Crowd funding Startups in Iceland

[Original post written @http://startupiceland.wordpress.com]
Just in time for SXSW, the House passed the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act. This is a big step in the right direction, of course the US Senate has to pass this bill for President Obama to sign this into law. Venturebeat has the news about the bill here, and has a FAQ Page for Crowd Funding Bill go read it. The biggest advantage of this bill is the right to allow Startups and small companies to raise capital through Crowd Funding platforms like Kickstarter or Twitter. In addition, it reduces some of the restriction on the size of the shareholders needed to raise capital before going public etc I believe that is what is needed in Iceland. If a company really has the numbers and business case to really put themselves to the scrutiny of the crowd, I say that is true transparency and power. Check out the Infographics about Crowd Funding explosion around the world and here is a nice introduction to Crowd Funding.

I want to start a Crowd Funding Platform for Startups in Iceland, I think it will open up many options for Entrepreneurs and release them of the shackles of running behind investors or wanna be investors. I am positive that there are some legal restrictions on this in Iceland, I need to understand it. The biggest challenge I see many entrepreneurs face is the endless time spent on running to raise capital to build their business. The smart ones understand that Investors are not going to invest in them at an early stage so they straight go to their customers, but I think there is a middle ground. What if you need some capital to scale your business to acquire more customers or expand internationally? That capital raise path is full of mines... at least the way I see it. There are too many intermediaries and investors spend too much time trying to uncover what could go wrong. I think there is an opportunity to build a business to raise capital from the public as I am sure they are not making a lot of return on their investment sitting on bank deposits. What do you think? Do you think a Crowd Funding Model for raising capital for Startups and Entrepreneurial companies will work in Iceland?

Well, I told myself... there is only one way to find out. I am launching a signup page for Crowd Funding Platform. The design idea for the platform will be very similar to Kickstarter. Are you relentlessly resourceful? Can you pitch your business, show traction and attract an investor to get interested in your business in a 2 minute video? That is going to be the format, we will mashup the site sourcing from different applications that are already available like Crunchbase (a database of startup companies), Vimeo (video database platform) and WordPress (hosted domains) and a couple of resourceful teams that I have come to love as they execute so well. Lets Startup Iceland!

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• Grass Roots Band of Entrepreneurs, ICO Group, Reaches-Out to SBA to Help American Business Ready Itself for Crowd-Funding (prweb.com)
• On Crowd-Funding Sites, Age Doesn't Matter (entrepreneur.com)
• Crowd-Funding - Start-Up Businesses Need To Take Note (bizsugar.com)
• Is Crowd-Funding For You? (outside-the-boxblog.com)