Crowdfund Investing For Dummies
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The best thing you can do is let the entrepreneur or business owner of your crowdfund investment know what your strengths are and where you can provide value. Be a resource for this person to tap into when and how she sees fit. By participating in this manner, you’re walking that tightrope between providing value and becoming a nuisance.

Try to limit your communication to the entrepreneur or business owner. Before you write a post in a dialogue room or send an e-mail to the entrepreneur or owner, make sure that you gather your thoughts. Include everything about the topic in one communication, and write as clearly and concisely as you can. If possible, use bullet points to separate your ideas.

Taking these steps is even more important if you have a personal relationship with the entrepreneur or business owner. Avoid the assumption that because this person is your friend or part of your family, you have carte blanche to reach out whenever you have a thought about the business. Try to restrain yourself from doing this.

The closer your connection to the entrepreneur or business owner, the more that person feels obligated to listen to what you say and to respond to all your posts.

What’s the problem with that? Say the entrepreneur or owner has 300 investors, and 60 of them are first-degree contacts. If even half of those 60 people are writing constant and disorganized e-mails, the poor entrepreneur or business owner is going to be dealing with a ton of distractions.

A good rule to follow is to write an e-mail or conversation post and then leave it for the night. Come back to it in the morning and ask yourself three questions:

  • Do you really need to send it?

  • If you do need to send it, is there anything else you should add?

  • If you do need to send it, is there anything you can remove?

If you do send a communication, be patient. The entrepreneur is extremely busy. If you don’t hear back immediately, it’s because either she decided not to take your advice or she’s so busy taking your advice that she doesn’t have time to write back. Either way, you’ve had your say, and you should let the business owner move forward as she sees fit.

About This Article

This article is from the book:

About the book authors:

Sherwood Neiss, Jason W. Best, and Zak Cassady-Dorion are the founders of Startup Exemption (developers of the crowdfund investing framework used in the 2012 JOBS Act). They deeply understand the process, rules, disclosures, and risks of capital formation from both the entrepreneur's and the investor's points of view.

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