ChrisAtOfferBoard

I've done skydiving and bungee jumping, but never cliff diving. I'll consider it. Thanks! :-)

So much to say here. First, build a rainy day fund -- bad things happen when you actually hit "empty", so even if it's just $100 per paycheck, put some money aside so that "empty" isn't ever an option. Second, look at expenses that you can avoid or reduce significantly. Get your personal burn as low as possible. Think of it this way: reducing expenses = increasing short and long term freedom. Finally, invest the difference in your future. I don't care if it's a friend's startup or a 401(k) or a mutual fund or even your own custom ETF through a company like Motif -- just invest. An investment advisor (which I am not) can talk with you about your priorities and help you allocate.

As with any naming involving (at least) two opinions, it was a (friendly) negotiation. As an example, I wanted Lucille or Lucia -- she ended up Lucy. Now I can't imagine her as anything but Lucy, of course. As Catholics, we used a lot of saints' names; there's quite a library of names throughout history.

Those sites do not sell securities. When you support an artist on Patreon or invest in a designer on Kickstarter to get (a promise of) a future product or a band on IndieGoGo to get (a promise of) a future album, you don't own anything. You aren't an investor in the company, or artist, or band. On OfferBoard, you invest in the company. You own part of it.

This came up most prominently in the case of OculusRift. People who had "invested" in the company on Kickstarter thought they were owed a return when the company sold to Facebook. But they weren't -- they had given the company money in exchange for a promise of getting an Oculus Rift headset. They weren't investors. They weren't owed anything when Oculus' founders sold the company for $2 Billion.

That's a presumption that a lot of people mistakenly make about funding platforms -- that the companies tried to find private money and were unsuccessful, and are now using the platforms as a "capital source of last resort". That's just not true.

See our recent article on that exact subject here: http://offerboard.azurewebsites.net/are-companies-using-crowdfunding-venture-capital-rejects/

On OfferBoard, we don't list companies unless our brokers and investment bankers have: (1) individually committed to lead the capital raise for the company -- which indicates at least some level of confidence that there is capital to be raised in the private markets for that company and (2) gone through a diligence and commitment committee approval process.

Our investment criteria is expansive and for the sake of brevity, here’s a link to our page that answers this question in great detail http://offerboard.azurewebsites.net/offerboard-listing-criteria-for-issuers/