Mike Arrington recently wrote on venture capitalists and their shortcomings, simeply echoing a little meme traveling within a little group of bloggers right now.

What if there was another, friendlier way to finance start-ups?

Perhaps you could use a formula that has been percolating up of late. Reeling off popular memes of late including the wisdom of crowds, small teams doing big things, and the small amount of money needed to start an internet company. Then offer money without being evil about it. Don’t take people’s companies from them, just tell them you want to help out.

Companies could enlist in this publicly held service, and masses could rank the company in an ongoing manner. This could be something like buying and selling shares.

Then, based on their share valuation at polling time each month, a company’s employees would each get a salary based on that share valuation. This service could be limited to company’s with a certain number of employees (small teams meme) and that way, when users really are paying for their shares, the money can be spread. As a company does better, those shares are worth more and can be sold for more.

When a company meets a certain ceiling point, they get kicked out of this financing service. Their only contractual compulsion for being financed by this service? Pay off the stock-holding winners and kick into the pot with money so that other can continue to enjoy this service when they have a startup.

Will it fly?