Friday, December 31, 2021

Dear friends,

Thank you for another year far surpassing my hopes both personally and professionally.

The CfPA continues to be highly-regarded here and abroad as a generous and vital organization expanding access to capital and opportunity for entrepreneurs, small businesses and investors. Our work in 2021 helped Crowdfunding reach new highs, extended our global voice, and expanded our capacity domestically. We saw over $500M raised using RegCF offerings where even non-accredited investors finally got a piece of the pie. We saw RegA+ offerings land over $2B. For these, and so many other reasons, it continues to be an honor to be a part of a leadership team on the cutting edge of Alternative Finance. CfPA’s reputation continues to be enhanced by the many professionals who freely contribute their time and expertise to advancing the association and the industry. There have been so many noteworthy moments and I look forward to seeing even more debut in ’22.

In 2021...more

Sunday, January 13, 2019

Dear friends,

A vast majority of you reading this letter are part of the Crowdfunding community—whether you know this yet or not, your knowledge, initiative, collaboration...and pocketbook have made our industry touch more lives than you might imagine. We at the Crowdfunding Professional Association thank you for all your imagination, hard work and follow-through, and celebrate with you the continued growth enjoyed by communities everywhere. I want to preface this letter by making certain my fellow volunteers at the CfPA are aware just how fortunate we are to have their gift of time, knowledge and leadership—thank you, again.

At its simplest, Crowdfunding lives at the intersection of crowdsourcing and alternative finance, and even until recently was seen more as a funding method for ventures too risky for conventional capital or for entrepreneurs lacking loan-worthy collateral or relevant experience. But in just six+ years since passage of the JOBS Act, Crowdfu...more

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Dear members, friends and colleagues,

Unlike students “getting back to school” each fall, the best work of our association’s many volunteers tends to commence at the start of each new calendar following a frenetic year-end rush both professionally and personally. So, welcome back—I hope your 2018 was prosperous, and your holiday break inspirational and renewing.

Before outlining our goals for 2019, I need to first thank and congratulate all for a pivotal year that commenced with the necessary and successful recruitment of what many have confessed to me is an enviable assembly of alternative finance pioneers and thought leaders—over 34 remarkably generous board members, advisors and committee members, tripling all previous leadership. I am humbled to have gained your mindshare and commitment toward pursuing the CfPA’s noble mission. However, I emphasize “toward” because, as an organization, our ultimate fulfillment remains just over the horizon—we have much to...more

3 Ways to Get Cheap Tickets to SuperCrowd22 

Let’s get this out of the way quickly. There are three ways to get cheap tickets to SuperCrowd22.

1. Save $100 here. Everyone is eligible.
2. Pay what you can here. If you can’t afford the full price or even half price, pay what you can. No questions asked. We don’t want the cost to keep you from attending.
3. Become a CfPA Member. You can join for just $10 per month and cancel at any time. We hope you’ll stay for a long time. Benefits include free or discounted admission to future events. Members can purchase tickets to SuperCrowd22 for just $75%
   Register for SuperCrowd22!

10 Good Reasons to Attend SuperCrowd22

There are countless good reasons to join us for SuperCrowd22; here are just ten:

1. Meet people like you. Every day you get up determined to make the world a little better. Wouldn’t it be great to increase your circle of friends who do the same thing!
2. Learn from experts. The roster of speakers is nearly 100 people long, including the smar

Raising capital is such a confusing (and scary) endeavor. Many entrepreneurs are fearful of the entire process because they don’t have experience in taking their company to the next level and more importantly - just don’t understand the steps that are necessary to be successful with their raise. In this podcast, Guy Nohra – who has successfully funded many companies with a tremendous track record and is currently running as a candidate for Governor of Nevada – provides a step by step detailed roadmap on how to achieve money-raising success for entrepreneurs of all sizes! (and how to avoid the rookie mistakes so many business owners fall prey to as well.)

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

Born in Lebanon, Guy Nohra has gone from selling medical devices to providing venture capital to mainly the biotechnology industry and as such, has raised billions of dollars through his company, Alta Partners.

The American dream is hustling and working hard to start your own business, employ people, and cre...more

The following article was written as part of a keynote I gave for a Banking and Payments Conference in Africa, to introduce Bankers to the art of the possible in the banking and payments industry. 

“General Partners (GPs) crowdfund from Limited Partners (LPs).” - Samson Williams 

As a financial anthropologist, I find Humans in Venture Capital fascinating. The humans in Venture Capital (VC) are different from the culture of Venture Capital. Yes, humans do come together to build and create the culture of VC. But individually they are unique, and able to operate and make independent decisions without regard to so-called cultural norms. I bring this up because one of the odd relics of VC culture is that nearly universally, these otherwise independent and autonomous humans engaged in Venture Capital, fall victim to a cancerous myth of VC culture. What is that myth of VC lore? The strongly held misconception that crowdfunding is a resource only for businesses who can’t secur...more