RealtyShares Partners with Blue Mountain Property Management in $3 Million Equity Crowdfunding Real Estate Investment Deal in Utah

Blue Mountain will begin purchasing more than 200 underperforming homes for rehabilitation/sales in Salt Lake City area

By Robert Hoskins

San Francisco, California – RealtyShares, a leading online marketplace for real estate crowdfunding, has raised $3 million from its investor network for a Salt Lake City residential property development fund with Blue Mountain.

RealtyShares Partners with Blue Mountain Property Management in $3 Million Equity Crowdfunding Real Estate Investment Deal in Utah

A Utah-based real estate firm focused on the acquisition, rehabilitation and sales of homes in the Greater Salt Lake City area, Blue Mountain will begin purchasing more than 200 underperforming homes through the fund. As a vertically integrated firm, they are equipped to manage all aspects of the purchase, rehabilitation, stabilization and sale of high potential properties. This is the fourth single-family home fund of this kind that Blue Mountain has raised through the RealtyShares platform.

“Crowdfunding has been a great time management tool for us,” said Kenneth Thomson, President of Blue Mountain. “While the money is coming from multiple investors, we only have to deal with RealtyShares. It saves us time so we can do what we do best – finding great homes to renovate. And because it is sometimes quicker to acquire capital through crowdfunding, we’re able to potentially negotiate better prices on properties.”

For more than ten years, Blue Mountain has been targeting properties below market value and rehabilitating them for rental or resale. The firm expects to acquire up to ten properties a month with the raised equity capital. Proceeds from the sale of renovated homes will be reinvested in the fund for additional properties through the 30-month term.

“This fund can enable investors from across the country to tap into Utah’s real estate market,” said Mark Masterson, Director of Investments at RealtyShares. “With low unemployment, a strong jobs market, and low inventory, the Greater Salt Lake City housing market has been attractive from the standpoint of an investor. Blue Mountain has been able to use their extensive infrastructure and sourcing capabilities to provide updated housing options that can be attractive to retail homebuyers and renters alike.”

The return ultimately realized by investors will depend upon the distributions from the projects and the value of the properties whenever they are sold. To date, RealtyShares’ network of accredited investors have funded more than $150 million worth of investments for over 2,000 properties.

RealtyShares is transforming the real estate investment landscape by connecting borrowers and sponsors to debt and equity capital from accredited and institutional investors, across an array of financing products. Private investments are highly illiquid and risky and are not suitable for all investors.

Through the RealtyShares website, these investors can browse investment opportunities, perform due diligence, invest online and have 24/7 access to an investor dashboard to watch how their investments are performing.

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(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.

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

Mr. Hoskins is one of the crowdfunding industry’s foremost crowdfunding advocates and has amassed a huge social media following that is dedicated to supporting donation-, rewards- and equity-based crowdfunding campaigns. Due to the overwhelming demand from the general public for crowdfunding information, he empowers entrepreneurs with some of the internet’s most affordable ($20) online crowdfunding training classes, which provide insight to startups around the world on a 24 x 7 basis.

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Crowdfunding PR Rolls Out Title III Equity Crowdfunding 2-Month Prep-Work Programs to Launch More Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns

The crowdfunding prep work program helps entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses amass a large crowd of followers on social media and utilizes PR to generate hundreds of articles on leading newspapers, TV/radio stations, trade publications and leading blogs

By Robert Hoskins

Austin, Texas (May 16, 2016) – Want to learn how to launch a successful Title III crowdfunding campaign on one of top 100 equity crowdfunding sites? To help crowdfunders achieve this elusive goal, Crowdfunding PR (http://crowdfundingPR.wordpress.com) announced a special two-month Crowdfunding Prep Work Program that will significantly improve a crowdfunding campaign’s success rate by amplifying its founder’s social media profiles and by utilizing an effective crowdfunding PR campaign to generate hundreds of stories in the electronic news media prior to the crowdfunding campaign’s launch.

How to Plan a Successful Crowdfunding PR Campaigns, a Step-by-Step Process

One of the biggest challenges that most crowdfunding campaigns face are weak social media credentials and the lack of a large group of social media followers that are needed to support crowdfunding campaigns with donations and/or investments. Building strong, professional Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles and amassing the largest possible group of followers on social media networks is crucial to conducting a successful crowdfunding campaign.

The second biggest task is generating stories on electronic news media outlets and blogs prior to launching a crowdfunding campaign. Not only can a well-orchestrated crowdfunding PR campaign generate hundreds of free, positive trade press articles to support the fundraising effort, but the same targeted, search engine optimized press releases will continue to drive new investors, potential customers and sales/distribution partners to the business long after the crowdfunding campaign ends.

“What many entrepreneurs and startups need to recognize is how important social media is in the world of crowdfunding,” said Robert Hoskins, Crowdfunding PR’s Director of Crowdfunding Campaigns. “The very first thing that an investor/donor does when they read through a crowdfunding profile they like is to look up the company and its team members on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to check out their credentials. Having a strong resume on LinkedIn, lots of likes on Facebook and an army of followers on Twitter is crucial to determining the strength of the team and the likelihood that they have the tenacity and skill set to deliver on their crowdfunding campaign’s promises.”

“Next, most investors/donors will do a Google search to see what they can find online for both the company and its team members,” Hoskins continued. “With a two-month crowdfunding prep-work campaign there will be several pages of search engine results that link to the client’s website pages, their social media posts/profiles and the crowdfunding campaign’s prep pages that will point to their live fundraising campaign on Kickstarter.com, Indiegogo.com, GoFundMe.com or any of the other 2016 Top 100 Global Crowdfunding sites.”

If you would like to speak with a crowdfunding PR, social media and/or marketing expert regarding your crowdfunding campaign please call Robert Hoskins at (512) 627-6622 or fill out the contact form at: https://crowdfundingpr.wordpress.com/about-crowdfunding-pr-campaigns/ to setup a telephone consultation.

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(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.

Mr. Hoskins is one of the crowdfunding industry’s foremost crowdfunding advocates and has amassed a huge social media following that is dedicated to supporting donation-, rewards- and equity-based crowdfunding campaigns. Due to the overwhelming demand from the general public for crowdfunding information, he empowers entrepreneurs with some of the internet’s most affordable ($20) online crowdfunding training classes, which provide insight to startups around the world on a 24 x 7 basis.

Mr. Hoskins adamantly believes that the crowdfunding industry will empower everyone in the United States to rediscover the possibility of living the American dream with a little hard work, a great business idea and the dedication to researching, planning and launching a well-thought-out crowdfunding campaign. He consults on a regular basis with crowdfunding campaign managers as well as crowdfunding sites, portals and platforms to deliver successful crowdfunding marketing campaigns.

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SEC’s Proposed Amendments to Approve Nationwide Intrastate Crowdfunding and Raise Limit to $5 Million for Small Business

SEC’s Proposed Amendments to Rule 147 and 504 to Facilitate New Intrastate Crowdfunding and the Sale of Regional Securities Offerings

SEC Staff Proposes Amendments to Securities Rules 147 and Reg. D. 504

 By Robert Hoskins

 SEC’s Proposed Actions for Title III Crowdfunding

The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering whether to propose amendments to Securities Act Rule 147 and Rule 504 of Regulation D.  The proposed amendments would be part of the Commission’s efforts to assist smaller companies with capital formation consistent with its investor protection mission.

Proposed Title III Crowdfunding Amendments

Proposed Amendments to Rule 147

The proposed amendments would modernize Rule 147 to permit companies to raise money from investors within their state without concurrently registering the offers and sales at the federal level.  The proposed amendments to Rule 147 would, among other things:

• Eliminate the restriction on offers, while continuing to require that sales be made only to residents of the issuer’s state or territory.
• Refine what it means to be an intrastate offering and ease some of the issuer eligibility requirements in the current rule.
• Limit the availability of the exemption to offerings that are registered in-state or conducted under an exemption from state law registration that limits the amount of securities an issuer may sell to no more than $5 million in a 12-month period and imposes an investment limitation on investors.

Proposed Amendments to Rule 504

The proposed amendments to Rule 504 of Regulation D would increase the aggregate amount of securities that may be offered and sold under Rule 504 in any 12-month period from $1 million to $5 million and disqualify certain bad actors from participation in Rule 504 offerings.  The proposed rules would facilitate capital formation and increase investor protection in such offerings.

 

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How to Make Money and Create Jobs by Teaching Crowdfunding Training Classes in Your City, State or Country

Did you know that 50% of the 48 contiguous United States don’t have one single crowdfunding training class? That means anyone with a marketing degree can make $49 to $399 per student teaching people how to launch crowdfunding campaigns

By Robert Hoskins

Austin, Texas – One thing that amazes me about the crowdfunding industry is the lack of training programs or community outreach programs that are available on a nationwide basis.  There are plenty of crowdfunding professionals that offer training programs, boot camps and workshops in major metropolitan areas, but what about cities with a population of less than 500,000 people?

Teach a Crowdfunding Training Class in Your City or State to Help Small Businesses to Create New Jobs

In most cases, cities with a population of 100,000 or more people usually have a Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development Council, SBA, SBDC,  and/or SCORE  offices that are setup specifically to help entrepreneurs and startups write business plans and find venture capital.

What surprises me the most about these organizations is that they don’t offer one single local crowdfunding training class on how to use crowdfunding  campaigns to raise money to get small businesses off the ground. Why is that?

There so many smart people out there that already teach business planning, business development, finance, marketing, etc.  Why not include a crowdfunding training class to teach entrepreneurs how to take advantage of the growing $10 billion crowdfunding industry?

Crowdfunding training classes, boot camps and workshops are charging anywhere from $49 for online classes to $399 for onsite conference training programs? Why not roll out these revenue generating programs to rural  America? Anyone familiar with the co-op business model should be able to quickly understand the concept of working with a whole community to share the cost of launching new businesses together.

 Anyone with a marketing background or public speaking experience should be able to read through the standard crowdfunding educational training program and with a little practice could teach millions of Americans how to launch successful crowdfunding campaigns to raise money to start new businesses.

To get a sense of the void of crowdfunding training classes available throughout the United States, please click on the state links below to see how many states have only one or zero crowdfunding training programs:

United States Crowdfunding Training Programs:

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri

Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

American Territories:

• American Samoa
• Guam
• Puerto Rico
• Virgin Islands

New Rewards-Based Crowdfunding Site Showcases Plans to Serve Niche Market of American Veterans, Service Members, Law Enforcement and Outdoor Products and Services Vendors

The donation- and reward-based crowdfunding site caters to those that protect and serve the red, white and blue and funding community projects

 By Robert Hoskins

Heber City, Utah – TwistRate announced that the crowdfunding platform officially launched and is positioned to serve veterans, service members, law enforcement personnel, outdoor enthusiasts, and the extreme sports, fishing and hunting communities a dedicated place to come together online to fund the ideas, passions and dreams of their communities.

FrogFuel Protein by Frog Performance Launches Crowdfunding Campaign on TwistRate

The donation- and reward-based crowdfunding site is truly unique, as it not only caters to those that protect and serve the red, white and blue, but brings communities together to fund passion projects and provides all of the tools for campaigners to accomplish their goals. TwistRate goes above and beyond typical fundraising sites’ services to offer intellectual property protections services, business plan writing, and full-service video productions and editing services, the cost of which can even be financed into approved campaigns.

Crowdfunding initiatives are expected to reach $93 billion in funds raised by 2025, with numerous platforms emerging to fill the needs of specific communities that often best understand the value their inventions are bringing to the market. TwistRate’s founders were inspired to create the platform particularly for veterans, who continue to suffer from higher unemployment rates than the general population, a figure expected to increase as more soldiers return home. TwistRate also helps those entrepreneurs and small business owners, who many traditional financial institutions have left behind, connect directly with their potential customers to raise funds.

Designed by Special Forces veterans to be “part social, part finance and all American,” TwistRate makes American dreams come true by connecting the dreamers with the dollars.

“What drew me to TwistRate was that it brought together the people who would actually understand and use my invention,” says Jeff Byers of Frog Fuel. “As a SEAL, I know how important teamwork is, and now, as an inventor, I’m getting the tools and resources I need to succeed, in a safe and secure environment, full of fellow vets and entrepreneurs. No big company would ever do this.”

“TwistRate’s goal is to make achieving the American Dream possible again,” says CEO Evan Hafer. “In the service and in my personal life, I have seen so many amazing inventors who produce innovations that will truly benefit their communities. It is time for these entrepreneurs to have an easy and secure way to connect with like-minded professionals who can help them create, launch, market and distribute their dreams.”

The site currently features campaigns from former SEALs, Marines and police officers, focusing on obstacle course-style races, performance and camping products, nonprofit organizations and more.

Headquartered in Utah, TwistRate was founded by Jeff Kirkham, who served for 27 years with the U.S. Army Special Forces, and Evan Hafer, who spent 14 years of his career serving as an infantryman and as a Green Beret Special Forces solider. Both of these men are inventors, athletes, entrepreneurs, teachers and avid outdoorsmen.

“We just wanted to create a special place for our community that gives its all, protecting and serving its country, its cities, its neighbors and its men and women in uniform,” says Kirkham. “TwistRate brings communities together to fund their own, build their own and make their own — all on their own. It is the American dream in action.”

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Power Practical Launches Kickstarter.com Crowdfunding Campaign to Solve Slow Charging Problem for Android and iPhone SmartPhones

New Practical Meter, Special Charge-Only USB Cables will Maximize Charging Rates for iPhones and Android SmartPhones Commonly Experienced with PCs and Laptops

By Robert Hoskins

Power Practical, a Utah-based start-up, is hoping to shake things up in the USB charging world. Their new device is called the Practical Meter. It monitors charging rates and lets users know when their phone or other USB device is charging at a slow rate. To cover production costs, the company is launching the new product on popular crowdfunding site Kickstarter.

New USB Meter Aimed at Solving Slow-Charging Phones Launches on Kickstarter.com

Many smartphone users charge their phones on desktops or laptops, oftentimes at rates far slower than expected. In many cases, phones will take over four hours to reach a full charge. This is because USB doesn’t have a well-defined standard for charging above 2.5 watts. It varies from iPhone to Android and so on. To combat this problem, the Practical Meter comes with charge-only cables that maximize charging rates.

The product is now available through a 30-day Kickstarter campaign. Interested backers can receive a Practical Meter and custom charging cables for only $19 USD. People who depend on their phones can rest assured with the Practical Meter. It will immediately identify and solve slow charge times, solving a problem experienced by millions.

David Toledo, founder and engineer at Power Practical, said the new meter will bring attention to a charging problem that millions of people experience. “Many people charge their phones on PCs at work or home, and experience slow charge times,” Toledo said. “The Practical Meter will identify these slow charge times and help users fix them with our fast-charging cables.”

To learn more about the Practical Meter, check out the product’s Kickstarter campaign and watch the video. The product will be available until the campaign ends in July.

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