Happy days! Today we launched our own equity crowdfunding campaign. Within 12 hours we already had over 50 percent of our minimum goal pledged and we’re well on our way to our $100,000 max.
It’s been a crazy ride getting this far. We were licensed late July to provide equity crowdfunding, and we feel like we haven’t stopped working with companies on it ever since. We’ve launched two campaigns, and we’re working with dozens of companies. Now we’re walking the talk, eating our own dogfood and all sorts of other cliches so you can own a little piece of PledgeMe.
Big thanks to everyone who has pledged already. The amazing amount of interest shows crowdfunding, especially for equity, is all about activating your crowd. We started talking to our friends, family, team, and other pals a while back, priming them for today. In fact, we’ve been talking about equity crowdfunding crowdfunding since the beginning. One of our first calls to the FMA (way back in 2011) was about the regulations around selling shares. In a show of how small New Zealand is, the same person (hi Chris!) that answered that call back then is now on the team at Buddle Findlay that supports us.
If you’re thinking of doing an equity campaign, it’s important you have a plan to activate your crowd. Although PledgeMe is pretty cool in its own right, you’ve gotta tell people what you’re up to otherwise no one is gonna invest. We made a list of our First Fifty — the 50 people we thought most likely to invest straight off the bat — and talked to them all. We put out feelers on our personal facebook, and drank lots of coffee (and wine). We also approached media, and we’ve already had a few great stories about the campaign.
We’re amazed at who is showing up to this party. Some of the pledgers aren’t people who we’ve talked to. This is a good sign that our crowd is bringing in their crowd. It’s crowds all round.
