A book recommendation from Dan Beaulieu: 

The Crowdfunding Handbook: Raise Money for your Small Business or Start-ups with Equity Funding Portals

By Cliff Ennico

Copyright 2016 Amacom Books

Price: $19.95: 265 pages with appendix and index

Finally a great guidebook for crowdfunding!

This books by Cliff Ennico who is an attorney by the way provides us with everything we need to know about crowdfunding. Sure we’ve all heard the stories…have a great idea? Put it on the Kickstarter web site and money will start pouring in! It’s as easy as that. No big deal works every time. Well like everything else that sounds too good to be true it is. Sure these stories are real, certainly this can happen. But alas nothing is that simple. There is much more to crowdfunding than just that.

First of all there are a number of different crowdfunding sites all of them a bit different from the other. So you have to choose, you have to decide which one is best for you. Then there are the rules to each of these sites. Then what are the best ways to write up your product or service description, then there are all of the finite details that you have to understand before you, well before you just dive in.

Let me give you some advice. Before you do anything read this book because it is without a doubt your personal GPS getting you entrance and passage into the world of crowdfunding.

Author Ennico not only advises from the point of view of the person seeking capital from investors but also takes you to the other side of being an investor. From explaining exactly what crowdfunding is; then the history of crowdfunding to how to choose the right source, how to write your offer announcement coping with your new partners (yes this means you will have partners) to filing progress reports with the SEC ( yes you have to do that…does that sound like amateur hour?).

You get my point? There is a lot more to this way of getting investors than meets the eye and if you’re serious about getting involved in this new (old way) of getting to people to invest in your company then do not take another step without getting a hold of a copy of this book.

Oh and by the way this book has an appendix that is loaded with all of the tools you are going to need in your new venture from yes that scary SEC form to an LCC operating agreement to a term sheet for crowdfunding offering to debt securities. In short everything you need but did not know enough to know you were going to need.

WARNING do not enter these crowdfunding waters without this book!