Ten Thousand Projects Financed

Ten Thousand Projects Financed In 2011, the year of Kickstarter's second birthday, the crowdfunding site recorded nearly 11,836 successfully funded projects (about 44% of all the projects submitted) with more than $99 million pledged. The year showed phenomenal growth over the previous one when 3,910 successful projects were launched with $27 million pledged. Kickstarter is already the world's largest funding platform for creative projects. The majority of projects on Kickstarter are cr...

Type a startup movie

Type a startup movie A free website where you can make a movie sounds like an oxymoron for an entrepreneur. Movies cost a fortune, right? Wrong. Go to xtranormal.com and find out how you can type a movie. Do ask to see mine yet, but I'm working on it. If you plan what you want to say, you can do it in minutes, then upload it to your website, YouTube or send it to your contacts. There is a more sophisticated version for business that you can use when you've mastered the free version. It'...

Entrepreneurship crowdfunding dream is coming true

Entrepreneurship crowdfunding dream is coming true The US House of Representatives has passed, by a walloping majority (407 t0 17), the Bill called HR 2930: Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act. It now needs to pass in the Senate, but is hardly likely to fail. This new legislation is very important for the vast majority of entrepreneurs seeking to raise up to $5 million in equity funding, by means of crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is a way of raising relatively modest sums of money on the Intern...

Crowdfunding may get a Congressional boost

Crowdfunding may get a Congressional boost In September, President Obama included a crowdfunding exemption in his proposed jobs bill, and there is a bill in congress (HR 2930 McHenry) that proposes a very similar exemption.  It is elegant in its simplicity! It includes  provisions that: creates a crowdfunding exemption from the federal registration requirements for offerings of up to $5 million with each investor investing a maximum of the lesser of $10,000 and ten percent of the investor'...

Change the world by bike

Zambikes International is a Californian company set up in 2010 that provides worldwide distribution for Zambian-made Bamboo bicycles, providing increase employment and impact into the lives of the Zambians who make them. In Zambia, unemployment is over 50%, literacy is low, and school is not free. Finding a job supports more than the individual; it also supports their children, brothers, sisters, and the entire community. When you buy a bamboo bike, you are employing 40+ Zambikes workers that...

Virgina Benefit Corporations

Virgina Benefit Corporations Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has signed legislation that will make Virginia the fourth state to allow stock corporations to become Benefit Corporations (B Corps). The bill had unanimously passed both the Virginia State Senate and the Viriginia State legislature. Governor McDonnell signed HB 2358 on March 26, 2011 and the legislation will take effect on July 1, 2011. Previous states that have adopted B Corp legislation include Maryland, Vermont (where the le...

Bare Naked Business

Bare Naked Business Peggy Farabaugh started Vermont Woods Studios, an online retailer of fine Vermont made furniture, a few years ago. You might think that an online business selling high value items was bound to fail. But what Peggy and her handful of colleagues have done is to prove that assumption wrong. Her business is thriving and individual online sales average over $2,000. She and her team have developed a model that is well worth you taking a look at. The lessons apply to many small o...

Alphabet of entrepreneurial types

Alphabet of Entrepreneurial Types I have been a student of entrepreneurs for many years and watched many types of people creating ventures. I have created an Alphabet of Entrepreneurial Types that typified the many types of entrepreneurs I have witnessed. I have observed. There is no 'one best way' to be an entrepreneur and each type has an Achilles Heel that can trip them up. A few examples: Edgewalker, who lives between two worlds and has a high tolerance for ambiguity, but may ...

Revenue-Based Funding

Revenue-Based Funding I am delighted to see that revenue-based funding is becoming a growing competitor for equity and bank–not least because I was a beneficiary of such borrowing back in 1982. The advantage to entrepreneurs is that the loan is based on your forecast revenues and repayments are in the form of royalties on them. So some people call them royalty-based loans. Thanks to Thomas Thurston of Growth Science International for the illustration to the left. The benefit for the ...

Jobless Entrepreneurship

Jobless Entrepreneurship–Good or Bad? During the Great Recession, more Americans have become entrepreneurs than at any time in the past 15 years. However, while the economy and its high unemployment rates may have pressed more individuals into business ownership, most of them are going it alone, rather than starting companies that employ others. So says the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, published March 7, 2011. According to the study, 0.34 percent of American adults created a...