Kickstarter

[Guest FourAces]

Just curious have any of you invested in a Kickstarter project? Once in a while I will see one that catches my interest but have yet to actually pledge any money. If you have not seen the site its here.

[marcanthony]

Just curious have any of you invested in a Kickstarter project? Once in a while I will see one that catches my interest but have yet to actually pledge any money. If you have not seen the site its here.

Yes, but it's always been a "friends and family" situation. About 30% of the ones I have done have actually gotten fully funded and therefore charged my card (if they don't reach the goal by the date, it goes to zero).

Crowd funding is a new phenomenon and a good thing IMO, and it might not be long before the SEC allows capitalization of start-ups in this way. Instead of tshirts and posters, you can actually get stock!

[Guest FourAces]

That would be awesome if we could receive stock in these start ups. I think I be ore tempted to actually send money if that were the case. To the SEC it really should not matter if your seed money came from a venture capital firm or a bank warehouse line of crowd funding. I don't see how either of those sources would change anything as long as full disclosure is met.

So have any of your friends or family projects been successful or still in the building stage?

PS these companies don't give away t-shirts in my size

[marcanthony]

well the hurdle the SEC had to overcome was the paternalism of the Federal Government. To this day, investments in "start ups" typically require larger minimum investments by people who are called "accredited investors" meaning that they meet a minimum standard of either annual income or net worth. the reasoning behind this was to prevent people without much means from losing their last pennies in high-risk, high return type ventures. I agree with you that this is moot if full disclosure is met as we don't ask for tax returns before we let people buy lottery tickets (LOL), but it's quite an about face for the SEC (finally).

I was part of the kickstarter for "Going Down in La La Land" because the young (and very beautiful) star in the show, Matthew Ludwinski, is a personal friend. It's managed to run the indie film circuit, have a couple of mainstream (small venue though) openings, and is now selling in DVD. Not a rip roaring success, but really good for Matthew and it's helped his career and his happiness... so that (much more than autographed posters/DVD's/credits has made me very satisfied with this kickstarter.

the others either failed completely or are still percolating....

[Guest gcursor]

I've been involved in a few Kickstarter campaigns. I like how it gives the average person the ability to do something amazing with funding from people. I am always amazed when I log in about some of the uniquely creative ideas that people come up with. I think it's a very great tool!

[JKane]

I haven't contributed yet, but I know a couple people who've gotten projects fully funded well above the request. Turns out there is a way to monetize having a well-run blog with a large following... So for what it is I think it's great that it exists now. Another service like it for investing would be welcome, but that's going to be difficult. I have heard about an interesting thing for loans that's somewhat similar though...

I did, however, recently donate to operation "Lets Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum".

[Guest Hoover42]

I have, and I much prefer contributing money to these often small but interesting projects than to some giant faceless entity that receives millions of dollars of year in donations.

[Guest FourAces]

I did, however, recently donate to operation "Lets Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum".

Really? I never would have guessed you were such a huge fan