Why did you get interested in crowdfunding?
I wanted to make a productive investment.
There are 2 types of investing, speculative and productive. When I looked at my retirement account 10 years ago, it was largely index funds and ETFs full of very big corporations like Apple. I realized I wasn't funding Apple or any of the companies in the stock market because I was buying the shares from another investor, no value being created.
I wanted to invest and fund the operations of businesses creating real value like a local community business or innovative clean tech. I wanted to make a productive investment.
Long story short, the only way the public can make a productive investment is through crowdfunding.
My son was singing with the Calgary Boys' Choir, I was on the board. It was their 30th Anniversary and I was asked to run a crowdfunding campaign, to pay for all the concerts in the season, so that all Calgarians could enjoy the music.
I hadn't got a clue what crowdfunding was. But didn't let that stop me. I went off, researched, met people who were in the fledging market some 14 years ago, and then activated our crowd, built the campaign, and we ran a successful campaign, that paid for all the concerts.
I was hooked, the democratisation of capital, raising capital from the crowd for something meaningul, and opening up access to back early stage companies. When my husband got a new role that required him to travel, I left the corporate world and set up my own consultancy doing Strategic Marketing and Crowdfunding, over 12 years on, I am still hooked.