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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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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How to Generate More Revenue for Co-Working Startups by Launching a Rewards or Equity Crowdfunding Ecosystem

How Equity Crowdfunding Can Take College and University Co-Working Spaces and Incubators to the Next Level

By Robert Hoskins

Generating More Co-Working Revenue with Crowdfunding

Most major universities and colleges have set up on-campus Entrepreneurship Centers, Innovation Labs or co-working spaces to facilitate an environment that encourages students to use their creative minds to develop innovative ideas and turn them into successful startup businesses.

Joining a co-working space allows students setup an affordable office or working space to rub elbows with like-minded individuals and discover people who have the same set of goals and objectives as they do.  This provides a unique opportunity for new startup founders to cross pollinate each other and fertilize new ideas that sometimes leads to the decision to co-found a business together.

Part of the draw for co-working spaces are community lunch rooms, founder dating events, after-hours cocktail parties, social mixers and Meetup groups, all of which can provide access to great sources of well-educated, but very cost-effective labor pools.

All of these activities serve a useful purpose in allowing co-founders to find talented workers that will be needed to help their new businesses begin harvesting new ideas and business concepts, put them on paper and turn them into a high impact startup ventures.

In addition to people, co-working spaces provide cheap office space, meeting rooms to setup video/teleconferences, board rooms for team meetings, video production facilities to shoot pitch videos, access to data centers and hardware/software laboratories where new ideas can be tested on the latest and greatest smartphones, smartwatches, tracking tags and bracelets, tablets, laptops and wearable technology devices.

For larger audiences, a large auditorium or theater provides the perfect venue for visiting guest speakers, corporate presentations, pitch contests and many other type of large meetings with panel discussions.

Below is an example of what a well-planned co-working floor plan might look like courtesy of the T-Rex facility in Missouri.

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Source: T-Rex Co-Working Facility in Missouri co-locates two venture accelerators, venture capital companies, an SBA-funded resource center, and a training and mentoring organization along with other incubator companies

Co-working spaces have the ability to offer very affordable working spaces for students and local entrepreneurs that want to start a student or family-owned business. Renting out space for $250 to $500 per month and serving 250 entrepreneurs would create potential monthly recurring revenue opportunity worth $62,500 to $125,000 or up to $1.5 million per year.

An average size cubicle is 75 sq. ft. so serving 250 co-workers would require approximately 18,750 sq. ft. to provide very comfortable dedicated working spaces, but many average co-working desks are much smaller.

Increase the facility’s size to accommodate a kitchen/lunch room, conference rooms, rest rooms and one large auditorium and the total space required would be around 25,o00 sq. ft.

Co-Work Space Business Plans

Thinking about opening a co-working space, but need help with writing a good business plan?  We Googled a bunch of business plans and here are three co-working business plans that we thought are worth a look:

• Co-Working in Vermont – A Starter Guide – 30 pages
• Design House Co-Working Business Plan – 80 pages
• FUSE Community Work Hub Co-Working Space Business Plan – 30 pages

If you want more examples, please check out this list of the Top 75 Co-Working Spaces in America.

Rewards or Equity Based Crowdfunding Platform

Once a co-working space has been set up, the next step in the process is to launch a rewards-based or equity-based crowdfunding ecosystem so that members of the co-working space can use the site to raise seed stage investment capital to get their companies up and running.

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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Top Cities in the United States to Start a Crowdfunding Training Class, Seminar or Workshop Business

Top Crowdfunding Training Classes Available throughout the United States

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Searching for an affordable crowdfunding training class, workshop or seminar to learn more about how to launch a crowdfunding campaign to start a new business and start bringing entrepreneur’s and inventor’s creative business ideas to life?   States below with a number have at least one scheduled crowdfunding training class. Those with a zero have none planned.

If you a true entrepreneur and there is a zero listed for your state, you should consider starting your own crowdfunding training business.  We supply the instructor training and class materials. All you need to do is find a venue and start setting up local training classes.  Click on any state with a zero for more information.

States that are listed in Bold Type have already approved Equity Crowdfunding for unaccredited investors. If you want to receive information on where to take a crowdfunding training class or to sign up up to become a certified Crowdfunding Training Instructor, please fill out this form:

Name(required)

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How Can We Help You? Attend a Crowdfunding Training Class Start a Crowdfunding Training Business Add My Training Class to Your Monthly Calendar

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Alabama – 0 Alaska – 0 Arizona– 2 Arkansas – 0 California -31 Colorado – 4 Connecticut -0 Delaware – 0 District of Columbia – 3 Florida – 5 Georgia – 6 Hawaii – 0 Idaho – 0 Illinois – 4 Indiana – 0 Iowa – 0 Kansas – 0 Kentucky – 2 Louisiana – 1 Maine – 0 Maryland – 3 Massachusetts – 6 Michigan – 9 Minnesota – 2 Mississippi – 0 Missouri – 0

Montana – 0 Nebraska – 0 Nevada – 2 New Hampshire – 0 New Jersey – 1 New Mexico – 0 New York – 19 North Carolina – 2 North Dakota – 0 Ohio – 3 Oklahoma – 1 Oregon – 1 Pennsylvania – 3 Rhode Island – 0 South Carolina – 1 South Dakota – 0 Tennessee – 1 Texas – 9 Utah – 1 Vermont – 0 Virginia – 5 Washington – 3 West Virginia – 0 Wisconsin – 0 Wyoming – 0

Front Page PR Offers Free Crowdfunding Conference Template for National Trade Show and Exhibit Companies

How to Plan a National, Regional or Local Crowdfunding Trade Show

By Robert Hoskins, Front Page PR

Crowdfunding is a growing industry and more and more people are discovering the benefits of using the power of the crowd to finance their new business. While Equity Crowdfunding is not legal yet, rewards and perk based Crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, iCrowd and others are growing at double digit rates on a monthly basis.

Many people are just now discovering the Crowdfunding industry for the first time and are actively searching for trade shows, conferences, seminars and workshops to learn about the Crowdfunding process.

Like any new industry, the Crowdfunding industry is replete with supposed Crowdfunding experts that want to charge hundreds to thousands of dollars to share their infinite Crowdfunding knowledge with newcomers seeking to learn all there is to know about Crowdfunding.  If any Crowdfunding event does not have an agenda like the one published below, you might think twice before spending your hard earned dollars to attend their event.  There is nothing to be learned from rehashing last year’s news.

There is nothing unique about the Crowdfunding industry other than the fact that President Obama signed the JOBS Act  into law on April 5, 21012 with full bi-partisan support.

Crowdfunding portals are nothing more than an eCommerce center that allows entrepreneurs, startups and even existing small businesses to raise donations and collect money via a website. In fact, anyone with a WordPress website can download a Crowdfunding widget for around $99 and start raising money right now regardless of how long the SEC stalls the actual Equity Crowdfunding industry.

In fact, most people that are in the Crowdfunding industry have very little experience in running a real industry, which is why we created this trade show marketing template to show anyone, anywhere what most industries already know –  how to set up a national trade show event.

At the current time, Crowdfunding subject matter experts are charging $500 to $10,000 per speaking engagement plus travel expenses to share their twelve month’s of experience with naive people who want to learn more.  These subject matter experts have very little industry experience in talking about what really matters in building an industry-grade Crowdfunding platform, which is the underlying technology or marketing strategies that differentiate one platform over another.

Instead of inviting Crowdfunding executives for keynote and panel discussions, it would be a much wiser to decision to staff an industry Crowdfunding trade show and exhibition with high technology subject matter experts that can address how to set up an effective, yet safe Crowdfunding portal.

Learning how to setup a Crowdfunding portal with 99.999’s of reliability, security software applications that will protect their investors/Crowdfunders against fraud, business partner programs, Crowdfunding audit statements, call centers, cloud-based data centers, or network management facilities would be a much wiser investment for attendees that want to learn how to get into the Crowdfunding business.

For Crowdfunding campaign managers (Crowdfunders), Crowdfunding trade shows should provide an actual trade show floor that is full of Crowdfunding exhibitors such as platforms, portals and ancillary Crowdfunding Service Providers (CSPs) or full-service  PR firms that can help Crowdfunders execute targeted Crowdfunding marketing campaigns to make their Crowdfunding campaigns successful.

It would also been a great opportunity to introduce both Crowdfunding portals and Crowdfunders to licensed Broker Dealers with extensive SEC regulatory experience in order to help both parties structure Equity Crowdfunding portals or Crowdfunding campaigns to meet or beat any set of Crowdfunding guidelines that might be issued by the SEC in the very near future.  In fact, early leaders in the Equity Crowdfunding portal space are already actively raising equity investment capital for small businesses via accredited investors through traditional securities guidelines.

In order to attract speakers to a Crowdfunding event all that an event really needs is a Crowdfunding conference website that follows the guidelines below and that publishes a call for papers or presentations via a well written press release.

Aggressive PR professionals are always on the lookout for great events to place their executives for free speaking opportunities including keynote speeches, breakout sessions, panel moderators/members, tutorials and many other types of speaking/publicity opportunities.  These executives speak at events for free.

There are also numerous trade show portals that aggregate trade event information and publish the details via trade show directories.  Once listed, PR people are sure to begin pitching their executives to furnish free presentations on their expertise in return for the publicity and the free brand share awareness that these events generate for their companies.

This Crowdfunding Trade Show template is meant for executives at national trade show companies such Freeman, GES or Reed Exhibitions, that want to delve into putting together a large-scale, professional-grade Crowdfunding trade show, which is predicted to become a $300 billion industry.

Great targets for Crowdfunding trade show hosts would include IDG,  Tech Web, or Ziff-Davis publishing.

In fact, any industry trade publication, TV station or newspaper with more than 100,000 readers/viewers, should not only host a Crowdfunding event, but should also consider launching their own Crowdfunding portal to support their local community.

Collecting a five percent commission on all money raised is a prime opportunity for newspapers to not only add a badly needed revenue stream, but to help their local communities launch new businesses, which will provide a dramatic economic development stimulus package without incurring any new tax burdens for their citizens.  A typical Crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter is raising between $100,000 to $1,000,000.   Ten $1 million dollar campaigns per month equals around $6 million per year.

All high technology industry trade associations that host national trade shows should also include a low-cost Crowdfunding pavilion at their trade show events in order to educate their attendees as well as their exhibitors on how to use Crowdfunding to raise investment capital for existing and new startup businesses.  The more businesses that are launched, the more potential exhibitors will be at next year’s show!

Example National Crowdfunding Exhibition & Conference

1st Day Kickoff Event

9:00 am                Breakfast Keynote:   National Trade Show Executive Director

10:00 am             Kickstarter Presentation: Record Growth in 2012, Projections for 2013

11:00 am              IndieGoGo Presentation: Record Growth in 2012, Projections for 2013

12:00 pm              Lunch Keynote:  Financial Analyst –  Crowdfunding:  A $300 Billion Market Opportunity

Lunch Round Table Discussions:

Round top table discussions will be seated and grouped by industry segments, which will contain a table 20 subject matter experts including journalists, industry analysts, Crowdfunding Service Providers (CSPs) and successful Crowdfunding campaign managers for each business segment.

Many national associations won’t have a need for all of these industries, but these should give you a good idea of what is possible for most business-to-business associations on state-by-state basis:

Table   1:  Information Technology/Cloud Computing

Table  2:  Computer Networking/Telecom/ISPs

Table   3:  Security/Fraud Prevention

Table   4:  Games/Video Games/Smart Phone Apps

Table   5:  Film/TV/Entertainment

Table   6:  Music/Concert Venues

Table   7:  Art/Dance/Fashion/Theatre

Table   8:  Publishing/Comics/Books

Table   9:  Real Estate

Table 10:  Crowdfunding Service Providers

Table 11:  Gadgets/Gizmos

Table 12:  Bring Your Own Social Devices

Table 13:  VC/Angels/Financial Analysts

Table 14:  Adv/PR/Social Media/Email Marketing

Table 15:  Pres. Obama/Congress/SEC

Table 16:  Social Giving/Community Outreach

Table 17:  Bio Tech

Table 18:  Oil/Gas/Renewable Energy

3:00 pm               Crowdfunding Press Conference Example

Speakers:

1. Press Conference Moderator
2. Economic Development Official
3. Venture Capital
4. Licensed Broker Dealer
5. Perks-Based Crowdfunding Service Provider
6. Equity-Based Crowdfunding Service Provider

4:30 pm               Crowdfunding Service Providers/Venture Capitalists/Potential Crowdfunders Mixer

8:00 pm               Crowdfunding VIP Party Awards Dinner

1. MVP Award – Outstanding Crowdfunding Achievement
2. MVP Award – Fastest Crowdfunding Portal Growth
3. MVP Award – Best Business to Business (B2B) Portal
4. MVP Award – Best Business to Consumer (B2C) Portal
5. MVP Award – Best Social Community Outreach Portal

2nd Day Preliminary Breakout Sessions:

Welcome to the National Crowdfunding Exposition & Conference breakout session agenda, which will consist of moderated panel discussions covering the follow topics:

8:30 am        Continental Breakfast/Coffee Bar

9:00 am – 10:00 am        Breakout Session #1

CSP:  Rewards-Based Crowdfunding

Creative:  Games/Video Games/Smart Phone Apps

Financial:  Venture Capitalists

Technology:  Information Technology

Community:  Education

10:30 am – 11:00 am       Coffee/Bathroom Break

11:00 am – 12:00 pm      Breakout Session #2

CSP: Equity-Based Crowdfunding

Creative: Film/TV/Entertainment/Music

Financial: Angel Investors

Technology:  Security/Fraud Prevention

Community:  Emergency Relief

12:30 pm –  1:00 pm        Coffee/Bathroom Break

1:00 pm  – 2:30 pm        Breakout Session #3

CSP: Donation-Based Crowdfunding

Creative: Art/Dance/Fashion/Theatre

Financial: Financial Analysts

Technology:  Computer Networking/Telecom/ISPs

Community:  Churches/Houses of Faith

2:30 pm – 3:00 pm        Coffee/Bathroom Break

3:00 pm – 4:30 pm        Breakout Session #4

CSP: Create-Based Crowdfunding

Creative: Publishing/Comics/Books

Financial:  Real Estate

Technology: Gadgets/Gizmos

Community: Economic Development

Speakers Bureau:

Welcome to the National Crowdfunding Expo & Conference press room. All editors, reporters, successful crowdfunding campaign managers and industry analysts with press credentials will be allowed to attend this event for free as a VIP guest with access to all keynotes, breakout sessions .

Speakers need to submit high-res photo, 300-word biography and 800-word description what they would like present during keynote speeches, panel discussion and round table discussions. Deadline for submission is February 28, 2013. Click here to fill out the speaker request form.

Press Conference:

Press conference should look just like the one we did for the Crowdfund Texas Conference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CEd2A2jXsAA

Only credential members of media will be allowed to attend.  The five speakers will make 5-minute comments on their vision for development of American Crowdfunding industry followed by short question and answer session.

Remote site reporters will be provided an audio bridge to listen in on the press conference and ask questions during the Q&A session via twitter by posting questions to @Crowdfunding_PR

Press Rooms:

Three quiet press areas will be available for PR people to reserve to conduct interviews with journalists on the National Crowdfunding Expo & Conference media list. There will be a small RSVP charge around ~$25.00 for 30 minutes to help pay for press room space to make sure rooms are used and are available on a first come, first served basis.

Press List:

Welcome to the National Crowdfunding Expo & Conference press list. All editors, reporters, successful Crowdfunding campaign managers and industry analysts with press credentials will be allowed to attend this event for free as a VIP guest with access to all keynotes, breakout sessions.

Press Kit Room:

All exhibitors will be allowed to provided printed materials for inclusion at the onsite press room as well as the virtual press room on the trade show website.

1. press releases
2. white papers
3. research studies
4. power point presentations
5. video clips
6. photos/logos
7. executive bios/head shots

Media Sponsorships:

Welcome to the trade show media sponsorship page.  All publications that list a short description of the on their publication’s event calendar and a logo with link back to trade show website will receive a receive a reciprocal mention on the trade show website and publication bins to provide bonus trade show distribution of their magazines to all attendees.  Magazine distribution sponsorship to attendees rooms is also available. Click here to download sponsorship opportunities.

Exhibitors:

Welcome to the National Crowdfunding Exposition & Conference exhibitor’s page.  All publications that list a short description of the Crowdfunding Expo on their publication’s event calendar and a logo with link back to trade show website will receive a receive a reciprocal mention on the trade show website and publication bins to provide bonus trade show distribution of their magazines to all attendees.  Magazine distribution sponsorship to attendees rooms is also available. Click here to register for an exhibit booth.

Front Page PR has helped setup many industry trade shows and would be happy to help anyone setup a national, regional or local Crowdfunding event. Please contact us for more details.

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