
2	The Company may never receive a future equity financing or elect to convert the Securities upon such future financing. In addition, the Company may never undergo a liquidity event such as a sale of the Company or an IPO. If neither the conversion of the Securities nor a liquidity event occurs, the Purchasers could be left holding the Securities in perpetuity. The Securities have numerous transfer restrictions and will likely be highly illiquid, with no secondary market on which to sell them. The Securities are not equity interests, have no ownership rights, have no rights to the Company’s assets or profits and have no voting rights or ability to direct the Company or its actions.
3	The involvement of the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, who has previously been charged and pled guilty to securities fraud and conspiracy charges, could heighten the risk that the activities of the Company would be subject to regulatory scrutiny and any such investigation could materially adversely affect the Company. Richard Bronson, who is a “key person” of the company and is the Chief Executive Officer of the Company, was charged with securities fraud and conspiracy charges in January 2002 and pled guilty in October 2003. As a result of his conviction, the SEC imposed a lifetime ban his ability to engage in registered broker-dealer activities. The involvement of Richard Bronson in the business of the Company might become known to securities regulators and his role in the Company could heighten the risk that the activities of the Company would be subject to regulatory scrutiny and any such investigation could materially adversely affect the Company.
4	The business is yet to be profitable, and relies upon the availability of investment capital to maintain operations. If for any reason outside investors chose not to invest, then there'd be an existential danger to the business.
5	The regulatory environment surrounding the hiring of the formerly incarcerated is changing quickly from state to state and on the municipal level. Unforeseen regulations could negatively impact our ability to do business.
6	Negative press attention--such as one of our applicants acting violently on the job--could undermine our ability to convince employers that our applicants were desirable hires.
7	Since we target large, national employers as clients, we are dependent on their ability to honor their obligations to pay us. If a large client were unwilling or unable to pay us, this could have a negative impact on our business.
8	Our future success depends on the efforts of key personnel and consultants, especially our founder, Richard Bronson. The loss of services of Mr Bronson or any key personnel may have an adverse effect on us. There can be no assurance that we will be successful in attracting and retaining other personnel we require to successfully grow our business.
9	We rely on our ability to attract adequate numbers of both job seekers and to provide job listings. If either of these are unsuccessful, then this could be detrimental to our success.

Date	Amount	Security
11/2018	$94,536	SAFE
08/2016	$50,000	Convertible Note
03/2019	$255,000	Convertible Note
08/2016	$44,484	Loan
10/2017	$650,000	SAFE

Issued	Amount	Interest	Discount	Valuation Cap	Maturity
08/02/2016	$50,000	0.0%	0.0%	$1,000,000	01/01/2030
03/01/2019	$255,000	0.0%	0.0%	$6,000,000

Name	Richard Bronson
Amount Invested	$44,484
Transaction type	Loan
Issued	08/10/2016
Outstanding principal plus interest	$44,484 as of 04/2018
Interest	0.0 per annum
Outstanding	Yes
Current with payments	Yes
Relationship	CEO, Founder
Richard Bronson, CEO and founder leant the company $44,484 when it was first created, and is due to be paid back at some point in the future when the funds are available. It is an interest free, term free loan.

Name	Richard Bronson
Amount Invested	$20,000
Transaction type	Safe
Issued	06/06/2017
Discount rate	0.0
Valuation cap	$6,000,000
Relationship	CEO and Founder
This was money invested in the Y Combinator SAFE fundraising round for 70million Jobs.

Commissary Club/70M Resources

The 1st social network for 70M Americans w/criminal histories

Commissary Club/70M Resources

The 1st social network for 70M Americans w/criminal histories

$1,094,020
total funds raised

177
total investors

Why you may want to support us...

Why investors us

we've raised $1,094,020 since our founding

Our team

And Our Major Accomplishments

In the news

We're starting a movement.

Investor Q&A

Financials

At a Glance

Risks

Details

The Board of Directors

Officers

Voting Power

Past Equity Fundraises

Convertible Notes Outstanding

Outstanding Debts

Related Party Transactions

Use of Funds

Capital Structure

Form C Filing on EDGAR

70 Million Jobs updates: New products & $200,000 in revenue last month!

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$50,000	95% Build out sales and development team 5% Wefunder Intermediary fee
$107,000	35% Build out sales and development team; 20% add marketing capacity; 20% increase national presence at job fairs; 20% hasten our national scaling. We would like to have a presence in all 50 states and quadruple the number of organizations we with with. 5% Wefunder Intermediary fee

Why you may want to support us...

Why investors us

we've raised $1,094,020 since our founding

Our team

And Our Major Accomplishments

In the news

We're starting a movement.

Investor Q&A

Financials

At a Glance

Risks

Details

The Board of Directors

Officers

Voting Power

Past Equity Fundraises

Convertible Notes Outstanding

Outstanding Debts

Related Party Transactions

Use of Funds

Capital Structure

Form C Filing on EDGAR

70 Million Jobs updates: New products & $200,000 in revenue last month!

So proud to be included on this list.

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