Tag Archives: crowd fund

Frustrating Day for Crowdfunding at the Senate

Today was a frustrating day for Crowdfunding.  The Senate Banking Committee, one of the most powerful committees on Capitol Hill held a hearing called, ‘Spurring Job Growth Through Capital Formation While Protecting Investors.’  It should have been called, ‘Why We Need to Stop Americans From Investing $1,000 into their Community Entrepreneurs.’

Anyone attending today’s hearing could tell it was to listen to special interests and regulators talk about the risks inherent in investing under the current system and why we need to protect consumers.  There was no discussion about protecting people from spending their $1,000 paycheck on a lottery ticket, gambling it on Red in Vegas, nor spending more than that on their credit cards and being locked into interest payments upwards of 36% on the balance.   For some reason, the only area they feel we need to provide prudent consumer protection is when a person is making a decision where they want to invest their money.  Why?  Because the expectation is different.  Yes, we expect to win the lottery.  Oh wait, no we don’t.

What’s the point of having a hearing about small businesses and capital formation if there isn’t one panelist that is an entrepreneur, small business owner or crowdfunding expert?  How do you have a balanced discussion of crowdfunding if there is no one on the panel to discuss how crowdfunding works, the merit of allowing the community to back their local entrepreneurs, how the crowd will only fund those ideas they collectively decide are worth and how the social media connectivity will expose fraud and foster winning ideas.  More importantly, if you don’t have a crowdfunding representative on the panel, how do you expose the blatant misrepresentations from the other panelists about crowdfunding?

One of the most frustrating parts of the hearing was when John Coffee the anti-crowdfunding law professor from Columbia said crowdfunding could lead to a situation where unlicensed, nefarious salesmen “who look like Danny Devito,” could set up shop in a bar or coffeehouse and peddle risky offerings to unsophisticated investors. And “In its current form, [Senator Brown’s] bill could be called the Boiler Room Legalization Act of 2011,” Boy does this drama sell.  His fabrication immediately became the cover story for Investment News.

If you are reading this, you understand that the Crowdfund Investing framework we put together is based on a few main principles:

  1. Social Networking – you are raising capital from your friends, family and community.  Your 1st degree connections.
  2. Communication – you must clearly articulate to your friends, family and community what you are doing, why you need this money, why they should trust you to do what you say and why this is a good investment opportunity for the crowd.
  3. All or nothing financing – using the principles of lean startup, you should set the minimum amount of money that you need to accomplish the milestones that you set out to your investors.  If you don’t hit that funding target, you aren’t funded.

You also know that the very first thing we advocate is a fraud/background check to keep unsavory people from participating.  That Crowdfund Investing platforms will need to be registered with the SEC and that we advocate for communicating who (including name, address, social security number, etc) is raising money on crowdfunding platforms and sending that information to both the SEC and the State Regulators.

What the panelists were discussing today was another form of Reg D offering without the safeguards that we’ve been advocating for 11 months.  Not one of the panelists today acknowledged how crowdfunding works or any of the principles above. Obviously, just looking at them, it is clear that none of them have a Facebook page, have tweeted or blogged to a community that follows them.  No wonder they don’t understand how crowdfund investing would work.

Why is it that the people who are crafting the rules under which entrepreneurs can raise capital are the same people who benefit from the rules not changing or changing in their favor?

At the end of the day, why not focus on what we do know.  Crowdfunding has been around for over 5 years now.  Over half a billion dollars has been given away and while we still expect people to do what they say with their money, no one has complained of fraud.  It’s worked well enough up to now, under our framework it will continue to work well but have the added benefit of spurring entrepreneurialism and JOBS!

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More Proof that Crowdfund Investing is Less Risky than the Special Interest Opponents Say

The following is an excerpt from Kevin Lawton, the author of the Crowdfunding Revolution.

I recently re-ran a quick study of the risk-vs-reward profile of penny stocks vs initial angel investments in startups (data from the Kauffman Foundation’s AIPP).  See below.  It’s yet another confirmation that early stage investments are actually less risky and have better returns than “penny stocks” (which the public has access to without limitation).

Fraud has been trotted out as the ad naseum bogeyman, but it’s been nothing but a red herring.  Failure is the issue.  Given any degree of risk, a portfolio is necessary to mitigate against investment failure.  So far, I can not find a person (at least one who has any wealth left) who does not have a portfolio.  And thus, for any high-risk asset class where one can lose 50% of the time, having 1% of fraud is a tiny and noisy component in investment failure.

The issue has always been an education thing (i.e. the portfolio).  Beyond that, if a system suppresses crowdfunding in a futile attempt to fight the 1 unit of fraud, it will not only suppress the 99 units of investment, but often a 3x .. 10x economic multiplier (so up to a 1000 units).  Most of the crowdfunding projects tend to have a geographic locality component.  And as Amy Cortese points out in Locavesting, local businesses have a strong local economic multiplier.

But I’m most curious why we are starving private equity of some serious profits and deal flow.  Please see my brief post about how I applied a black-box hedge fund technique to amp up Venture Capital IRR from 30% to 46%.  Allowing crowdfunding platforms to flourish, opens up the door for some bigger players to access investments in smaller companies, and frankly eat some of the VC pie.

Crowdfunding platforms will include crowdsourced diligence & fraudster detection, which will rival the response time and accuracy of anything that Venture Capital has ever seen. We just need the government to get the heck out of the way…

-Kevin Lawton

Author of The Crowdfunding Revolution and serial entrepreneur

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VIDEO – What Does Crowdfunding Mean?

Thanks to Congressman McHenry’s staff for putting together this amazing video on the Rally 4 Crowdfunding

McHenry Addresses Crowdfunding Rally

 

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Post Rally Update – Progress and Backlash by Special Interests

Dear Crowdfund Investing (CFI) Followers,

The rally was a HUGE success.  How do we know?  The regulators have launched a full-frontal assault against us in the Senate and are trying to kill Crowdfund Investing for good in the next 6 weeks.  Here’s what you need to know in 3 sections: 1) What you can do now, 2) What’s happening next week (SENATE HEARING Dec 1st!) and 3) Highlights from last week:

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW:

o   Click this link to identify your Senators, call them and tell them “I support HR2930, the Crowdfunding Bill as a solution to getting capital flowing to community entrepreneurs so that we can create jobs!” It may sound crazy but grass roots calls are powerful.

o   We need your financial support to help offset the mounting costs (travel, marketing, additional rallying, etc.) of getting the message to the Senate.

o   We need you to recruit other supporters!  Please send this to your friends, family and community and say, “I NEED YOU TO HELP ME STOP THE REGULATORS THAT REFUSE TO JOIN THE INTERNET AGE.  WE HAVE A SOLUTION TO THE JOBS CRISIS BUT THE REGULATORS ARE STAGING A TURF WAR THAT DRAMATICALLY HINDERS ENTREPRENEURSHIP. ONLY THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE CAN CHANGE THE LAW TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR ENTREPRENEURS TO ACCESS CAPITAL, INNOVATE, AND HIRE AMERICANS!”

WHAT’S HAPPENING NEXT WEEK:

o   The Senate Banking Committee is holding a hearing on December 1st for which they still haven’t guaranteed us a seat at the table (crazy how you can bring this stuff to Washington and not be included in the hearing on the subject).

o   We plan on hosting a luncheon for Senate Staffers the beginning of December to walk them through how CFI works and answer any questions/fears they might have about letting entrepreneurs raise capital from their social networks.

o   We MUST push for a vote before the end of the year!  If we do not get a vote by the end of 2011, it is unlikely the laws will change because next year is an election year.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM LAST WEEK:

-       NPR, The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company covered the event.   Much thanks to everyone who came to the rally, everyone who sponsored the rally and Representative McHenry & Maloney for speaking at the rally.

-       We confronted our most vocal opponents at the SEC Small Business Capital Forum.

o   Heath Abshure (Arkansas Securities Dept.) told us while they are in favor of crowdfunding (funny how this isn’t what he says in the media) their number one concern is ‘investor protection’ and market confidence.

o   We responded with 2 questions that fell on blank stares:

1) If investor protection is so important, why haven’t they brought anyone to justice for the 2008 financial meltdown?  

2) If fraud leads to the collapse of the markets due to lost confidence, why haven’t the financial markets ceased to exist with the 2008 financial meltdown?

o   NOTE: If the broader markets are where the fraud is being perpetrated why isn’t the SEC focusing their energies on combating and stopping fraud there while letting the crowd take over in their community?

-       We met with 9 Senate offices.

o   Republicans are in favor of the legislation from a Jobs perspective and cutting the bureaucratic tape which inhibits access to capital for entrepreneurs.

o   Democrats (including the President) are in favor of Jobs and democratizing the financial market so that not only the rich are allowed to participate.

o   Both sides understand that the Internet has fundamentally changed the way we do business and hence it only makes sense that it should change the way we also do financing in the future.

-       HOWEVER, State Regulators and special interests are throwing a full-frontal assault to stop our progress and KILL CROWDFUND INVESTING.

o   They are using nonspecific cases of fraud to halt our progress because fraud, like sex and war, sells newspapers.

o   They are doing this because they think we are encroaching on their territory and money.

o   They are detracting from the conversation (JOBS via access to capital) without taking time to understand the advances in technology, the Internet, and how social media has led to transparency and accountability.

o   They want you to think there will be millions of cases of fraud when the bigger issue is failure. The hedge against failure is portfolio diversification.

o   Less than 40% of CFI ideas will ever be funded, and those that are funded, will be by people who know the entrepreneur (true investor protection at work).

o   They want you to focus on fraud because they don’t understand that Crowdfund Investing is based on many-to-many communication between an entrepreneur and many investors in a open dialog as opposed to one-to-one fraud.

o   They want to distract you from the benefits of this bill because they know that January 1st starts an election year and this bill will die if it isn’t passed into law before then and focus shifts to election politics.

Entrepreneurs, ideas, capital, businesses and jobs.  You can have many entrepreneurs with thousands of ideas but you’ll NEVER HAVE ONE BUSINESS NOR JOB WITHOUT CAPITAL.  We need to pick up where Wall Street and the Banks have left off.  The Regulators are standing in the way simply because they don’t stand to earn a commission.  Join the cause.  Spread the word and let’s get Joe the Entrepreneur back to Innovating so that we can create JOBS and get us out of this recession!

Sincerely,

Sherwood, Jason & Zak

 

 

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What Crowdfunding Opponents Don’t Want You to Know

With all the time and attention that fraud has received, we wanted to talk about a much more important issue, failure.  Failure of early businesses happens 50% of the time – that’s just a fact of nature.  If we were to hold that fraud would happen 1% of the time, then failure is 50 times more important in risk mitigation for investors.  And nearly all Americans who invest in the public markets already mitigate against the risk of “losing it all” by way of holding a portfolio.  Diversification has been practiced for centuries, and it’s no different in any asset class, be it public equities, commodities or crowdfund investing.

We believe that prudent risk and fraud mitigation currently in HR2930, along with law enforcement provisions in the bill preserve the power of state and federal officials to aggressively pursue those who commit fraud.  Now, let’s create a plan to help more honest businesses succeed.

KNOWLEDGE & EXPERIENCE

When entrepreneurs talk about failure they talk about the lessons they learned and the experience they gained which is less sexy to the media than fraud.  In crowdfund investing, the entrepreneur has access to his investors to gain knowledge and experience from them in order to attempt to reduce the rate of failure.  The transparency and ease of many to many communication benefits all.

When investors talk about a stock’s failure, they always focus on the critical importance of diversification.  WHY?  Because everyone knows, a diversified portfolio is the best security against loss.  Why focus on educating people about portfolio diversification when it is easier to claim crowdfund investing will open the floodgates to fraud?

So why do we bring this up?  Because the opponents want you to focus on something that will grab the media’s attention (fraud).  This also distracts the debate while trying to prevent regular Americans from supporting entrepreneurs with their own dollars.

There are entrenched interests that don’t want you to focus on how getting capital to entrepreneurs will stimulate innovation.  They clearly don’t talk about alternative solutions.  AND most importantly they don’t want to lose jurisdiction over the business and revenue they are currently generating.  These are areas we hope the media starts to look into more fully.

Much of our new information economy is based on new ways of connecting people.  Preventing entrepreneurs from soliciting financing from their fans and potential customer base, equates to a massive form of economic suppression.  And it’s a suppression of the most powerful human right ever given, the 1st Amendment.

If the opponents took the time to think it through, they’d see that fraud is no more of an issue than in other forms of investing.  With prudent safeguards in place, let’s focus the majority of our energy on the real issues – continued education about diversification.

Think we are wrong?  Please tell us why.  How does one “lose it all” when holding a portfolio of businesses?  How does suppressing platforms which will drive Yelp-like crowdsourced checking & reviews of entrepreneurs help prevent fraud?

 

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Entrepreneurs to Rally – Will Urge Senate and SEC Action on Crowdfund Investing

Startup Exemption and SBE Council to Host a Crowdfunded Rally in Support of H.R. 2930

Washington, DC – The Startup Exemption and Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council) announced today they will hold an event to call attention to the need for the U.S. Senate and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to act on a common sense proposal that would permit crowdfund investing. The rally coincides with Global Entrepreneurship Week and the SEC’s annual meeting on small business capital formation on November 17th. The event will be held on the Capitol grounds between Union Station and the Capitol building at 8:00 a.m.

True to the tenants of crowdfunding, the group is crowdfunding the costs of the event with a pitch on IndieGoGo.

The goal of the rally says Sherwood Neiss, Chief Advocate of the Startup Exemption is to “put a face to Joe the Entrepreneur and Jill the Innovator and call for action by the Senate and the SEC. Representative Patrick McHenry used our framework for H.R. 2930, the ‘Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act.’ The bill recently passed the House in a unique burst of bipartisan support with a vote of 407 to 17. This Act represents a major step forward in solving the capital crisis facing our nation’s job creators while bringing securities laws into the modern era.”

Crowdfund Investing (CFI) builds on the tenants of crowdfunding. While in traditional crowdfunding, a group of individuals “donate” small amounts of money to an idea (for example, an art related project). In CFI, individuals use small amounts of money to buy equity in a business. The goal of CFI is to provide entrepreneurs and small businesses with access to capital that they will use to grow and hire. Individuals are motivated to invest by the desire to support an entrepreneur and her business plan, to be a part of the solution to our economic woes, and for a potential financial return.

Jason Best, co-founder of the Startup Exemption said, “Our proposal is a jobs initiative that everyone can agree on and requires no government spending. Providing this funding option to connect entrepreneurs with the capital they need, will unleash the next wave of American innovation and create jobs. With President Obama officially backing Representative McHenry’s bill, we look forward to quickly advancing this common sense framework in the Senate.”

SBE Council President & CEO Karen Kerrigan observed that the quick pace of the crowdfund investing bill demonstrates that members of both political parties understand capital access is a critical issue for both entrepreneurs and our nation’s economic recovery.

“Crowd fund investing will give small business owners and entrepreneurs access to sources of capital they currently cannot tap into without triggering complex SEC rules. With common sense reforms, more Americans will be able to invest in promising small businesses, which means more jobs and greater economic growth. Reformulating outdated rules while maintaining investor protections will help entrepreneurs identify and connect with potential funders,” said Kerrigan.

She added: “We are very excited that Congress and President Obama are seeking intelligent and innovative ways to help small business owners access capital. Technology and the Internet have leveled the playing field in so many other areas for entrepreneurs, and it only makes sense that they are allowed to tap into its power and the intelligence of the crowd for needed capital.”

Crowdfunding has grown in popularity over the past 5 years with millions of participants around the world. Entrepreneurs see CFI as a way to raise moderate amounts of capital and investors see it as a way to help entrepreneurs in their community. Numerous academic reports discuss how SEC rules block small business’ access to capital. SEC-registered Crowdfund Investing websites will provide the platform for investors to analyze ideas and self-select those community entrepreneurs they wish to support.

According to H.R. 2930, only businesses that reach their funding target will be funded, entrepreneurs cannot raise more than $2M and investors are limited on how much they can invest. The SEC would continue to provide prudent oversight to CFI to mitigate the risk of fraud and protect investors.

# # #

________________________________________________________

About STARTUP EXEMPTION: Startup Exemption is an initiative spearheaded by Sherwood Neiss, Jason Best and Zak Cassady-Dorion. Mr. Neiss, a 3-time INC500 entrepreneur, came across the problem when trying to help crowdfund two of his startups. While discussing it with Mr. Best, a 2-time Inc 500 entrepreneur, lawyers made it clear that the rules for raising capital were arcane, complicated and required costly compliance measures. Understanding the critical importance of startup capital, these three colleagues set about changing the regulations for investing in Startups. Their goal is to add an exemption to the Securities & Exchange laws based on Crowdfund Investing aka equity-based crowdfunding. Online petition and more information can be found at: https://startupexemption.com/.

SBE Council is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy, research and training organization dedicated to protecting small business and promoting entrepreneurship. For more information, please visit http://www.sbecouncil.org/.

Sherwood Neiss sherwood@startupexemption.com
(202) 247-7182

Jason Best
Startup Exemption
(415) 999-2271
jason@startupexemption.com

Karen Kerrigan, (703) 242-5840
SBE Council, 
kkerrigan@sbecouncil.org
Mabel Vaught: mvaught@sbecouncil.org

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These Entrepreneurs are Changing the World for ALL Entrepreneurs!

 ***If you cannot read the following clearly, click to go directly to mailchimp post ****

Changing the World for Entrepreneurs
AN UPDATE FROM WOODIE

 

On November 3rd the US House of Representatives passed, with almost unanimous bipartisan support, the Bill I’ve been working on HR2930, The Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act.  HR2930 Vote - 407 to 17It made headlines from the Wall Street Journal to USA Today.

This started less than a year ago when I was out trying to raise capital for a startup idea I had; using smartphones to do instant polling.  The idea won the November, 2010 Miami Startup Weekend Challenge. I went out to raise capital but hit the same barrier as most entrepreneurs.  There’s no capital. Banks aren’t lending, home equity lines aren’t an option because of fallen home prices, credit card limits were lowered and interest rates skyrocketed, and private money is only for a select few.

Entrepreneurs, ideas, capital, businesses and JOBS – They are all interconnected.  Without capital small businesses cannot innovate and hire.  The key to getting us out of this recession is to get American’s back to work and this requires job-creating businesses.  So rather than bemoan the problem my peers and I went out to solve it.

Jason, Zak & Woodie - The Startup Exemption TeamWe decided, given the advances in accountability and transparency due to the Internet and technology, the time was right to update 80-year old security laws so that we could go to our friends, family and community and sell them shares in our businesses via crowdfunding.  (This is currently illegal).

From there we built a framework, launched a petition, started blogging and began peddling the solution to influencers in Washington including the media.  In less than 6 months:

  •      I testified at 2 congressional hearings; Testimony one and Testimony two.
  •      We were consulted by the White House and included in President Obama’s Jobs Act
  •      We are the force & framework behind HR 2930, the Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act!
  •      This was publicly endorsed by President Obama, and
  •      Our bill was almost unanimously approved by a vote of 407 to 17 on the floor of the US House!U.S. Congressional Hearing - September, 2011

But we aren’t done yet.  Even though we had such bipartisan support, we we need to keep the pressure on.  Hence, we are taking our fight to the Senate.   We are holding a HUGE rally on November 17th in Washington, DC to coincide with Global Entrepreneurship Week and an annual, one-day meeting the SEC is having on Small Business Capital formation.

Our goal is to introduce Washington to ‘Joe the Entrepreneur’ and ‘Jill the Innovator,’ explain how they are the job-producing engine of the USA and have a teach-in with our Senators about Crowdfund Investing.

Our solution allows the community to pick and finance only those companies they think are worthy.   They will back them not only with money, but also with knowledge, experience and marketing power.

But in order to pull this rally off, we are trying to crowdfund the cost.  So feel free to check out our Indiegogo campaign.  Feel free to give a buck or two if you’d like.  Contact your senator (here) and tell them to introduce and support HR2930.  Ask them NOT to play politics with the Bill and attach frivolous amendments that don’t pertain to the bill.  Feel free to come to the rally on November 17th and most importantly, feel free to share what we’re doing with those that you think would find it interesting!

All our best!
Woodie, Jason & Zak 🙂
Our Campaign on Indiegogo

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Jason Best of the Startup Exemption on Nightly Business Report about Crowdfund Investing

Video here. Forward to 9 minute and 25 second part to begin segment.

Crowd Funding for Start Ups
Tuesday, November 08, 2011

SUSIE GHARIB: Another source of funding for small businesses is crowd funding. It’s a way for startups to use the Internet to raise relatively small contributions from a large number of people. The only problem is that securities’ regulations severely limit the ability to crowd fund. But as Darren Gersh reports, Congress is on the way to changing that.

DARREN GERSH, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Find a friend with extra bars of gold in the basement — that’s the traditional way entrepreneurs fund a business. But for those who don’t have a rich uncle, there is what’s called crowd funding. Crowd funding is a strategy to raise small sums of money from many people, even people all over the country.

JASON BEST, CO-FOUNDER, STARTUPEXEMPTION.COM: It really democratizes the ability to raise funds for your business.

GERSH: Jason Best is lobbying Congress to pass legislation making it legal to crowd fund. The bill he backs allows entrepreneurs to raise up to $1 million, $2 million if companies provide audited financial statements. Entrepreneurs would not have to go through the expensive process of registering their shares with the Securities and Exchange Commission or state regulators. In a given year, investors can pitch in a total of up to $10,000 or 10 percent of adjusted gross income, whichever is smaller.

BEST: This is an opportunity for entrepreneurs and small business people, whether they are in Arnold, Nebraska, Detroit, Michigan or Miami, Florida, to be able to raise capital for their ideas and to build their businesses.

GERSH: To combat the kind of fraud that brought down Enron, Congress has tightened accounting rules, making it harder for companies to go public. Entrepreneurs like Idealab’s Bill Gross say crowd funding will provide cash before venture capital and the chance at an initial public offering comes along.

BILL GROSS, CEO IDEALAB: At this first stage, when a company is just getting going, this could be a big boost to getting a company to go from, say 10 people or five people to 50 people and to first revenues or even first profits. And I think that’s going to be really helpful to the economy.

GERSH: But state securities regulators like Heath Abshure say crowd funding will lead to crowd fraud.

HEATH ABSHURE, ARKANSAS SECURITIES COMMISSIONER: The fact is, it is a wide open gate that a lot of folks can run through and some of those folks, we don’t want them running through the gate.

GERSH: But supporters say the Internet will help police the crowd.

BEST: Anything that happens is posted to the web almost in real time. Anything that goes wrong or right is posted to the web in almost real time. And so, the crowd will be a great enforcement tool, along with regulators at the state and Federal level.

GERSH: The idea of crowd funding is attracting an unusual crowd in Washington. The president, House Republicans and House Democrats are all on board. Now, the idea just needs to find a backer in the Senate. Darren Gersh, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.

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Our IndieGoGo Campaign – Hey U.S. Senate, We’re Coming to Talk to YOU!

BREAKING NEWS …. Our Bill, HR 2930 passes with almost unanimous, rare bipartisan support!  This is a HUGE achievement for every struggling entrepreneur and innovator out there that is looking for capital!

BUT we aren’t done yet!  “If and when” the Senate picks this up IS YET TO BE DECIDED?!?!

WE CAN’T WAIT!  

So help is fund and hold our RALLY IN WASHINGTON,DC on November 17th to keep the positive momentum going!  This coincides perfectly with Global Entrepreneurship Week and a one-day meeting the SEC is having that day on Small Business Capital Formation.  OUR FACES NEED TO BE SEEN AND OUR VOICES HEARD!

We’ve launched a campaign on Indiegogo to help fund the rally and WE NEED YOUR support!  So please contribute!  And if you are in or near Washington on November 17th, Please COME TO THE RALLY!

Click the image below or here to go to the Indiegogo campaign:

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US House Votes in Favor of Crowdfund Investing!

One word …. AMAZING!  The debate was amazing and the vote was AWESOME – 407 to 17!  I can’t believe in only 9 short months we went from “hey we’ve got a framework and a solution” to a bill that just passed the US House of Representatives!

We owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to the AMAZING group of people who made this a reality thus far:

1) Karen Kerrigan at the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, for listening to me and putting up with my nonsense!

2) Whoopi Goldberg and Tom Leonardis who first publicly spoke out in favor of our idea and got slammed for it. … Guess 96% of Congress agrees with you/us! 😉

3) Angus Loten at the Wall Street Journal for deciding the subject was newsworthy enough in our early days to write about it in the WSJ?!?!

4) Kevin Lawton who wrote The Crowdfunding Revolution and provided major contributions to my testimonies and the Startup Exemption framework.

5) Paul  Spinrad, Jenny Kassan & Danae Ringelmann (of IndieGoGo) who wrote the first petition to the SEC to make equity-based crowdfunding legal.  Paul also provided incredible input in the testimonies and framework.

6) Chairman Darrell Issa who so graciously took 20 minutes after the May hearing to talk one-on-one with me about crowdfunding as a solution.   Peter Haller & Hudson Hollister for pushing the idea forward.

7) Doug Rand from the White House who reached out to us and included our proposal as part of the President’s Jobs Act.  That’s bipartisan support!

8) And the AMAZING Chairman Patrick McHenry for calling the Crowdfunding hearing, writing the legislation, entering it into record, deliberating over TWO committee hearings, bringing together ideas from both sides, passionately debating it on the floor today and pulling off a 96% bipartisan win in the US House of Representatives!!!  Also a shout out to Dana Mauriello for her awesome testimony at the September Crowdfunding hearing!

And most importantly to my cohorts JASON BEST and ZAK CASSADY-DORION without whom NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE happened!  As Jason said, “we were naive enough to think we could challenge the status quo and make a difference.  Look at what happened?”

WE AREN’T DONE! … Off to the SENATE … Stay tuned because we have our own big news on this front coming out in the next 24 hours!!

THANK YOU EVERYONE!

Sherwood

 

 

 

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