In late March of
2012, President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, also
known as the JOBS act; changing the way that small business owners raise needed
capital. This is great news for Americans who have a great idea, however have
minimal resources available to source financial assistance. Sure, government
supplied grant money is always an option, as are small business loans, however
with an upstart with little to no available credit this option may not be
suitable. Not to mention that grant money is not guaranteed and more times than
not the hoops required for the entrepreneur to jump through are endless. In
fact, the JOBS act may just be what our country needs to kick the tired economy
into overdrive.
As a small business
owner, using crowd funding websites such as Kickstarter.com or Fundanything.com
is a refreshing resource that will help showcase a company to a multitude of
investors via social media. Using this modern method of networking, a vast
amount of investment partnerships can be reached that would have been
impossible to achieve inside of the boardroom pitch meetings of the past.
A very important
thing to consider when using crowd funding is that not all sites are suitable
for every project or business infrastructure. For example, with Fundanything, a
fund raising campaign can be established for just about anything. This seems a
bit riskier than other sites such as Kickstarter.com, which have regulations on
the type of project that can be funded as well as the rewards to investors. As
an example, on Fundanything, there are several campaigns that are searching for
capital for various personal medical procedures for humans as well as pets and
a few Hurricane Sandy relief groups who will be using the donated funds to
administer gift baskets to those affected by the storm in one community. I
believe these types of campaigns are not acceptable as there is an acceptable
list of categories that a project must fit into. There is also a strict rule
against acquiring funding for causes such as Red Cross or other charitable
businesses and projects which are searching for funding to help with personal
affairs such as funding school, medical procedures or paying other personal
bills. Kickstarter projects have a beginning and an end, meaning that it cannot
be an open project, so a web series would not work unless it was a determined season
length. I personally feel that Kickstarter is probably more successful at
achieving results than Fundanything or the various other websites for the
simple fact that the regulations make investors more confident that there money
will be used for it’s intended purpose and not as a money making scheme.
While I try to keep
my own opinions on politics to myself and am still on the fence with how well
our government is handling our economy, I do think that the crowd funding
concept is a really big gasp of fresh air to an economy that has been winded
for many years.
No comments:
Post a Comment