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[And try the Spanish/French translation special version below.]
The Garage Capital Guide to Innovative Business Funding
This site is being developed to streamline and demystify the process of raising capital for very small businesses with big growth potential, with an eye toward the fullest expansion of those businesses. It includes links to relevant laws, practical advice, and examples. It replaces an attorney only to the degree that knowing how a haircut is given makes it possible to cut one's own hair. It's not a big deal, and certainly worth the money -- unless we all had to get haircuts blindfolded. It has a distinctly "metaphysical" bent because the webmaster has found that doing right, doesn't just "clear a conscience," it seems to fuel supernatural "serendipity" and other divine occurences.
You know who you are. By stealth or bravado, sweat or slack, you have the germ of a really great business that you are trying to nurture on a shoestring budget. Is it possible? This section complements the Garage Shares link below. It is an article for the garage inventor or any garage businessperson who is looking for funding, but who may be a little apprehensive about all of the forms and regulations that appear to be attached to raising money. Raising capital is a skill, like writing HTML for web sites, and equally incidental to the business. But SOMEBODY needs to know HTML. Nobody should have to fret to ask a friend for money, even if they don't yet know the name of that friend -- that is my feeling on the matter. In this article, we go from basic to fairly advanced.
The Golden Rule is where friends come from, not Wall Street or Washington, but it is a comfort to realize that at this time, an inventor can launch a "public company" for relatively little money. This is not necessary, and it has not always been so, so we go into some of the dimensions of raising money without issuing stock in the above page Funding Garage Inventions . For instance, any of us can invite friends to help us in our activities, or make contracts promising to provide a product or service for a certain amount of money. And the law draws clear distinctions between a business owner and a hobbyist. This article includes some info about OTC public stock offerings, which is increasingly public knowledge thanks to the world wide web.
A few words about some of the kinds of communication that are allowed when trying to contact investors with the good news about one's philanthropic project, with pictures. Worth the minute longer wait for the ad's to load. There are limitations on advertizing securities like loans, which are discussed in the sections above.
Small Business and the SEC includes some helpful advice about interacting with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a link to the SEC to get a copy of a very helpful publication, "Q&A: Small Business and the SEC."
The accompanying Form D , if used to raise less than $1,000,000 in more than one state, doesn't need to be filed with the SEC until up to 15 days after money begins to be accepted. It is a essentially a receipt. A good SEC Link for information and forms like this is http://www.sec.gov/smbus/forms/formssb.htm or http://www.sec.gov and click on "Small Business."
Regulation D is described in some detail in both the Funding Garage Inventions and Garage Shares pages above. I think it would be great if the SEC would publish comic books like the Federal Reserve does.
The Small Corporate Offering Registration, SCOR, also known as ULOR, Uniform Limited Offering Registration, or Form U-7. This form is for registering small exempt offerings of securities, up to $1,000,000, and it is in the form of a questionnaire.
An advantage of the U-7 stock approach is that most states' Departments of Corporations are already prepared for it as a securities filing. Three disadvantages of the U-7 are that it is the only form in its range that requires auditing, in some states 10% of the offering is required to be sold or it is cancelled, I have read, and in some states it is restricted in other ways and carries larger fees than Regulation A. It is also described in some detail in the Funding Garage Inventions page above.
A brief description of the most popular filing format for public stock offerings up to $5,000,000, with a link to obtain a copy of the form.
There is a page here discussing the issues relating to displaying executive summaries while conforming to state and federal securities regulations. This is also where those interested in investing in small businesses or small business owners or students can view "executive summaries." In my experience, the perusal of these documents has been invaluable.
Do you have an idea for a business? Would you like to submit a two page summary about it for other visitors and investors to read? Your summary will make it possible for others to see what an executive summary looks like and reads like. Perhaps you need feedback on your evolving business opportunity, and you don't yet know it. If you have a Regulation A or SCOR/U-7 document, see the link below. If you need for your information to remain confidential, please consider other web sites like Wit Capital or other Investment Banking broker-dealers or AceNet. At this time, only summaries of projects that have not been funded and projects which are completed can be accepted.
How the site was written and prepared, and how an SEC "No Action" letter was requested and the Department of Corporations of California and various small business counseling groups contacted for feedback. And plenty of prayer, like the prayer of right intention and expecting the best.
How To Make Professional-Looking Web Sites
For those who are planning to approach investors for their business, but haven't yet taken the step of launching a web site. Get busy. Get seen! This is a very very short page of advice on how to have a high impact at next-to-no expense.
The links are divided according to government, organization and private funding operations, and are to some degree annotated.
Spanish/French Version of Garage Capital
To obtain a good translation from the English version of this book, I have written this short version of this book. It has simpler sentences with more common words. Simpler sentences are easier to translate. If you read English and like to read simpler sentences, please try reading this version of the book, in combination with one of the many translation programs available online and for purchase, such as http://www.intertran.net , http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com , or http://translator.go.com .
In this article, I try to get at the spiritual why's of entrepreneurship. "There is no spoon."
Contact Us
Don't be a stranger. mailto: garagecapital@aol.com .
Main Index | Funding Garage Inventions | Garage Shares | Small Business and the SEC | The New Regulation D | Form U-7 | Regulation A | Executive Summary Gallery | Executive Summary Submission | This Site | How To Make Professional-Looking Web Sites | Links To Capital | The Razor's Edge
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