Dear Future Lords of Venture Capital, 

Stop launching RegCF crowdfunding portals. 

Morning Beautiful People! That sentence is the TLDR version of this article. The next line is, “Partner with existing portal owners as the hardest part of crowdfunding is the crowd.” 

The three reasons why you should partner with an existing RegCF portal vs building your own are: 

Affinity Crowd - you’ve never heard of that portal because in 2016 Founder’s egos imploded it before it even got off the ground. That lesson in why entrepreneurship is so hard I only recommend it to my enemies, cost me a mere $500k. Fortunately, since I’ve paid that iron price you don’t have to. Learn from my mistakes, don’t repeat them. 

$3M for 18 months of runway. If you try to launch your own RegCF crowdfunding portal it’ll cost you at least $3M. I know. I know. No one believes this number. Download this excel sheet and play with the numbers and remember, if you’re only charging 3% to 8% of the rais...more

We posted this originally at superpowers4good.com.

The sage advice to “be the change you want to see in the world” is often attributed to Ghandi. Whether he said that exact phrase is unclear, but it captures the essence of his philosophy.

Today, you can also invest in the change you want to see.

• Suppose you want to see better drug development and healthcare for the Latinx community, you can invest in Somos.
• Imagine you’d like to see clearer opportunities to find and patronize small businesses owned by women, you can invest in Inentionalist.
• Perhaps you’d like to see cleaner extraction of rare earth minerals for all the high-tech toys we use today, you can invest in KMX Technologies.
• If you’d like to invest in solar panels that simultaneously produce electricity with PV and heat water, you can invest in PowerPanel.

The opportunities to back founders aligned with your vision of the future, your priorities for solving social problems, your concern for people and the planet are all endle...more

Over the past decade, I’ve written hundreds of articles about what I now call impact crowdfunding, the practice of investing small amounts of money in private companies that are doing some good in the world.

That said, I confess that as big a fan of the idea of impact crowdfunding as I have been, I wasn’t doing it. Honestly, I mostly felt like I didn’t have enough money. When I was the CFO of a global food and beverage corporation, I felt pretty rich. Podcasting about polio doesn’t pay as well.

Here’s the thing. Investing is different from spending. When you spend $100 on a nice dinner with family and friends, the money is gone. The memory of the meal may last forever, but you aren’t getting that money back.

When you invest, it’s like moving a $100 bill from your purse into your fanny pack. You still have $100; it’s just in a different place.

It occurs to me that some readers are thinking that investing via crowdfunding sounds like something they’d like to do but don’t feel ready to do...more

Michelle Thimesch Works to Fix Capitalism By Empower Women and BIPOC Entrepreneurs

Devin: What do you think of within that skill set as being your superpower?

Michelle: I am a very practical problem solver. The analytical thinking from the legal training side is something that definitely helps evaluate things. I’m a practical problem solver. I believe there are solutions to all problems. So for me, it’s about communication, openness and problem-solving. I guess that’s multiple superpowers, but I see it under the umbrella of communication.

You could be forgiven for thinking Michelle Thimesch is a bit scattered. She is working on several major projects right now, but they are all closely aligned in solving a single problem. She’s no more scattered than a laser-guided missile.

She is the CEO of Crowdfund Mainstreet, which she founded with Jenny Kassan. She also organized an investor network called Angels of Mainstreet. Most recently, she raised a fund to create Opportunity Mainstreet in B...more

OK, You’ve created a successful brand. What’s next? How do you differentiate brand equity with brand value? In this podcast, Howard Lim, the CEO of "How Creative” goes over the steps you need to take and things you need to do to build that all-important equity value so you can grab more market share with “instant recall”, thereby making it easier for your potential customers to remember you. (and think of your company first when they’re ready to make a purchasing decision).

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST ON SPREAKER HERE

You’re at Point A and you want to get to Point B with your business: What do you do? You listen to Howard Lim! As mentioned on a previous podcast, “How Creative” is a disrupter and creator of company’s brands in a variety of different industries, designing companies from the inside out and the outside in. In this podcast, not only will you understand the difference between brand equity and brand value, but you’ll also see why media strategy, consistent touch-points, and the abi...more

Your investments work for you 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. What are they doing? Does that work align with your mission and values?

Hard Work

Investing is hard. Like, really hard.

It’s easy, of course, to buy a stock. Especially today. It has never been easier. Many online brokerages don’t even charge commissions anymore. It’s so easy.

But really investing to earn a return over time that will help you achieve financial goals, like being able to retire someday. That is seriously hard work.

One way to make it easier is to hire other people to do it. There are easy ways to do this, like buying mutual funds and ETFs. An ETF is an exchange-traded fund that trades like a stock but represents ownership in a portfolio of stocks, similar to a mutual fund.

Choosing funds is almost as tricky as selecting stocks. Broad funds like those that track the S&P 500 index or the Nasdaq 100 invest in many individual stocks. Funds are not required to disclose every stock they own—only the top ten la...more

THE LATEST IN REGULATION A CROWDFUNDING: Fans of the TV series Downton Abbey certainly know of Highclere Castle. But did you know there’s a crowdfund opportunity with gin made at those very grounds? In this podcast, Adam von Gootkin, the CEO and Co-Founder of Highclere Castle Gin, takes you through a journey of their crowdfunding process, including how he got started, why they chose Reg.CF crowdfunding to begin with, the steps involved in getting his deal listed on an investment portal, his marketing strategy, and the regulatory issues he faced throughout. Drink up, folks… you’re about to learn why being unique and authentic makes for a great story! (and why YOU can do it too!)

LISTEN  TO THE PODCAST ON SPREAKER HERE

Born from Highclere Castle (known globally as “Downton Abbey”), renowned for its parties, and acclaimed for its taste, Highclere Castle Gin is one of the fastest growing and most awarded gins in the world. How did it get that way? Well, its unique and amazing story ce...more