FINCA: Investor Brief

A premium social club and belonging platform, beginning in Mexico City, built to travel the world

New here. Known here.

Private preview · Confidential. This is the investor-facing companion to the deck (fincasocialclub.netlify.app). Figures are a framework, not a forecast; pricing is shared privately on review.

Brand note: "FINCA Social Club" is the public mark today. "Finca" is the broader masterbrand architecture (Passport, Atlas, Presence, People), pending legal clearance.

1. The one line

FINCA is the first trusted door into a new city. It helps internationally mobile people arrive, find the right rooms, meet the right people through warm introductions, discover trusted places, and become regulars, turning arrival into belonging.

Airbnb unlocked trusted stays. Uber unlocked trusted movement. FINCA unlocks trusted belonging.

2. The problem

A new city gives you an apartment in days. A real circle can take years. Modern mobility solved housing, transport, and work · it did not solve belonging. Newcomers face five frictions: they don't know where to go, who'll be there, whether they can come alone, whether the room is any good, or how to turn one good night into a social life.

Today that's patched together across WhatsApp groups, Meetup, Instagram, Facebook, Eventbrite, Google Maps, expat forums, and anonymous reviews, fragmented, untrusted, non-compounding. The macro backdrop is real: roughly 1 in 6 people globally report loneliness (WHO).

FINCA collapses that fragmentation into one trusted layer, and removes the sharpest barrier, arriving alone, by design: "You're expected. Your host knows you're coming. We'll help with your first hello."

3. The category · Belonging Infrastructure

The invisible layer between a person and a city: who they meet, where they go, which places they trust, how they become known and become a regular, how they carry that identity to the next city. No one owns it. FINCA is building it.

4. The product, one app, nine layers (Finca OS)

Five live pillars (the app's tabs): Rooms (the trust engine) · Passport (portable identity & access) · Atlas (trusted places, not Maps/Yelp) · People (warm introductions, not cold DMs) · Presence (opt-in regulars & city rhythm). Four+ later layers complete the OS: Social Club programming, Circles, Impact, Concierge, City Companion, Host Network, Partner Portal, Journal, Goods.

FINCA does not launch as a fully built platform. It launches as a high-trust room engine, CRM, and partner network, then productizes the behaviours that prove repeatable. The app remembers the journey; it doesn't invent it.

The emotional arc the product delivers: Anonymous → Expected → Introduced → Remembered → Recognized → Regular → Belonging. The core object is not the event, it's the Regular.

5. The moat, a compounding trust network

The moat is the data and trust created around real-world belonging: who attends, returns, arrives alone, gets introduced, which rooms create return, which hosts create comfort, which places get revisited, which partners convert. Accumulated trust, not audience size; real switching costs; smarter every interaction. Soho House sells a building. FINCA sells the feeling, portable, asset-light, yours from city one.

6. Market

• Beachhead: internationally mobile, socially intentional professionals (~25–45) plus globally minded locals, in a few dense CDMX neighbourhoods (Roma, Condesa, Juárez, Polanco).
• Sizing (directional): Greater Mexico City ≈ a 21.8M-person metro; ~5.5M Americans live abroad (180k+ relocated last year); Mexico drew ~47.8M international tourists in 2025.
• The "empty middle": free apps and ~$10/mo tools sit below; ~$325–700/mo global members' clubs sit above. The $25–100/mo curated-belonging middle is unclaimed, premium without pretension. That's FINCA's band.
• Expansion (demand-led): Medellín, Lisbon, Madrid, London, Singapore, Dubai and beyond, one playbook, a constellation of cities.

7. Business model

Lead with what doesn't churn: - Open House sponsorship, brands pay to be in the room. - Trusted Places Network (the Atlas partner layer), venues pay because "we don't just send traffic, we create regulars." ~100 partners ≈ $120k/yr at the unit. - Paid rooms & premium experiences, dinners, salons, signature weekends. - Membership · gated upside. Activates only after paying members provably attend more, return faster, and stay longer than non-payers. Not assumed base revenue. - Later: concierge/soft-landing referrals, corporate/relocation, marketplace take-rate, Goods (deferred brand extension), media/journal.

Illustrative trajectory (framework, not forecast): Year 1 ≈ low-to-mid five figures/month as the model validates; a mature CDMX node compounds well beyond that as membership and partners stack. Specific projections shared privately and kept conservative.

8. How we de-risk, what we will prove

We buy proof before we spend. The next 90 days prove four things, event by event:

1. The rooms work, people attend, arrive alone safely, meet well, and return (target ≥30% second-visit return among qualified first-timers).
2. A trained, non-founder host can reproduce the magic, the test that separates a scalable City OS from a founder-led events business.
3. First-timers become Regulars, our North Star: % of qualified first-timers who become Regulars within 45–60 days.
4. Partners pay or seriously engage, first sponsors, perks, and Trusted-Places conversions.

Local legitimacy is a trust requirement, not PR. We track the local:newcomer ratio in every room and build with local hosts, local partners, and Spanish-visible programming. FINCA is an international–local bridge, not an expat bubble, belonging cannot be extractive.

Privacy by design. Presence is opt-in, introductions are consent-based, members control visibility. Social by design, private by default.

9. The strategic fork (be explicit with investors)

• An excellent operating business: curated rooms + sponsorship + partners + (later) membership, profitable city by city, but scaling roughly linearly.
• A venture-scale platform: the portable belonging graph, a member known in CDMX is easier to welcome in Lisbon, Madrid, Singapore. Every city makes the Passport more valuable; every room improves the host system; every place improves the Atlas. That is the company we're building: the trusted identity layer for globally mobile life.

10. Team

Founder-market fit is the edge. The founders are third-culture, multilingual operators with a proven global network across major cities.

• Michelle van Eck: Co-Founder · Strategy, Brand, Growth & Experience. Multi-award-winning global strategist and brand architect (15+ years across Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, Dubai & London); recipient of the Kindness Award from the Government of Singapore.
• Mike Mangold: Co-Founder · Business Development, Partnerships & Commercial Growth. International operator (Germany, US, Ireland, Latin America); among the youngest selected by Liebherr for an expatriate package to Latin America.
• A third strategic partner of equal calibre of reach completes the founding team.

We start with a network, not a cold list.

11. The ask (placeholder)

We raise only after CDMX proves repeat attendance, non-founder host replication, partner demand, early revenue, a working manual Passport/Atlas/CRM layer, and early signs of second-city demand. Use of funds: city operations, host network, product/PWA, partner sales, trust & safety, content/launch, and one second-city test. (Amount on founder approval.)

12. Why now / why us

Events are how we acquire; trust is what we sell. The room is the cheapest way to manufacture trust at scale, and we can fill it from day one. The proof is simple and we run it in public, event by event:

If first-timers return, FINCA is working. If trained hosts can create that return, FINCA is scalable. If locals trust it, FINCA is legitimate. If the Passport compounds across cities, FINCA is venture-scale.

FINCA is not an event company. FINCA is the trusted social infrastructure for becoming known anywhere.

New here. Known here.

FINCA: Distinctive Bets & Roadmap Backlog

Triage of higher-order ideas. The rule still holds: don't bloat the master plan, park ideas by horizon, pull forward only what's load-bearing now. Verdicts are an operator's honest call, not endorsements.

Legend: ✅ Already in the system (don't re-add) · ⭐ Pull forward (high-leverage now) · 🕒 Defer (good, post-proof) · ⚠️ Has a risk to manage.

The two worth acting on now (⭐)

A. Finca Soft Landing Week ⭐ · the strongest new idea

A packaged 7-day newcomer sequence (welcome coffee → orientation → Come Alone Supper → trusted-place visit → founder breakfast → cultural room w/ local host → Sunday reset). Why it's the pick: it bundles arrival pain + rooms + trusted places + local respect + partners + Passport + host-led intros into one product you can explain in five words, "a trusted first week here", and it opens a B2B/relocation channel (relocation firms, boutique hotels, coworking, employers, universities) without waiting for membership to mature. Start manual (a curated cohort of ~8–12), productize later. Sell it as a pilot to one relocation partner or boutique hotel in the first 90 days.

B. Finca Local Bridge (role, not a discount tier) ⭐⚠️ · the legitimacy unlock

A respected role for locals who help newcomers integrate, co-host rooms, offer neighbourhood/Spanish/cultural context, lead local-respect programming. This is load-bearing, not nice-to-have: CDMX has real, active tension around foreigners, rent pressure and gentrification (protests in 2025). A foreigner-only layer is a brand-killer; Local Bridge is the structural answer and makes the "trusted/local" claim true. Fold a one-liner into the master plan's Local Legitimacy doctrine (§24.7) and add "Local Bridge Table" to the room formats.

Already in the system, don't re-add (✅)

For these, the work isn't "add the idea", it's execute what's already specified.

Pull forward, cheap, high-leverage, do soon (⭐)

• "Known Here" venue badge + partner ladder (#3), rename/sharpen the partner tiers to a status ladder: Listed → Trusted Place → Known Here Partner → Regulars Hub → Host Venue. Makes the Atlas more valuable and gives partners something to climb. Update the partner ladder in the one-pager + OS Pack.
• Member-to-Partner scout loop (#17), ask members "where do you already feel known?", validate, approach, add to Atlas. Turns members into scouts and gives partner sales a warm entry. Add as a CRM field + a partner-acquisition channel.
• "No One Arrives Alone" launch campaign (#18), the emotional, commercially-clear launch line ("even if you come alone, you are expected"). Add to the Language Bank + marketing.
• Women-arriving-alone pathway (#19), a dedicated path (not a separate brand): Women Arriving Well room, solo-safe trusted places, safety-conscious hosting, tailored 72-hours guide. High pain, high referral, partner-friendly. Already a room type, make it a named pathway.

Defer, good, but post-proof (🕒)

• Host Certification ladder (#6): Room Host → Intro Host → City Host → Launch Host. Turns the existential host-replication test into a product with status + earnings. Build it after Proof #2 shows a non-founder host can reproduce a room, certify what works, don't pre-build a curriculum.
• City Hosts micro-franchise w/ rev-share (#10), the scalable city-opening model (a certified City Host owns hosts, first 20 partners, first 100 leads, legitimacy review, rev-share). Defer to expansion phase, it's the "One City, One Page" template (OS Pack #13) turned into a role. Powerful later; premature now.
• Soft Landing Week as a productized B2B SKU, start manual (above); only build tooling/pricing once a pilot proves demand.

How to use this

1. Decide on the two ⭐ spotlights (Soft Landing Week pilot; Local Bridge role). If yes, I fold one line each into the master plan (§24.7 + room formats) and the OS Pack, no bloat.
2. The "pull forward" items are language/CRM/marketing tweaks, cheap, do alongside launch.
3. Everything in "Defer" goes on the roadmap, gated by the 90-day proofs. Don't build ahead of proof.

Discipline reminder: the plan is built. New ideas earn their way in by passing a proof, not by being clever. Park them here; pull them when the room demands it.

Finca: New here. Known here.