It has been some time since I have taken "pen to paper" so to speak and I feel a little remiss about my blogging. There are times when the urge to write is very prevalent and then there are the times of procrastination and I must say that depression doesn't help in that respect at all. I find the human psyche very fragile when it comes to being creative, especially when things don't go as planned.
For quite a number of months I have been pursuing the funding aspect of Anteal, which I have written about in my previous posts and over that time there have been long stretches of productivity and then periods of time when things came to a standstill and I found it very difficult to do anything constructive at all. Obviously, this is a pattern that I have set and I'm sure that I am not alone in this, but Really, you know... I am sick and tired of it!
The reason that I am telling you this is to let you know why I have not posted anything in the last month. Since mid February I have had a nice surge of activity, what with the blogging of my endeavors and then creating the Anteal Boutique Facebook page and its content and then writing the Anteal Newsletter which allowed me to connect with my former clients and introduce them to Anteal and to my blogging. I was feeling very productive and pleased with what I had accomplished in a relatively short period of time.
My next step was to inform my clients, by way of the newsletter, of this new addition to the social networking platform called crowd-funding, which (according to Wikipedia) “describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowd funding occurs for any variety of purposes, from disaster relief to citizen journalism to artists seeking support from fans, to political campaigns, to funding a start-up company or small business or creating free software".
There are a many crowd-funding sites such as ProFounder.com, Kickstarter.com, IndieGoGo, RocketHub.com, Seedmatch.com (Germany) and Seedups.com (Ireland) to name just a few. Most of them target small projects in the $5,000 to $100,000 range and have been based on a donation format. This allows an individual, who likes the project and wants to be involved, to donate small amounts in 20, 50, 100, 250 dollar increments. At each level they are given rewards for their donation,(i.e. mention on the website, a t-shirt, an invite to the opening party, credit on a film, associate producer, etc). These donations are not repaid but the donors generally feel like they have participated in the success of the project and have received some recognition for it.
For quite a number of months I have been pursuing the funding aspect of Anteal, which I have written about in my previous posts and over that time there have been long stretches of productivity and then periods of time when things came to a standstill and I found it very difficult to do anything constructive at all. Obviously, this is a pattern that I have set and I'm sure that I am not alone in this, but Really, you know... I am sick and tired of it!
The reason that I am telling you this is to let you know why I have not posted anything in the last month. Since mid February I have had a nice surge of activity, what with the blogging of my endeavors and then creating the Anteal Boutique Facebook page and its content and then writing the Anteal Newsletter which allowed me to connect with my former clients and introduce them to Anteal and to my blogging. I was feeling very productive and pleased with what I had accomplished in a relatively short period of time.
My next step was to inform my clients, by way of the newsletter, of this new addition to the social networking platform called crowd-funding, which (according to Wikipedia) “describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowd funding occurs for any variety of purposes, from disaster relief to citizen journalism to artists seeking support from fans, to political campaigns, to funding a start-up company or small business or creating free software".
There are a many crowd-funding sites such as ProFounder.com, Kickstarter.com, IndieGoGo, RocketHub.com, Seedmatch.com (Germany) and Seedups.com (Ireland) to name just a few. Most of them target small projects in the $5,000 to $100,000 range and have been based on a donation format. This allows an individual, who likes the project and wants to be involved, to donate small amounts in 20, 50, 100, 250 dollar increments. At each level they are given rewards for their donation,(i.e. mention on the website, a t-shirt, an invite to the opening party, credit on a film, associate producer, etc). These donations are not repaid but the donors generally feel like they have participated in the success of the project and have received some recognition for it.
I realize that donations are one thing but actual investing is another, consequently, what some of these crowd-funding sites are doing is putting crowd-funding investors together with entrepreneurs in order to fund start-ups as well as re-investments. At this point I told my clients, via the newsletter, that I had found one site in particular that I could use as a tool, merging my community contacts, business as well as clients, with my business plan to reach out and invite potential investors to participate in Anteal in an equity/securities position. This is where I ran into a major complication with the 2nd newsletter that I had sent to my clients and which was pointed out to me by one of my attorney clientele.
What I found out from this attorney, which I was not aware of, is that I cannot solicit over 35 non-accredited investors, whereas I had thought that I just could not have more than 35 non-accredited investors. Also, in regards to the pre-existing relationship, I was informed that this term means that I have some knowledge of the financial status of the non-accredited investors.
The problem is that even though I had done my due diligence in my research about crowd-funding, there is a grey area surrounding the SEC (Securities and Exchange
Commission) regulations about soliciting investors for a
business which is a for-profit company. There are strict guidelines and it is very expensive, to the tune of around $100-200K, to register with the SEC.
Exemptions do exist for filing with the SEC and the major one for crowd-funding and my purposes is Regulation D, rule 504, 505 and 506, which basically states that for an investment of one million or less, I don’t have to file with the SEC as long as I solicit accredited investors, (as stated by the SEC “a natural person who has individual net worth, or joint net worth with the person’s spouse, that exceeds $1 million at the time of the purchase; a natural person with income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year”), which can be an unlimited number and a maximum amount of 35 non-accredited investors, (as the SEC states “all non-accredited investors, either alone or with a purchaser representative, must be sophisticated—that is, they must have sufficient knowledge and experience in financial and business matters to make them capable of evaluating the merits and risks of the prospective investment”). They also state that I must have a pre-existing relationship with them and that this basically cannot be a “cold call” solicitation.
Commission) regulations about soliciting investors for a
business which is a for-profit company. There are strict guidelines and it is very expensive, to the tune of around $100-200K, to register with the SEC.
Exemptions do exist for filing with the SEC and the major one for crowd-funding and my purposes is Regulation D, rule 504, 505 and 506, which basically states that for an investment of one million or less, I don’t have to file with the SEC as long as I solicit accredited investors, (as stated by the SEC “a natural person who has individual net worth, or joint net worth with the person’s spouse, that exceeds $1 million at the time of the purchase; a natural person with income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year”), which can be an unlimited number and a maximum amount of 35 non-accredited investors, (as the SEC states “all non-accredited investors, either alone or with a purchaser representative, must be sophisticated—that is, they must have sufficient knowledge and experience in financial and business matters to make them capable of evaluating the merits and risks of the prospective investment”). They also state that I must have a pre-existing relationship with them and that this basically cannot be a “cold call” solicitation.
What I found out from this attorney, which I was not aware of, is that I cannot solicit over 35 non-accredited investors, whereas I had thought that I just could not have more than 35 non-accredited investors. Also, in regards to the pre-existing relationship, I was informed that this term means that I have some knowledge of the financial status of the non-accredited investors.
So, there you have it, even though there is a petition before the SEC to increase the non-accredited investor pool from 35 to 500, there is no telling when that would take place especially given the fact that we're dealing with Washington red tape. This left me no choice but to put a halt to the invite due to the fact that I have more than 35 clients on my mailing list and that I don't know what their financial status is.
Hence, my period of inactivity, due to all of the above, and now maybe you can understand my frustration and disappointment. It sounds like I'm wanting to cry on your shoulder and maybe that is the case here...reaching out for a little sympathy and understanding. I realize that everyone goes through variations of this same theme and that I'm not alone, especially in this economy, but...dammit, it sure would be nice to get a break right now. So... If anyone out there knows of anyone that might want to part of this venture and take this exciting ride with me, just let me know by leaving a comment where I could contact them.
I will continue to search out whatever forms of funding I can find and keep you updated as to my progress...
Hence, my period of inactivity, due to all of the above, and now maybe you can understand my frustration and disappointment. It sounds like I'm wanting to cry on your shoulder and maybe that is the case here...reaching out for a little sympathy and understanding. I realize that everyone goes through variations of this same theme and that I'm not alone, especially in this economy, but...dammit, it sure would be nice to get a break right now. So... If anyone out there knows of anyone that might want to part of this venture and take this exciting ride with me, just let me know by leaving a comment where I could contact them.
I will continue to search out whatever forms of funding I can find and keep you updated as to my progress...
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