Hello Kiko, 

There is also revenue-sharing and royalty crowdfunding. Those two are similar but each has its own nuance depending on how you structure your unique deal. 

Just keep two things in mind: 

1. Investors will want good investment terms 

2. Crowdfunding doesn't actually raise you money, marketing does. Gotta market your deal. 

"I'm on a budget setting up my license crowd Funding portal with the FINRA/ SEC." 

It cost about $2M to set up a Crowdfunding Portal. I know that sticker price often shocks people so checkout this spreadsheet that doesn't make it any easier to accept but breaks down the expenses so you can see what you're about to jump into: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18T_lZzKby-SYwSOBOTYYxUebUlhipvAW/view?usp=sharing 

"Is there a checklist" - Yes and no. Yes, if someone has gone through the process and will share with you. No, if you haven't. But the SEC gives you pretty good guidance. You can see the SEC guidance here: https://www.finra.org/registration-exams-ce/funding-portals/register-new 

"...also is it hard to change the name of the Entity i want to add Capital at the end of the name?" 100% hard. I encourage you to full stop and retain counsel to assist you in this effort. Sara Hanks, Jenny Kassan or Maureen Murat can assist you with this. Maureen recently shared with me how she assisted a portal with changing their name and organizational structure. So, definately recommend getting a securities lawyer who has worked with FINRA before to assist you on this. 

Depends, how engaged are Issuers with their customers and communities?

Raising the limit to $5M is great for issuers whose "overnight success" has been in the works for the past 10 years. Its hubris or naivete to think that strangers are just going to flock to your deal/offering simply because it exist. 

What the raise to $5M does is allow Founders who have been actively building their business, brand and community to offer their future Investomers more space on their rocket ship. Too, when Founders are able to onboard $2M - $3M in Investomer capital then all of a sudden their deal terms look a whole lot more attractive to the Sharks, Whales, Angels and VCs. The $5M limit is a Noah's Ark of investor's opportunity. An ark where Founders benefit because the its unlikely that Founder will create terms that are not fair to them, while being attractive to customers, fans, brand ambassadors and even Sharks. 

Lastly, the biggest benefit for $5M raise is that it will give Founders more control of their businesses. Founders will be able to raise key early stage capital, on better terms, from fans/customers before having to even engage or be bothered by Sharks and Angels. Cause thats the thing. If you want money from a Shark, you've got to swim in their ocean, on their terms. Same thing with so-called "Angels". The best trick the devil ever played was rebranding himself as an investor; as "angels", VCs and Sharks all want the same 10,000X returns. Where as your customers? They want a consistantly good good, product or services AND maybe a reason to tell their network about your good, product or service.

So, yes. The biggest benefit of the $5M is that it gives Founders greater control of their destiny. Unless of course Founders are dying to meet Angels and Sharks....