In recent months, I've been giving thought to the best way to do a $5 million Reg CF campaign, starting with very little upfront spend. It seems to me, there are two possible paths. Path one is to begin with a small (under $124,000) raise with a low initial closing threshold, say, $25,000, and later amend the Form C, using funds from the initial raise to fund legal, accounting and marketing expenses for rolling forward. The alternative path would be to do a series of independent raises, the first one very small and building, still with the goal of raising $5 million in 12 months.

I tasked Google Gemini with a deep research project to compare and contrast the regulatory and best practices for the two approaches. Here is the full report. Below is an executive summary. I'm curious now to get the opinions of experts like @Brian Christie, @Jenny Kassan, @Craig Denlinger and @Sara Hanks on this topic, but eagerly welcome feedback from everyone.

Executive Summary

This report evaluates tw...more

I’ve spent years immersed in the world of impact investing, and if I sound a little fired up today, it’s because I am. The traditional capital markets continue to overlook brilliant, diverse entrepreneurs—especially those working in and for their communities. That’s why I’m passionate about regulated investment crowdfunding (Regulation Crowdfunding or Reg CF, particularly). It’s not perfect, but it’s the most promising tool we have to democratize access to capital, empower underrepresented founders, and reshape our economy from the ground up. Here are just a few of the reasons I believe so deeply in this movement:

1. Democratization of Capital
   Reg CF breaks down barriers that historically excluded all but the wealthy from investing in private ventures.

2. Access to Overlooked Founders
   Traditional VC overlooks diverse founders; Reg CF helps level the playing field by allowing the crowd to support talent the system ignores.

3. Rooted in Community
   Reg CF enables investment in local businesses a

I love regulated investment crowdfunding and the portals that participate in the space. I’ve got gripes and complaints, but overall, I’m their biggest fan. They are fundamentally essential to the ongoing success of the industry—and its future growth.

Today, I’d like to enumerate some of my favorite things about portals operating under Regulation Crowdfunding:

9 Things I Love About Portals

1. Pre-Screening Investments: We all rely on portals to screen the offerings they host. They all use different criteria, but they are all required to exclude companies associated with “bad actors”—people who have been in trouble with the SEC in the past.

2. Regulatory Compliance: Having run a FINRA-member, SEC-registered broker-dealer, I know how hard it is to comply with the regulations. That is a big reason I don’t run a portal today! I’m grateful that they have made the effort to comply with the rules. These sometimes impose on us minor inconveniences, but the net effect is a safe and

Day 1 (10/22: Tues.) : Advocacy Visits & Pre-event Reception

Day 2 (10/23: Wed.) : Conference and Summit  

Venue: Top of the Town (Top Floor 1400 14th Street North, Arlington, VA) 

“One of the most magnificent views in Washington”

Cost of Investor Acquistion

Creating institutional capital investment pools with funding portals is hugely important. Honeycomb Credit has trailblazed that with a foundation. You can go to pension funds, banks, insurance companies, credit unions, etc with these kinds of proposals. Point to HoneyComb's success story, differentiate your portal.

Side-note: would love to start seeing partnerships between niche portals.

If you aren't ready to do that yet, and are starting off with founders in your direct network, I would fill your relevant social media channels (that you send to people) with accessible and engaging demos of your product from the investor's perspective. Of course, content for business owners is important too... but think about it this way: fundraising businesses will be sending your social media content to their investors as to explain how the process is going to go.

Educational content on why your niche and portal serve a critical need. Explain to investors, why their investm...more

Dear colleagues at Crowdfunding Professional Association and beyond. We all love saying that the industry is doing great.

Math says "that's bs; CF industry is broke and dealflow is the problem." I am using funding portal data because transparency is forced upon these intermediaries.

Please don't shoot the messenger. I would like to be proven otherwise.

There are 70,000 startups in the United States within 33,000,000 small businesses. How many active Regulation Crowdfunding deals are there right now? 450.

Let's say that the average salary for a portal employee is $75,000 ($6 250 per month). Sounds like an OK living in the U.S. (unless you are in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc).

I went onto each of their LinkedIn pages and counted the number of employees. I assumed - rather generously - on average, only 50% of these "employees" are paid. The rest are advisors, investors, partners, etc.

I tried to count how much money each of the platforms will have left after receivi...more