Crowd Funding: No Waffle

@nowaffle is the twitter name of Scottish entrepreneur, Amanda Boyle.

Amanda has an impressive track record in business:

• Founder and former CEO of Caledonia Contracts Ltd
• Non-executive chairman of Scottish Enterprise
• Founder of luxury goods retailer Bijou.

Her latest venture is Bloom VC. When I met her just outside St. Andrews last month she explained that the initials VC stand not for venture capital but venture catalyst. As the company explains on its website:

So you’ve got this great idea for a business …

You need some funding to get it

off the ground, but you don’t have the money. You could ask the bank, but with no proven financial or business track record it’s unlikely they could help. You could ask your mum, but it’s a big ask. It would be shame to miss out on the opportunity, but what to do?

Why not ask the crowd?

It’s simple really. Crowdfunding is just an alternative source of money to help you start up your own business or fund a brilliant community project."

Crowd funding is a new concept in the UK and it is not without legal pitfalls, but the concept has attracted a lot of serious interest (see "The Micro Price of Micropatronage" Economist 27 Sep 2010). It is an entirely new source of funding that social networking makes possible. For inventors and other entrepreneurs it can't be worse than going on a reality TV show like Dragons' Den or the Apprentice.