@rrhoover I think that having a focus on community building and inclusion could help nudge 'normal' people to be interested...

@rrhoover This x 100%, Ryan. Startup investing is so extremely high risk, and normal people need to be sure they really really understand that. Crowdfunding investors have so much less information and presumably worse terms than VCs. This is quite a complicated subject, and one I hope many people don't learn the hard way. (Now if it's used to help start and fund small business, my views are a bit different.)

@kicksopenminds @rrhoover This is exciting for non-accredited investors (anyone whose income is less than $200K). Protecting the "normal people" is very important and that is why it is heavily regulated on a state by state basis. Colorado, for example, non-accredited investors are limited to $5,000 in investments in a 12-month period. Creates opportunity for people who wouldn't otherwise be able invest and potentially gain.

@nisszab @rrhoover Perhaps that's the case for non-accredited investors in Colorado, but the federal cap is much higher on $200k income: $10k or $20k up to $100k depending on net worth [1]. [1]: https://www.sec.gov/news/pressre...

@kicksopenminds @rrhoover Those are Colorado's Intrastate Crowdfunding rules, most states have legislated protections (75%+). Understand the concerns, many of the laws on the books before the SEC adopted rules on Title III of the Jobs Act date back to the 1930's, but with todays technology, access to information and proper protections for "normal people" equity crowdfunding will be a game changer

@joshdance Indiegogo has a different set of rules than Kickstarter which makes it a viable alternative. Sometimes that can be translated into more risk. Other times, like with Republic Restoratives, Kickstarter won't allow alcohol as rewards which made it difficult to find compatible perks for this women owned distillery.

@kicksopenminds I agree, normal folks will have little to no ability to properly vet an investment. Crowdfunding has an unfortunate history of letting scientifically impossible campaigns get massively funded before they fall apart or deliver worthless attempts at products. Consumers will be even more likely to contribute since they will expect to get $$ back instead of a device. On the entrepreneur side, most will be smart and avoid crowdfunded dollars since they won't come with any additional benefits or help that you could get from a real VC or angel. This will probably leave crowdfunding mostly to companies that couldn't get past VC vetting, and could lead to an even lower rate of success than startups already have. Some may be clever and use it as a marketing tool though, like a lot of crowdfunding campaigns for VC backed co's. Some great companies may come out of this. But this kind of arrangement makes it relatively easy for bad actors to take advantage of normal people who want to get in on the next Snapchat without having the knowledge to properly vet their investment. I like the idea in theory though, and I hope to be proved wrong. It's worth noting that Indiegogo seems to be taking a responsible approach here, but I'm still concerned others may not.

@gloom303 Most foreign investors are allowed. The caveat to that is that they would just need to comply with their country's securities laws as well.

@gloom303 It also should be noted that foreign companies would have to set up a US entity and, additionally, the money would have to stay in the US entity. They basically have to be expanding to the US and have operations here.

@garrett_grohman Thanks for the clarification! Good thing Stripe Atlas (https://stripe.com/atlas) exists. :)