Profunder.com, the brainchild of Jessica Jackley, co-founder of kiva.org, it the tip of a silver-lined iceberg. Crowdfunding is a significant way to go for people who want to start a business.
Crowdfunding is using the Internet to pitch your project to a mass audience, or just your friends and family. Raising money for your startup can be a huge and often unsuccessful effort. Crowdfunding, crowd finance or raising crowd capital can be a much more exhilarating activity that
- avoids repetitive pitching;
- gets you in front of many people at the same time;
- enhances your brand;
- offers your fans a rewarding way of backing you;
- can raise funds quickly;
- can provide conviction to your later pitch for loan or equity capital.
The extra benefit of using Profounder is that they take care of the admin for the process, the loans remunerated by a royalty on sales and they get round tedious SEC rules by ensuring that loans are only made by people you know. I can heartily endorse the advantage of this means of paying only when your sales are there. When I started my first business back in the 80s, a daring bank offered loans on that basis.