Real Estate Crowdfunding to Take Center Stage at Crowd Invest Summit in Los Angeles

Real Estate Crowdfunding to be Major Focus at Country’s Largest Crowd Investment Conference

By Robert Hoskins

Los Angeles, California – Crowd Invest Summit, the country’s largest crowdfunding investment conference, taking place on September 6th and 7th at the Los Angeles Convention Center, has announced that it will be expanding its focus on Real Estate Crowdfunding.

Since the signing of the JOBS Act in 2012, Real Estate Investing has been the fastest growing segment of the new Crowdfunding Industry. According to CBRE, the real estate has more than a $1.7 trillion dollars worth of dry power ready to be invested in residential and commercial real estate deals.

“We expect over 3,000 attendees at Crowd Invest Summit this September, a significant portion being investors who are looking to learn about new opportunities,” said Alon Goren, co-founder of Crowd Invest Summit. “Real Estate investing has been a major focus at the summit, and because of overwhelming demand, this September we’re expanding on the topic.”

Crowd Invest Summit will feature the crowd investment industry’s top leaders, investors and firms covering real estate investing over the span of two days in September:

“As one of California’s preeminent real estate and business law firms, we are excited to partner with Crowd Invest Summit for its first-ever discussion on the emerging issues and opportunities presented by the ever-growing real estate crowdfunding market,” said Chuck Jarrell, Partner, Allen Matkins. “Crowdfunding has become an integral part of real estate investing and a topic that will resonate well with conference attendees.”

“We are excited to be back at Crowd Invest Summit this September to discuss how we’ve quadrupled our investor base by combining technology and marketing with an institutional approach to real estate investing,” said Michael Episcope, Principal, Origin Investments.

“Commercial real estate is no longer reserved for the wealthy. Now, everyone has the ability to passively invest in multi-million dollar properties, all thanks to crowdfunding,” said Matt Schuberg, CEO, RealCap. “We are very excited to come back to Crowd Invest Summit in September to bring these types of opportunities to the masses.”

“401(k) and IRA accounts provide access to 12 times more investment dollars than checking and savings accounts,” said Todd Yancey, CSO of IRA Services. “We are excited to explain the process to real estate investors at Crowd Invest Summit how to easily access that capital.”

“Now more than ever real estate companies should focus on the fundamentals and principles in mitigating risks to investors capital. Crowd Invest Summit offers both Real Estate Companies and potential investors to engage first hand and learn more about the risks and rewards of investing in Commercial Real Estate,” said Rayaan Arif, CEO, FundingTree.

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Financial Poise Announces “Equity Crowdfunding,” a Four-Part Webinar Series, Available On-Demand Now through West LegalEdcenter

Episode #1, entitled Title III, Regulation A+, and State Crowdfunding Regimes will feature Crowdcheck, CFX Markets, Crowdfunding Lawyers.net Riggs Davie in panel discussion moderated by Chris Cahill of Lowis & Gellen

By Robert Hoskins

Chicago, Illinois – The Financial Poise Webinar Series plans to explore the purchase of ownership shares in private companies via equity crowdfunding websites. “Crowdfunding” for this series refers both to investments made in this way by accredited investors – given greater scope by Title II of the 2012 JOBS Act – and those made by non-accredited investors under Title III of the JOBS Act.

Financial Poise Announces Four-Part Webinar Series, Click Now => Available On-Demand

Episodes in the series address the modes of angel investing in a company during its early stages, the opportunities and perils of crowdfunding real estate investments, the money-raising entity’s perspective, and a close look at crowdfunding options under federal and state law.

The first episode of the Equity Crowdfunding series, Title III, Regulation A+, and State Crowdfunding Regimes, features Moderator Chris Cahill of Lowis & Gellen. He is joined by Jordan Fishfeld of CFX Markets, Andrew Stephenson of Crowdcheck, Amy Wan of CrowdfundingLawyers.net and Alex Davie of Riggs Davie.

“Crowdfunding” is an elastic term, covering general solicitation of accredited investors as well as equity investments in private companies available to all investors (Title III). Private companies within certain size limits may be able sell shares to all investors under Regulation A+. State crowdfunding laws may complicate the picture or afford more opportunities, or both. Panel discussions will look at a range of “crowdfunding” topics.

Each episode will be engaging, sometimes humorous, and filled with conversations designed to entertain as it teaches and will be of value even to seasoned crowdfunding professionals. And, each episode in the series is designed to be viewed independently of the other episodes, so that participants will enhance their knowledge of this area whether they attend one, some, or all of the episodes.

Future episodes of the series will include webinars discussing angel investing, real estate investing, and raising money for a start-up through equity crowdfunding. Each Financial Poise Webinar episode is delivered in plain English understandable to business owners and executives without much background in these areas.

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Robert Hoskins
(512) 627-6622
@Crowdfunding_PR

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Mr. Robert Hoskins is a seasoned marketing veteran with a proven track record of helping entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses as well as Fortune 500 corporations launch successful marketing communications campaigns to gain market traction for a wide variety of products and services.

On a regular basis, Mr. Hoskins consults with crowdfunding campaign managers as well as crowdfunding sites, portals and platforms to deliver successful crowdfunding marketing campaigns.

Google search “Robert Hoskins Crowdfunding” to see why Mr. Hoskins is considered one of the industry’s foremost crowdfunding experts that has amassed a huge social media following, which is dedicated to supporting donation-, rewards- and equity-based crowdfunding campaigns.

Crowdfunding PR Raising Money via Wells Fargo Project Work to Build the Very 1st Equity Crowdfunding Co-Working Space, Incubator, Accelerator and Training Facility Center in Austin, Texas

Click on this image to vote YES for our Crowdfunding Co-working Incubator, Accelerator and Crowdfunding Training Facility on Wells Fargo’s Work Project Contest for Small Businesses

Show our crowdfunding campaign some love by clicking here and simply voting “Yes,” and then share this story with your friends on social media. Your one vote will help us WIN!

  By Robert Hoskins

Austin, Texas – Front Page PR’s 2015 Mission is to teach local communities how to buy distressed properties such as vacant warehouses and strip malls and invest a little bit of money to turn these properties into crowdfunding co-working spaces where entrepreneurs and startups can congregate and dream up new product/service ideas.

The Wells Fargo Works Project for Small Business. Please Click to Vote YES!

Utilizing co-working spaces, Front Page PR can teach startups via crowdfunding training classes how to use a new finance tool called “Equity Crowdfunding” to raise the sufficient seed capital needed to setup a business, transform their creative ideas into prototypes, pay for the very first manufacturing production run, and then convert these companies from fledgling startups into successful revenue generating machines.

Equity Crowdfunding was legalized in 2012 by the JOBS Act. By October 2015, the SEC should release the final Title III equity crowdfunding rules. Startups will then be able to use General Solicitation market their investment opportunities to over 180 million non-accredited investors throughout the United States. The result? Leading finance experts and venture capitalists agree that the crowdfunding industry will grow quickly into a $300 billion per year industry.

The biggest marketplace challenge is that 99% of the population is unaware of crowdfunding and will need to be trained on how to invest in new startups and how to raise money using equity crowdfunding campaigns. Our crowdfunding classes are complete, but the biggest problem we face is how to pay for an actual crowdfunding training facility, converting it into a co-working space, staffing it with experts, and then marketing the facility to the general public.

We would like to spend the $25,000 Wells Fargo prize to start the process of setting up a Crowdfunding Incubator/Accelerator facility for small businesses and utilizing it over the next two to five years to teach people how to use crowdfunding sites to raise seed investment capital. The business model should fund itself in less than 12 months based on monthly co-working memberships alone, but we need enough money to get things started.

Our Incubator will provide a directory of crowdfunding experts that mentor entrepreneurs/startups on how to use donation-based or rewards-based crowdfunding to raise enough money on sites like GoFundMe.com, Kickstarter.com, or IndieGoGo.com to get a business up and running. Our crowdfunding training classes will show startups the step-by-step process of how to conduct successful crowdfunding campaigns.

Our Accelerator will provide a directory of legal, finance and securities experts that will help businesses take their companies to next level by selling equity shares or debt in their company to investors to raise even more money. The investor training classes will show new, non-accredited investors how to vet deals and ride the coattails of super angels by utilizing investment syndicates.

Once the Incubator/Accelerator is established and producing successful startups, we plan to license the business model so that others can replicate this crowdfunding training business template anywhere in the United States, providing a tremendous boost to the US economy.

Why launch a Crowdfunding Training Center? After serving as the Director of Corporate Communications for several Fortune 50 companies, I was bitten by the entrepreneurship bug and jumped off the corporate ship in 2001.

Since then I have thrived on the joy of building industries one small company at a time and the love for sharing my accrued knowledge gained from a vast array of B2B industries, international sales & distribution channels and working with media organizations to maximize publicity.

My track record includes building a broadband wireless industry in 2001 with the Broadband Wireless Exchange Magazine, an Arizona solar industry in 2009 with the Arizona Solar Power Society and I have been working for the past three years on building a crowdfunding industry with Crowdfunding PR to score a hat trick in 2015 when the SEC approves the title III equity crowdfunding rules.

Please support our fundraising campaign to build the 1st Crowdfunding Co-Working Space, Incubator, Accelerator and Training Center in Austin, Texas. Click here and vote yes!

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Paid Mentorship Management Consulting Fees Can Help Fund College University Incubator and Accelerator Programs

Allowing Mentors to Earn Revenue while Colleges/Universities Collect a Commission for Facilitating the Knowledge Transfer is Great Way to Bring Leading Expertise to Remote Areas

By Robert Hoskins

Paid Mentor Management Consulting Fees

Another option for schools to generate funding is to create a management consulting practice in tandem with college and university incubators and accelerators. Many sources of mentorship can be attracted by allowing the subject matter experts to generate revenue by providing mentoring services for a consulting fee. 

Incubators/accelerators could take a 15% commission out of the consulting fee to add monthly recurring revenue to their incubator and accelerator programs. Payments for services can be paid in cash and/or might include an option to purchase equity shares in the first class of equity shares being offered during the seed fundraising round.

Using this strategy, schools with video conferencing capabilities can tap into talent on a worldwide basis. Using teleconferencing and distance learning applications schools can access the world’s leading entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and private equity investors, even in remote locations.

A single community college might not able to afford a speaking engagement with Guy Kawasaki, Elon Musk or Richard Branson, but working with numerous community colleges in any given state they could launch a rewards-based crowdfunding campaign to solicit enough cash to pay for an event that could be broadcast to a network of participating schools.  These single session tutorials, mentoring sessions or consulting engagements could be setup in a very similar manner to the very popular TedX talks.

Other sources of revenue can be earned by hosting conferences, trade shows, pitching competitions and/or training classes.

Learn more about crowdfunding:

• Building a Rewards-based and/or Equity-based Crowdfunding Ecosystem;
• Providing Easy Access to Seed Investment Capital with Crowdfunding;
• Generating More Revenue to Support Co-Working Spaces and Startups;
• Using Equity Crowdfunding Sites to Finance Incubators and Accelerators;
• Taking Advantage of Investor Syndicates that are Seeking Better Deal Flow;
• Splitting Revenue from Incubator and Accelerator Mentors Consulting Fees;
• Streamlining Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs);
• Cross-Pollinating College Education with Real World Startups; and
• Learning to Build Better Alumni and Local Community Relationships

 

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Want to learn more about setting up a college/university crowdfunding ecosystem?

Please fill out this form to get started:

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Raising Awareness for the Crowdfunding Industry through Free Online Crowdfunding Training Programs

Please help us spread the basic concepts of the crowdfunding campaigns with the masses by sharing the following free training class links with your social media networks

By Robert Hoskins

Austin, Texas – It amazes me to discover at business networking events the number of people that that have never heard of crowdfunding.  And while crowdfunding may still be under the radar for general population, based on the number of calls we receive each week, the crowdfunding industry is definitely experiencing hockey growth rates.

Our team at Front Page PR used to spend a tremendous amount of time on the phone educating future crowdfunding campaign managers one person, which was extremely time consuming.

Over the past 6 months, the demand for crowdfunding knowledge became overwhelming, so we decided to create the crowdfunding industry’s first free source of crowdfunding training classes.  The goal was to make it as easy as possible for anyone to learn more about crowdfunding by providing the basic crowdfunding training materials listed at the bottom of them page.  If you like the reading materials and find them useful, please help us spread the word about using crowdfunding as a small business finance tool to your social media networks.

“Just click to tweet. It is very easy!”

If you have a marketing background and would like to start a crowdfunding training class in your city or town, please give us a call (512) 627-6622.  We have several printed books that combined with the crowdfunding training materials listed below can help  any get a basic understanding of what it takes to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign.

Crowdfunding Training Class Links:

1. Introduction to Launching a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

   http://wp.me/p2XQpY-1G0 [Click to Tweet]

2. How to Conduct a Competitive Analysis for Crowdfunding Campaigns

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-F [Click to Tweet]

3. How to Shoot a Persuasive Video for Crowdfunding Campaigns

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1r [Click to Tweet]

4. How to Write an Effective Crowdfunding Profile that Converts Donors

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-S [Click to Tweet]

5. How to Write Copy with Language that Encourage People to Donate

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-P [Click to Tweet]

6. How to Offer the Right Perks/Rewards with Good Calls to Action

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1n [Click to Tweet]

7. How to Utilize Perks/Rewards to Conduct Marketplace Research

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-P [Click to Tweet]

8. How to Set Realistic and Achievable Crowdfunding & Fundraising Goals

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1a [Click to Tweet]

9. How to Do a Great Job of  Explaining How Crowdfunding Funds will be Spent

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1e [Click to Tweet]

10. How to Raise the First 30% of Crowdfunding Funds from Family and Friends

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-17 [Click to Tweet]

11. How to Build a Great Crowdfunding Management Team to Enhance Success

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1i [Click to Tweet]

12. How to Build a Press Room for Crowdfunding Campaign to Achieve Success with the Press

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1x [Click to Tweet]

13. How to Build a Press Kit with the Materials Reporters Need to Write a Story

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1z [Click to Tweet]

14. How to Write SEO’ed Press Releases to Promote Crowdfunding Campaigns

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1B [Click to Tweet]

15. How to Create an Informational Crowdfunding Campaign FAQ Sheet

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-14 [Click to Tweet]

16. How to Develop a Crowdfunding Timeline Complete with Milestones

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-2y [Click to Tweet]

17. How to Plan an Effective Advertising Campaign to Promote Crowdfunding Campaigns

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-g [Click to Tweet]

18. How to Use Content Marketing to Promote Crowdfunding Campaigns

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-u [Click to Tweet]

19. How to Calculate Average Crowdfunding Conversion Rates by Industry

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-M [Click to Tweet]

20. How to Use Email Marketing to Reach and Convert More Crowdfunding Buyers

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-12 [Click to Tweet]

21. How to Conduct Media Relations to Generate Publicity for Crowdfunding Campaigns

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1l [Click to Tweet]

22. How to Find the Best Social Media Tools to Promote Crowdfunding Campaigns

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1M [Click to Tweet]

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506 Docs Charts Course to Help New Start Ups Prepare Legal Documentation for 506 Reg. D Private Placement Offerings

506 Docs launches IndieGoGo Crowdfunding Campaign to fund new website that will provide 506 Reg. D FAQ sheets, tutorials, blogs and templates

By Robert Hoskins

Temple, Texas – The Texas-based Encite Financial Group announced a new business unit called 506 Docs, which will help small business owners who want to take advantage of  the SEC’s Regulation D during the private equity investment capital raising process.  To fund the new division, 506 Docs management team has launched an IndieGoGo Crowdfunding Campaign to raise the funding needed to educate the general public on the Rule 506 exemption, which allows an issuer to raise an unlimited amount of capital from an unlimited number of “accredited investors” and up to 35 non-accredited investors.

Regulation D 506 Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns

The website’s goal is to  provide tutorials, educational blog posts, FAQ Sheets, Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) templates and everything else  that a small business owner needs to file the right legal paperwork to conduct a small capital raise using the Reg. D rule.

A new portion of the Reg. D 506(c), which was passed on Oct. 23, 2014, now allows small business owners to market private equity investments opportunities using the SEC’s new General Solicitation rules, which allow broker/dealers to use advertising, PR, social media and other types of marketing campaigns to target only accredited investors.

According to the 506 Docs blog, Facebook and Twitter both got started raising capital using Regulation D. It might be hard to believe but Facebook’s first capital raise yielded just $6,750, but now has a market cap of $172 Billion that was developed in only 10 years. For people curious about researching their Reg. D paper trail, the 506 Docs blog contains links to Facebook’s first few SEC filings.

Reg. D is relatively unknown in the world of small business finance. While doing their research the 506 Docs management team discovered that finding real-time information from knowledgeable industry experts in the crowding in the industry was tough.

As a result the 506 Docs management team’s primary research, they determined that over $1 Trillion was raised using Regulation D during the period between 2010 to 2012, and then the industry saw a dramatic spike during 2013, when the SEC finally released the formal rules governing Regulation D investments.

 

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Kickback Machine: The World’s Best Tool for Researching Kickstarter Crowdfunding Platform Campaign Successes vs. Failures

Planning a Crowdfunding Campaign? Use the Kickback Machine to Research Prior Kickstarter Crowdfunding Campaigns First!

By Robert Hoskins

Thinking about launching a Crowdfunding campaign? Wouldn’t it be nice to find a tool that allows you to research past  KickStarter Crowdfunding campaigns to see which ones were successful and those that failed?

The Kickback Machine Crowdfunding Campaign Research Tool

A new Crowdfunding research tool called the Kickback Machine now allows researchers to search by keyword and various business categories to find and research past Crowdfunding campaigns to find out what works in the Crowdfunding business and what does not.

This tool allows both investors and future Crowdfunding campaign managers to analyze a wide variety of Crowdfunding variables such as Crowdfunding profiles, pitch videos,  fundraising goal, perks and rewards offered, campaign length, marketing strategies, successful PR campaigns and the publicity they generated.

Before Crowdfunding campaign managers launch their Kickstarter campaign, it’s important to research past projects, so they can understand what works and what doesn’t.

For example, Kickstarter’s website does a good job of helping you find past successes, but it is very difficult to find past projects that failed to meet their funding goal.  The KickBack Machine allows fundraising campaign managers to browse past successes and failures to help you better plan your own campaign.

Here are a few of the sorts of things you can find with the KickBack Machine that you can’t easily find at Kickstarter.com:

• Documentary Film projects that tried to raise approximately $25,000
• Design projects that tried to raise approximately $100,000
• Performance Art projects that didn’t meet their funding goals

Want to give it a try? Click on the Crowdfunding categories below to research what have been done in the past.

• All Crowdfunding Categories
• Art Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Comics Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Dance Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Design Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Fashion Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Film & Video Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Food Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Games Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Music Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Photography Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Publishing Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Technology Crowdfunding Campaigns
• Theater Crowdfunding Campaigns

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Related articles

• Top 10 Crowdfunding PR Tips for Fundraising Campaigns, Platforms and Websites
• Orange Leap Partners with give2gether to Triple #Non-Profit Organizations #Fundraising Efforts by Leveraging #New Crowdfunding Technology
• Front Page PR Unveils Crowdfunding PR Program for Crowdfunding Platforms that Pays for Itself
• Connectify Lanches Kickstarter Crowdfunding Campaign to Finance Broadband Servers in Underserved Areas
• Top 10 Value-Added Business Marketing Programs that Every Crowdfunding Platform, Portal or Fundraising Website Needs to Attract Potential Investors and Fundraising Profile Managers
• Early Growth Financial Services Adds Indiegogo Crowdfunding Platform and Niche Crowdfunding Companies to Growing Client Base
• Crowdfunding tries to grow up
• Five Tips on How to Get Great Publicity for Crowdfunding PR Campaigns in Media Outlets Everywhere
• Crowdfunding Research

Top 10 Tips for Selecting Crowdfunding PR Firm for Promoting/Marketing a Crowdfunding Campaign

Hiring an Experienced PR Firm with Strong Media Relations Experience and a Strong Database of Developed Crowdfunding Media Contacts Can Make or Break a Serious Crowdfunding Campaign Drive

Robert Hoskins, Director, Crowdfunding PR/Media Relations

By Robert Hoskins, Front Page PR

Follow these simple tips to find the best Crowdfunding PR firm to help launch a successful Crowdfunding PR campaign for fundraising platforms, portals, websites and individual Crowdfunding campaigns:

1. Check to see how many years the PR firm has been in business and examine what industries they have served
2. Review their Crowdfunding activity on popular social media sites such as Linkedin.com, Twitter.com, etc. to see how knowledgeable they are on popular Crowdfunding news trends in the media
3. Make sure they include a wide variety of written press materials in their monthly retainer, such as a Crowdfunding campaign profile, at least four press releases for a 30-day campaign, a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) sheet, a short white paper, online press room, and media training/message maps for executive interviews, etc.
4. Make sure that you will be working with a media relations expert that has at least 10+ years of media relations experience. The more media relations experience the better your publicity results will be.
5. Beware of PR firms that recommend signing up for expensive online tutorials, which then later pressures clients to buy more expensive PR services when they realize that they simply do not have enough time, experience or media skills to pitch stories to reporters successfully
6. Beware of PR firms that want to use free or cheap news wire distribution services.  Always use a premium news wire service such as Businesswire.com, Marketwire.com, PRNewswire.com or PRweb.com.
7. Make sure the PR firm adheres a strict no conflict of interest policy meaning they do not represent two companies or Crowdfunding campaigns that would be considered competitors at the same time.
8.  Ask for a PR publicity guarantee and a clip report that shows clients all the news stories that their Crowdfunding PR campaign generated
9. Ask the PR firm what other types of value-added marketing services are available such as press conferences, community outreach, email marketing, Google advertising/analytics, building fundraising donor databases, data mining, trade show speaker placement, product launches and perks fulfillment.
10.  Last, but not least, make sure the PR firm is thinking long term with initial Crowdfunding PR campaign. This means they need to completely understand building brand share awareness as well as business distribution channels for your products and services.

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Click here to setup a conference call to learn more about launching a Crowdfunding Campaign!

Related articles:

• Five Tips on How to Get Great Publicity for Crowdfunding PR Campaigns in Media Outlets Everywhere
• Top 10 Value-Added Business Marketing Programs that Every Crowdfunding Platform, Portal or Fundraising Website Needs to Attract Potential Investors and Fundraising Profile Managers
• New FilmFunder Crowdfunding Website Targets Hollywood Film & Entertainment Professionals
• Crowdfunding Expected to Drive Alternative Financing Market to More than $150 Billion by End of Year 2015
• Free Crowdfunding Webinar on Green For All
• Bellevate Launches Boutique Crowdfunding Site for Women Entrepreneurs, Startups and Inventors with Great Ideas
• Big-Concepts Launches New Crowdfunding Platform in Virginia to Fund Creative Projects
• Crowdfund it Today Partners with CommunityLeader to Deliver Crowdfunding Solutions for Entrepreneurs, Startups and Small Businesses in Atlanta
• PledgeCents Launches New Education Crowdfunding Platform to Help Schools K-12 Move to a New Level of Fundraising for Field Trips to Science

iCrowd Rolls Out Crowdfunding Validated Experts Program to Help New Crowdfunding Campaign Managers

New Features Announced for on iCrowd Crowdfunding Platform

iCrowd Rolls Out Crowdfunding Validated Experts Program to Help New Crowdfunding Campaign Managers

From Brad McGee, iCrowd CEO:

We are excited to introduce a number of site enhancements to make your experience with iCrowd more rewarding!  While you will notice little things throughout the site, here are some of the features that make us the most excited:
1.  Introducing Validated Experts.  iCrowd announces its first selection of Validated Experts. Validated Experts can provide significant value to the iCrowd community through their thought leadership and expertise.  Validated Experts will be clearly recognizable throughout the site.  To see them quickly, See our separate announcement for more information.
2.  We’ve enhanced the user view.  Throughout the site, we’ve created a new look for members that provides an in-depth view at a glance.  And, you can expand the information you see with just a click.  You can even invite users to your Advisory Board or Group directly from this new view.  Invite your friends.  You’re enjoying your experience on iCrowd, so let your friends in on your secret.  We make it easier to invite friends to join you. Now you can upload a CSV file with email addresses and send invitations.  Most email services allow you to export your contacts in CSV format.  Hey friends, join the iCrowd!
3.  Groups now have tags.  You can add tags to your Group to help users find you better.  When users search for Groups, they can enter a tag name and see what Groups meet their criteria.  Also, they can search for Groups under the Tags tab in the menu bar.  This is a powerful tool to find just the right Group and help promote your Group to others.
4.  Send messages to your Followers.  You can send a message directly from your Dashboard to those people who have chosen to Follow you.  It’s a great way to keep your Followers informed.
5.  Photos are now clickable.  Yeah, we noticed that we have a tendency to click on a person’s photo, not their name, to see their profile.  But nothing happened.  We fixed that.  Click away!
6.  We got rid of those weird profile photos.  When you uploaded your profile photo, you may have noticed that it got distorted when you created your thumbnail.  Some people appreciated the ability to add or subtract a few pounds or inches, but we thought the distortion was a distraction.  Now your photo will retain its original proportions.  If your profile photo looks strange, you might want to try uploading it again.  If it still looks strange, well, we can’t help you with that!
7.  See the votes on your answers in Ask the iCrowd.  If you answered a question and later was curious how many votes you got, you discovered that it did not show you that value for your own answer.  Now it’s fixed!
8.  See the new activity for your Advisory Boards or Groups.  On your Dashboard, you can now see the recent activity in your Advisory Boards or your Groups without having to check each one individually.
9.  Not enough characters?  We thought so too.  In discussions, comments, and email, you told us that we were too limiting in the number of characters we would allow for your entries.  We’ve greatly expanded these, so type away!  Why use one word when twenty will do?
Sure, there are a lot of other features we added and changed, but these are the highlights.  Let us know what else we can do to improve your iCrowd experience.  We’re working on a long list of new ways to help you out.

U.S. Small Business Administration to Host National Crowdfunding Webinars Next Week

U.S. SBA Free Crowdfunding Webinars

SBA Offers Webinar Series Promoting
Entrepreneurship Education and Small Business Growth 

WHAT:        The U.S. Small Business Administration will host a series of Free webinars in recognition of the seventh annual National Entrepreneurship Week.  The emphasis will be on how the next generation of small business owners can leverage crowdfunding as an alternative finance option to start and grow their businesses.

WHEN:         

Tuesday, February 19 at 3:00 p.m. (EST)

Crowdfunding – Pros and Cons
Jay Goth, Business Consultant
TriTech Small Business Development Center (SBDC)

Wednesday, February 20 at 3:00 p.m. (EST)

Crowdfunding Innovation

Kevin Lehman, CEO and Co-Founder
Three Revolutions                      

Thursday, February 21 at 3:00 p.m. (EST)

Kickstarting an Urban Farm

Ryan Finch, General Manager
Raleigh City Farm

HOW:             Audio Conference Login Instructions

1.  Dial the AT&T Connect TeleconferenceToll-Free Number – 1-888-858-2144

2.  Enter your AT&T Access Code

– 4259370 (press the # key)

                        Web Conference Login Instructions

1.  Login at www.connectmeeting.att.com2.  Enter “Meeting Number” 1-888-858-2144

3.  Enter “Access Code” 4259370

4.  Enter “Email Address, First and Last name”

5.  Click Submit

6.  Click Participant

7.  Click Participant Application (Recommended)

8.  Click “Enter” Event

9.  Click Dial-In/Already Connected by Phone

(Close the Telephone Connection Instructions pop-up box)

System Requirements:

To set up the AT&T Connect Participant application, a user’s PC must run either Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Vista, Mac OS X 10.8 or Mac OS X 10.7 with either Internet Explorer 7.0 (or higher) supported.  AT&T Connect does support the Chrome, Safari or Firefox browser.

Note:  The phone number is the “meeting number” when logging in tohttps://www.connectmeeting.att.com.

A separate telephone line is needed for the conference call-in portion. For assistance with AT&T Connect Web Conference Service, contact AT&T Connect Customer Care at 1-888-796-6118.