Crowdfunding Course 101 in British Columbia?

By Antonio A Arias and Joy Case

Since the announcement of the JOBS Act in April 2012, we have hosted speaking events,  crowdfunding meetups and webinars focused on the why and what of crowdfunding.  After months of discussions with a recognized institution in British Columbia, we are now drafting a course outline.

Crowdfunding/ crowdsourcing is definitely going main stream.  On October 23, 2013, the US SEC regulators tabled the JOBS Act Title III proposed crowdfunding rules for public comment. In Canada each provincial securities regulators are jockeying up for the leadership position while awaiting a national holistic solution. Saskatchewan was first off the gate yesterday (Dec.6, 2013) when it legalized crowdfunding to non-accredited investors.

To offer courses, the challenge is who to please first. Our objective is to educate three principal audiences with respect to time savings and financial gains:

1. small and medium size businesses (SMEs),
2. investors, and
3. professional service providers.

With technology advances, we can do more with less time, save money, and gain more revenues.

What is it about technology that changes everything?

Answer: It is all in the proprietary technology, which we will cover during the course. For those innovative early adopters, you are already experiencing it. We would like you to be our special guests too.

Our introductory course will be focused on the how to of  presales and equity crowdfunding.

We are targeting the following audience for these reasons:

Target Audience	Reasons
Entrepreneurs contemplating on test marketing or preselling their prototypes.	Portals are a good starting point to test market your minimum viable product (MVP) at lower investment costs.
Entrepreneurs contemplating equity crowdfunding	Equity financing involves all business school disciplines: marketing (IR/PR, social/traditional media), finance/accounting, securities law, human resources, psychology/sociology, arts and science, among others.
Investors – speculators, strategic, angels, venture capitalists, private equity funds,  institutional	Financing ecosystem will converge from angel, VC, PE, secondary trading, all the way to liquidity events by M&A or going public.Information technology has created a flatter world. If we break down silos or information gatekeepers dividing investor groups, we can all profit more efficiently.
Securities regulators, securities lawyers	Technology replaces archaic systems and still provides protective measures to investors while facilitating capital flow.
Professional  service providers (finance/analysts/ accountants, marketing IR/PR social media, securities lawyers)	Understand how technology has made our jobs so much easier and how you can provide more value added services to clients.
Traditionalists	Technology does not replace everything but enhances our productivity.  Find out how it complements your current practices.

Call to Action:

Here are our draft Learning Outcomes (Duration: Two six hour Saturday sessions)

1. Understand the 4 types of crowdfunding; historical and current practices
2. Understand how technology has enhanced financing and marketing practices
3. Identify and analyse best practices for successful crowdfunding campaigns
4. Gain experience producing and marketing video for investment pitches
5. Research and analyse social media marketing and public relations for campaigns
6. Understand how crowdfunding and crowdsourcing  are used as market research and predictive analytics
7. Integrating online and offline finance and marketing practices

We plan to host a series of courses and your inputs will allow us to deliver a better service.  If you identify yourself as one of the above audiences, what would you like to learn from our introductory crowdfunding course?

Your comments or inquiries are valuable to us. Please contact us through this blog or via our Twitter handles; @HealthVCFunder for Antonio and @FundItTV for Joy.