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Traditional Crowdfunding Can Help Vets Start Businesses

Veteran crowdfunds for franchise, hires six employees 

Many veterans come home to a persistent high unemployment rate and a mountain of debt. They’re not welcomed by banks for small business loans because of their bad credit, their lack of assets and at the beginning, no cash flow. However, certain franchises are inexpensive to get into, and finding the kind of money that veteran Larry Colley needed to acquire an air conditioning service business can be relatively easy via crowdfunding.

Through the veteran themed crowdfund platform Sprigster, Colley found $4000, and soon after hired six people. This is surely one of the best ROI for jobs on record.

For determined veterans seeking to start a small business in a local setting, the help of friends, neighbors, veterans groups and eager consumers can quickly turn a well conceived dream into reality, with a built-in fan base.

Niche crowdfunding platforms are proliferating, specializing in everything from Veterans to breweries to apps. The Veterans sites are smaller and have the advantage of a mission supported by fellow veteran investor/donors. The larger, more established sites like Kichstarter, Indiegogo and RocketHub have a lot more traffic.

Entrepreneurial veterans will need to seriously social network themselves and their project to all of their affinity groups, including their former service members. Maybe unit cohesion can pay off in the longer run! Reflecting the grassroots nature of traditional crowdfunding, the average crowdfunding project on Kickstarter is $7000 and the most common donation amount is $25.00. Many projects have raised much higher amounts, and many projects fail.

Equity crowdfunding is soon to be implemented in the US. In the UK and France, where equity crowdfunding is already legal, we can see a pattern likely to be repeated here: the average amount raised by a company: $400,000; the average investment by investors; $2900.

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CrowdfundingRoadmap is a leading edge source for equity crowdfunding that guides aspiring entrepreneurs to the information, resources and steps to prepare their business for equity investors of all kinds.

Funding Roadmap is an innovative, networked business planning and due diligence reporting system for funding professionals and entrepreneurs alike. It also includes a video pitching platform, a document repository and deal flow marketplace so entrepreneurs will have an online medium to brilliantly communicate all the essential data – along with their personal passion and commitment.

Ruth. E. Hedges is the creator and CEO of Fundingroadmap.com, CrowdfundingRoadmap and the Crowdfunding Convention and Bootcamp. She has been featured in the New York Times, on ABC’s Home Show, and the Financial News Network did a two-part series on her for their show entitled ‘American Entrepreneur.’ For more information please visit fundingroadmap.com.

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