Crowdfund Investing versus Credit Card Financing
Can crowdfund investing reduce the necessity of relying on credit cards? Very possibly — if you can plan far enough ahead to anticipate your upcoming expenses and spot future opportunities for growth before [more…]
Crowdfund Investing versus Traditional Bank Loans
Should you look to crowdfund investing to completely replace your need for bank loans? Probably not, even if you opt for a debt-based crowdfund investment structure. Instead, your goal may be to seek a [more…]
How Private Investors Compare to Crowdfund Investing
Crowdfund investing doesn’t compete with or replace the need for professional private money. Crowdfund investment campaigns have funding caps that are significantly lower than most venture capital and [more…]
How Self-Funding Your Business Differs from Crowdfund Investing
Self-funding your business differs from getting crowdfund investing support in a major way — one involves your own wallet, and the other involves a whole bunch of other wallets. [more…]
Know How Your Money Will Be Used when Crowdfund Investing
A company wants to grow, so it runs a campaign to raise the necessary capital via crowdfund investing. What exactly will it do with the money being raised? The question is obvious, but you have to make [more…]
Prepare an Exit Strategy when Crowdfund Investing
In the private market, securities (either debt or equity) tend to be illiquid (meaning harder to sell) because there may not be an established market for those securities. As a result, when you commit [more…]
Can Crowdfund Investing Support Locavesting?
Crowdfund investing, which takes place online (and could easily allow someone from Alabama to invest in an Arizona company), has the opportunity to promote locavesting. If an investor approaches crowdfund [more…]
Protect Your Business’s Intellectual Property when Using Crowdfund Investing
If you’ve seen the movie The Social Network, you understand the need to protect your intellectual property. When using crowdfund investing strategies, you need to protect yourself and your business. You [more…]
Share the Wealth when Using Crowdfund Investing
One of the biggest risks in crowdfund investing is failing to understand the value of equity. Sharing the wealth is important, but you need to be judicious in how you do it. First and foremost, [more…]
Weigh the Risks and Potential Rewards of Crowdfund Investing
On average, 50 percent of investments in early-stage companies fail. So, the risks of crowdfund investment seem pretty clear: You can lose some or all of your money. [more…]
How to Calculate Your Maximum Crowdfund Investment
If you’re an unaccredited investor, you can’t invest every dime you’ve got in crowdfund investment campaigns. (An unaccredited investor has a net worth less than [more…]
Ways to Support a Company as a Crowdfund Investor
If you determine that becoming a member of a company’s investment crowd makes sense for you and your financial portfolio, be aware that your role as an investor can differ greatly from the role that investors [more…]
Crowdfund Investing 101
Whether you run your own business, want to start a new company, or have money to invest, you need to know about this fresh opportunity called crowdfund investing. [more…]
Keys to a Killer Crowdfund Investing Campaign
As an entrepreneur or small business owner with an innovative concept and a solid business plan, you may be the perfect fit for a crowdfund investment campaign. Knowing that a campaign is an all-or-nothing [more…]
Are You the Right Type of Entrepreneur to Tap into Crowdfund Investing?
If you’ve had any experience with creating a startup company, you know that flexibility is your best attribute. Even rock solid business plans need to adjust in the face of changing market conditions, [more…]
Ten Best Practices for a Crowdfund Investing Campaign
Following are ten principles you should follow so you do right by your investors and yourself, both during a campaign and after it’s funded: [more…]
Ways for Entrepreneurs to Leverage Crowd Wisdom Post-Funding
Crowdfund investing is distinct from other types of startup and small business funding for several reasons, one of which is the crowd itself. Members of the crowd offer a company not only financial support [more…]
The Investor’s Perspective: Joining the Crowd
As an investor, you can use crowdfund investments to diversify your portfolio, keeping in mind that these are high-risk investments. On average, 50 percent of new companies fail within their first year [more…]
Keys to Smart Investing in Crowd Securities
Small business owners and entrepreneurs aren’t the only people jazzed about the opportunities that crowdfund investing creates. Investors who have previously been locked out of most private equity opportunities [more…]
Funding Portal Investor Quiz
All crowdfund investment takes place online either through funding portals or broker-dealers. Funding portals are websites that cooperate with Securities and Exchange Commission [more…]
Adding Value to a Company as a Crowdfund Investor
As a crowdfund investor, you may have opportunities to help the company beyond providing your financial capital. Not every company that you invest in will make such requests; let the business owner drive [more…]
Key Crowdfund Investing Business Parameters
If you want to raise money via crowdfund investing, you must grasp the statutory requirements set forth in the JOBS Act. Here are the key provisions that affect how small businesses and entrepreneurs can [more…]
Becoming a Crowdfund Investor: Risks and Potential Rewards
Make no mistake: Crowdfund investments are high risk. On average, 50 percent of new companies fail within their first year, so these investments should be only a small part of your overall financial portfolio [more…]
Crowdfund Investing For Dummies Cheat Sheet
Crowdfund investing is a new funding opportunity for small businesses and startups that holds tremendous potential, but it's not a free-for-all. Entrepreneurs, business owners, and investors alike should [more…]
Crowdfund Investing Resources
Before you take any action to start a crowdfund investing campaign or to invest in such a campaign, you should read the most up-to-date information you can find about industry regulations. The [more…]










