New to Investing?

If you are new to investing and are confused by Crowdfunding – or investing in general - you are not alone.  Crowdfunding is a new industry, so one of the many responsibilities of all the new Crowdfunding platforms will be to educate potential investors like you about the ins and outs of Crowdfunding.  I will release some more posts soon about risks and other factors you should know about before investing in Crowdfunding, but we will start with the easy stuff first.  Since you will have to wait until 2013 before any platforms launch, there will be plenty of time to touch on the other subjects later.

So why invest in Crowdfunding?  For one thing, Crowdfunding will be very simple – find a company you love and invest in it!  You will be able to find all of the information you will need about these businesses on Crowdfunding platforms, like InCrowd Capital, where you will be able to determine which companies you like enough to invest in.  On most platforms, you can invest as little as $50-$100 in a company that you like.  The businesses will be smaller, growing or startup companies that have higher risk, but also have higher chances for large returns – one of the major appeals of Crowdfunding! 

To invest in Crowdfunded businesses, you do not need to be familiar with stock market investing, bonds, mutual funds or ETFs, or know anything about market caps or P/E ratios.  That is why I love Crowdfunding.  Trading stocks is complex, with an overwhelming amount of statistics and data, and I hated trading with huge banks, hedge funds and trading firms that got information two weeks before I was able to; by then, the markets had moved and it was too late to do anything with my money.  With Crowdfunding, you do not have to worry about what the President says or what is happening in Europe. 

I know that raises some more questions, so in my next few posts, I will be touching on some other Crowdfunding basics you will need to know before getting started.  Here is what you can expect to see soon:

-          Why have I not heard of equity Crowdfunding before now?

-          How much can I invest in total in Crowdfunding investments?

-          Is investing in Crowdfunded companies risky?

-          What strategies will increase my chances of success?

-          When will I get my money back or earn a return on my investment?

-          After I invest, how do I know how my investment is doing?

-          Where do the businesses looking for Crowdfunding capital come from?

-          What are the differences between all of the platforms out there?

Also keep an eye out for industry news, if you are interested, and some comments on what else is going on across this new and exciting industry!

About Phil Shmerling

My name is Phil Shmerling, and I would like to be the first to welcome you to the Crowdfunding Capital blog, where I will be touching on trends, news and regulatory updates in the fledgling equity-based Crowdfunding industry.  You can also find this blog at www.philshmer.com.  I hope to make this the destination page for anyone looking for information on the Crowdfunding industry, and I welcome any and all feedback that will help improve the content of this blog.  Here is a brief introduction about myself to get you started, and I will be following up with some additional blog posts in the coming days:

I was recently told by the Chairman of Choice Food Group, the last company I worked for, after telling him about the possibility of my leaving to start my own business – “Phil, entrepreneurship is an addiction – a bug - and you have been bitten.  I have it too, so I understand, and let me tell you, there is no cure for this addiction.  Betty Ford cannot help; there is no 12-step program.”

Hello, my name is Phil, and I am an entrepreneurship addict. 

I have known most of my life that I have wanted to start my own business, so for me, the past 30 years have been preparation for the inevitable.  My journey started with brief stints in Birmingham, AL and Indianapolis, IN before my Mom, Dad, older brother and two younger sisters settled in Memphis, TN, which I consider my home town.  I went to Ridgeway High School in Memphis, a public school where I considered myself getting the best “social education” one can receive -  having not hit 100 lbs. until my junior year, let’s just say that I had to learn very quickly how to get along with a very diverse group of people.

After high school, I attended Indiana University and studied accounting and finance at the Kelley School of Business before spending three years as an investment banking analyst with Morgan Keegan, working as an analyst in mergers and acquisition advisory.  After three years of learning about the financial side of business, as well as learning from some very smart and successful people, I left Memphis for Nashville, to work for Choice Food Group, where I learned more about what it takes to run a business as the head of Choice’s retail division.

After close to five years at Choice, the fateful words were spoken, and now here I am, with a new addiction, recently married to my dear wife, Laura, and starting a new business out on my own (Laura is, of course, ecstatic!).  Now, as the CEO of InCrowd Capital, an equity-based Crowdfunding platform based here in Nashville, I am living my dream of running my own business, while doing what I love – meeting entrepreneurs, listening to great ideas, and helping others realize their dreams, too.