Fundable Blog

On Tap at Fundable - Breweries Nationwide Find Funding

Wed, 22 May 2013 19:02:41 GMT

Breweries across the country are finding success on the Fundable platform. Last year alone, the craft brewing industry grew 15%, so it’s no surprise that backers and investors are flocking to support new and innovative breweries on the rise.

Grape Vine Craft Brewery

Grape Vine Craft Brewery has gathered an entire community around their mission to serve Texas beer made with Texas pride. Bringing in $22,225 of pledges in just 6 days.

World of Beer (Midwest)

New Tap Development LLC is adding to their existing portfolio of award-winning bars, they’re on track to open 16 locations within the next 36 months.

American Brewing Company (Washington, West Coast)

This award winning brewing company brought in $1 million dollars in top line revenue last year, and secured a Pacific-coast distributorship through Safeway.

Big Chicago Brewing Company (Chicago, Midwest)

This team of brewing engineers have used their decades of experience to launch the first contract-only craft and private label brewer in the Midwest.

Linkstorm Lines Up an Incredible Client Portfolio

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:48:00 GMT

Linkstorm is an advertising technology company that delivers significant performance boosts for Display Advertising, Mobile Advertising, and Social Media. The company’s patented IP and delivery system significantly improves brands ability to engage users with relevant display ads, content and social streams.

The team has created the next generation of display ad performance and lined up some phenomenal clients working seamlessly with brands, creative agencies, media agencies, ad networks, and ad exchanges to increase brand awareness through stunning visual display.

Happy clients include Hilton, The New York Times, Expedia, Land Rover among others.

Fundable #1 in Forbes, $3.4 Million in 30 Days

Wed, 15 May 2013 15:48:00 GMT

Fundable's Wil Schroter #1 in Forbes:

5 Things Founders Don't Talk About

Having started his first company at 19, Fundable CEO Wil Schroter has almost two decades of experience starting businesses. His latest article on Forbes paints an honest picture of life as a startup founder, and the doubt and loneliness that can arise as entrepreneurs start off on their own to build a company. The article was read by over 40,000 people, making it the most viral post of the week on Forbes. Thousands of startup founders joined in discussion, echoing Wil's sentiment that being a startup founder isn't easy, but it is worth it. Read More...

$3.4 Million Raised on Fundable in 30 Days

It's been an incredible month for startups on Fundable. Companies in a variety of industries- from Fitness Apps and Culinary Content to Children's Products and Games- have brought in over 3 Million dollars of funding in just 30 days. We're thrilled that so many passionate entrepreneurs have reached their funding goals and are launching great businesses across the country.

FIT Radio Raises Funding Goal in 4 Days

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:01:00 GMT

In just a few days the FIT Radio team has blown past their initial fundraise goal to become 144% funded.

The idea behind FIT Radio is simple. Fitness fanatics can energize their workouts with fresh mixes of music from all genres, hand-curated by the world’s top DJs, and brought straight to their mobile devices. The streaming music service is commercial free- just press play and go.

Founders Russell Green and Daniel Lipton believe that when you’re working out, having the right music—the kind that gives you a boost of energy when you need it most—is key. The perfect song can make you faster, stronger, and more motivated.

FIT Radio delivers exactly that—all the perfect songs for your workout with the push of a button. With FIT Radio, you just pick your favorite genre and go, letting nonstop, high-energy music fuel your workout. No need to worry about creating a playlist or getting distracted by a song that doesn’t pump you up.

It’s clear that FIT Radio’s users are excited about the direction of the app. In only 4 days on Fundable, the FIT Radio team brought in 245 backers and reached 144% of their initial goal. Backers have especially loved the $60 pledge reward—a limited time offer for a lifetime, ad-free subscription to FIT Radio Premium.

The continued success of this campaign will keep FIT Radio ad-free and and help the team develop new features and expand to additional platforms.

Congratulations, FIT Radio!

Optimizing for Productivity

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:28:00 GMT

When people hear about all the fun activities we're doing at Fundable, they start to ask if we're yet another Internet company that's just screwing around. We do love to have fun, but the truth is we're also militant about our productivity. There's a reason we're doing all of those activities in any given week. We're not just enjoying our lives, we're optimizing for productivity.

Sounds Like BS

On the surface, it would. So let me explain our cultural philosophy behind productivity. It started with an experiment I did years ago after sitting on a beach (burnt out from work, not the sun) reading Tim Ferris' Four Hour Work Week.

Tim suggested you could optimize your time to fit all of your productive hours into just four hours a week. It was a sensationalist title and basically improbable, but Tim was onto something. After reading it, I turned to my wife and said "I wonder how many productive hours I actually have in a week?"

So when I got back I created a log of every 15 minutes of my time. As it turns out, I only have about 4 productive hours in my 12 hour day. I became fascinated not with the 4 hours of productivity, but the 8 hours of non-productivity.

Productivity in Waves

Like many people, we see our productivity peak and valley like a wave. It not linear - we don't just wake up in the morning with constant peak productivity throughout the day.

Working through peak productivity is easy. It's the valleys that we're concerned about. If I could map out my productivity waves throughout the day it would look something like this:

And on top of that, I've noticed a similar crash throughout the week almost like clockwork.

It then builds up throughout the quarter, at which point I'm totally exhausted and need some serious downtime.

As the day, week, or quarter grinds on, and my valleys start to become more frequent, I'm not only less productive, I'm less happy. There's got to be a fix for this.

What are we Optimizing For?

Before we get into how to optimize the valleys, let's take a moment and talk about what we're optimizing for in the first place.

At Fundable, our jobs typically require creativity, presentation (usually to clients), flow (like when we're coding or designing and it's just all flowing) and ultimately output.

We're not a factory. We can't just work longer hours and expect the same output. We have a limited window when we're actually useful, which means the rest of that time is basically wasted.

If we know for sure that we only have a certain amount of "turbo" with which to extract all of that creativity and flow, then it would stand to reason that when it runs out, we should make better use of that time so we don't waste opportunities to recharge effectively.

Predicting the Valleys

Right now when we hit our valleys, and we're sitting at our desks, we screw around. We update our Facebook status, we watch funny Youtube videos, and we surf the Web mindlessly. It's the Internet company equivalent of just screwing around.

We're not screwing around because we're not productive. We're screwing around because we've hit a valley and our minds are telling us it's time for a break. So why not take one? Why not take lots of them?

The key here is to plan for valleys throughout the day. You plan for one at lunch time every day, and it's generally accepted that you should take one. But what about the rest of the day? How do you optimize for those valleys?

Creating Value from Valleys

Instead of mindless wandering at our computers, how about just getting up and doing stuff we genuinely enjoy? Now at Fundable when we're burnt out after a few hours we get up and shoot some hockey. We play pool. We take a walk through the woods (our office is in the woods, so it's not a long journey).

Instead of looking at stupid YouTube videos, we're looking at trees and wildlife. We're aligning our workdays with our Saturdays. We feel genuinely recharged and ultimately we're happier.

Pacing for Life

What we're doing in the short term is pacing our days. But longer term, in a matter of weeks and months we're deliberately taking time to avoid burnout.

Years ago I ran a sprint triathlon (read: wimp triathlon). I found during training when I let my heart rate run to 170 bpm I would burn out quickly, while only increasing my lap time slightly. Yet when I ran or biked at a measured pace of 150 bpm I felt like I could run forever.

What we're doing by scheduling breaks is optimizing for productivity. We want to be able to gain more peaks by recharging in the valleys. And we're not just thinking about the daily benefits - we're thinking about how it affects the rest of our lives.

Wil Schroter @wilschroter is the co-founder and CEO of Fundable.com. Wil has founded 9 companies including Virtucon Ventures, Fundable.com, Blue Diesel, Unsubscribe.com, Affordit.com, GotCast.com, Startups.co, and Bizplan.com.

Celebrity Webchefs Cooks up $435,000 in Funding - Reaching 174% of Goal

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:19:00 GMT

Celebrity Webchefs is making cooking an interactive experience, creating video series that pair well-know celebrities with gourmet chefs preparing delicious and healthy meals. From cooking novices to experienced foodies- anyone can learn how to cook while getting tips from their favorite stars. Currently in filming, Celebrity Webchefs has released first-look videos featuring Gretchen Rossi and Alan Thicke, with several A-list celebs signed on to round out the series.

Celebrity Webchefs was founded by a team with extensive experience in the food and technology industries. Co-founder and veteran entrepreneur Bill Baker has been a pioneer in emerging internet technologies, and an advocate for new media throughout his career. Bill joined with classically-trained chef and restaurateur Chris Breed (the force behind some of the most successful restaurants in Los Angeles). The pair merged their talents and expansive celebrity networks to create a platform to share flavorful and healthy recipes in an incredibly engaging way.

Bill leveraged the Fundable platform to navigate the fundraise process with early stage angel investors. According to Bill, "It took a complicated process and broke it down to be user friendly, allowing me to present my deal in a compelling way that incentivized my prospective investors to act quickly. From my initial conversation to the close of my fundraise the team at Fundable did a phenomenal job supporting my efforts"

Initially setting out to to raise $250,000, the team exceeded their goal to become 174% funded, bringing in $435,000 from investors. They’re looking forward to expanding their line up of instructional videos and adding additional niche culinary content to the platform.

Can a Daily Recess Cure Startup Burnout?

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:29:00 GMT

At Fundable, if we're so focused on output and productivity, why is that we take so many breaks and seem to be playing games all the time? It's because we believe that in order to be productive, you have to be well-paced throughout every day.

One way we're tackling that challenge is to create a daily "recess" every day for 30 - 45 minutes. Think of it like a second lunch break every day.

Unbalanced Schedules

If you look at the time slots of a typical 9 - 6 work day, you work for 3 hours in the morning, take a lunch break for an hour, and then work for 5 hours in the afternoon. By default, you've got a bit of an unbalanced day.

On top of that, your energy tends to be a bit drained in the second part of the day when you need a break the most.

We tend to work well past 6 on most days so the imbalance is even more lopsided. To account for this imbalance, we've developed a second break in the day where the whole company just gets up and leaves for a while.

We Take Lame Breaks Otherwise

By default our minds need a break throughout the day, so we tend to take them without realizing it. We're sitting at our desks just goofing around on Facebook, YouTube or MySpace (we go retro). It's neither productive nor refreshing in a meaningful way.

We're looking for breaks that actually allow us to disconnect for a while, recharge, and come back to our desk with a fresh mind. That usually involves some form of physical activity, but at the very least, it requires getting away from our desk for a while.

Scheduled Reset

Probably the most important thing about our recess is that it's planned at 3:15. It may not sound that important, but it's critical for two reasons.

First, if everyone in the company is getting up from their desks at the same time, no one feels bad about it. It's exactly the way people view lunch. No one feels bad about eating mid-day for an hour because everyone does it.

The second is that it gives you a way to mentally plan for a stop. Without having a scheduled stop (like lunch) it's too easy to just motor through until the end of the day. Unlike lunch, where a key signal is that you're hungry, a recess break really needs to be deliberately triggered.

What we do with our Break

We're in an unusual position at Fundable in that we happen to have an office that is tucked away in a wooded ravine. So we've got plenty of room to explore outside. Even if we didn't, just the exercise of being anywhere but in front of our computers is helpful.

Personally I love to play sports, so for me it's a quick game of street hockey or volleyball. A lot of our team members enjoy taking walks or going for a more active run through some of the trails. Some just sit outside and read.

We don't want to oversell it - we're not exactly a commercial for Clif bar (none of us are in that good of shape). But we look for a heavy contrast to staring at a laptop screen all day and we're serious about making that happen.

Is it Effective?

Hell yes. In the same way that going to lunch gives you a necessary social and mental break you can look forward to, Recess absolutely recharges us. What we lose in 30 - 45 minutes is more than made up for in the last part of our day when we'd otherwise be dragging.

And more importantly - we're just happier. When we go home at the end of the day, our work lives involve more than just what we typed into our laptops. That's a big deal for us.

Can Entrepreneurs also be Great Parents?

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:50:00 GMT

Having lived the better part of my youth in startup culture, one of the least popular topics I've encountered is managing the demands of being a parent while meeting the demands of running a startup.

There's so much emphasis on working insane hours and growing quickly that managing a family just becomes something you figure out on your own. As a company, we want to build a strong "family first" culture.

We've spent a lot of time talking about this. The topic is basically "how can we hack our work day to build an amazing startup and an amazing family at the same time?" It's way too early to tell if our approach will work, but here’s how we’re getting started.

A New Batch of Parents

In the past few years most of us at Fundable have become parents for the first time. And in a strange twist of probability, almost all of the men have had daughters, which is great, because all of our little ladies get to grow up together.

But it's also been an opportunity for us all to grow up together as parents. Instead of just one of us trying to explain to everyone else that we have to take our toddler to swim lessons, we're all taking our toddler to swim lessons.

Committed to being Great Parents

Early on as a team we made a commitment to creating a culture that would be supportive of our roles as parents, not just employees. None of us wanted to grow our careers at the expense of our children.

I distinctly recall one of our team members explaining this challenge during his initial interview.

He said "At my last job, my wife and daughter visited me at work all the time. I remember being so busy that I always told them I couldn't talk right now because I was too buried. I don't want to be that guy ever again."

We couldn't agree more. None of us want to be "that parent" who looks back and says they had to sacrifice the childhood of our kids. Eff that.

Family First, No Questions Asked

Startups demand insane hours, so it's tough when everyone is working like crazy and you have to be the one guy that raises his hand at 4:00 and says "I have to leave to do something with my family". It makes you feel bad because you think everyone else assumes you're not pulling your weight.

Instead of groaning, or whatever the emoticon for that is in Instant Messenger, we encourage it. We high five people for being great parents.

We know that being productive and participating isn't a problem - our team is incredibly hungry. But shifting focus to spend quality time with family is an important value for us, so we get behind it 100%. We think simply supporting our team emotionally is a big step in the right direction.

Bring Kids to Work

At any given time throughout the day, our spouses will bring our kids to the office to play with us. It's fantastic. Everyone in the office gets up and plays with the kids. Meetings stop immediately for anyone that sees their family show up.

Spouses don't need to schedule time. They can show up whenever they want. We want to thread our time with our families into our work day, not just our nights and weekends.

Even if it's only a half hour in the afternoon once a week, it changes the dynamic of our family time in a meaningful way. It also gets everyone else in the office to see that our families are awesome, not just a distraction from working. Calling our families a “distraction’ sounds awful, but when people are leaving in the middle of projects, it’s easy to forget why.

Become Part of Our Events

We do lots of activities throughout the week, from yoga to hockey to grilling out. These are all great opportunities for the families to show up, even if just to hang around and make fun of how awful we are at sports.

Usually this only happens during forced company meetings at holidays and one-off "team building" exercises that everyone pretty much dreads. We have a fun team that enjoys spending time together, so we leave the invite open to anyone that wants to join. And they do, which is awesome.

Show up for Dinner

Most of us come from a generation of two parents working, single parents and divorce. Put simply - we come from a place where lots of empty seats were at the dinner table every night. We want our kids to have a different story when they grow up.

Leaving "early" from work often means 7pm. Kids usually eat sometime before 8 p.m., so we need to make sure we're getting our team out of the office and headed home for those important hours. The fact that most of us will just go back to working after our kids go to bed is a totally separate story.

That's just the Start

Fortunately this isn't a topic where we have to go very far to find fellow parents. If you've been working in a company that does an amazing job of incorporating the demands of startup culture with being a parent, we'd love to hear about it.

There's simply no downside to doing this incredibly well and we want to be great at it.

DecisionDesk Raises 100% of $1,250,000 Funding Goal. Here's How.

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:50:00 GMT

Last week, DecisionDesk closed out a $1.25 Million round on Fundable. The innovative applicant tracking platform has gained a long list of noteworthy clients - including Juilliard, Fullbright and Carnegie Hall.

Founder John Knific is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University, where he studied performing arts and entrepreneurship. He witnessed first-hand how archaic and costly admissions processes slowed down universities and drained their administrative budgets. He created the platform to allow organizations to share rich multimedia files like music samples and video, and manage the task flow of administration as they filtered through applications.

The DecisionDesk team will be using the capital raised to aggressively expand the DecisionDesk team and applicant tracking technology. According to John, “Fundable was able to create a very compelling story and create buzz outside of our normal angel network. The platform provided value beyond just the fundraise- it was a great experience, and frankly, a fun and exciting way to close out this round of fund raising.”

After closing out his investment round, John passed along some tips on how to make sure you’re making the most of your conversations with investors.

The Three “Musts” of Pitching Investors

John affirms that “Savvy investors have three major checkmarks. First, are you solving a real problem? Second, how big is this problem? Third, are you the team that can execute the solution? When I pitch, I try to tell the story of DecisionDesk as a narrative that weaves these major components together.”

Determine Your Best Fit Investors

During their fundraise, the DecisionDesk team also applied for and received an Innovation Ohio Fund Loan for $750,000. According to John, it’s critically important to determine what investors and administrators are looking for in their investment and target them appropriately. “Each group will have specific criteria. [The Innovation Ohio Fund] were looking for companies that are at break-even, have high growth technology, and will be scaling their business in Ohio. DecisionDesk is in a unique position, having just raised an angel round. As an early stage SaaS company, over a third of our operating expenses are software development, which makes the loan a great fit.”

Timing is Everything

According to John, “the State’s funding comes at a perfect time in our growth cycle. We’ve quickly become the leading provider of online audition management and are rapidly expanding as an enterprise provider for higher education institutions. We’re in this to save organizations thousands of wasted hours and dollars, help clients attract phenomenal talent, and create an awesome application experience for students”

Congratulations to DecisionDesk!

Eco Logical Skin Care Sells 100,000 Units, Expands to 2,000 Retail Locations + Whole Foods

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:14:00 GMT

Eco Logical Skin Care is an innovative line of sun protection products that provide powerful UV protection using all-natural ingredients.

After researching common skin care and sunscreen products on the market today, beach-loving founders Rick Sample and James Urioste found that most contain harmful chemicals and contaminants that have been linked to hormone disruption, cell damage, and even skin cancer.

They sought to provide an all-natural alternative. They took care to use sustainably- sourced ingredients like shea butter, avocado, and carrot oil and created a non toxic biodegradable formula that provides balanced protection from harmful UV rays and nutritious support for healthy skin

Eco Logical’s mission is to protect your skin from the sun as well as toxins, and their line is receiving glowing reviews - Eco Logical sunscreen was the only all-natural sunscreen on the Consumer Reports 2012 Sunscreen Buyers Guide and received a #1 ranking on the Environmental Group’s Skin Deep list. Their products are available at stores nationwide including Whole Foods and West Marine.

How I Used ADD to Build Great Businesses

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:58:00 GMT

Start your Day with more Productivity

I've got crazy ADD - always have. Having started 9 companies in the last 20 years it's been my greatest strength and my greatest weakness. As a Founder, you probably suffer from the same affliction.

Over the years I've learned to turn my ADD it into a super power. One simple but powerful trick I've learned is to filter as much noise out of my head first thing in the morning.

I've noticed that most of my time is spent with random noise, not useful, actionable thoughts. So the first thing I do when I wake up is make chocolate Pop-Tarts (I eat like a 10 year old) and sit next to my computer with a blank page in Word.

I type every thought that's been going through my head. Every idea, every task, every random musing. Nothing is left out.

I'll drift from "I need to make sure our customer acquisition costs for a new campaign are in line" to " "why was Gary Coleman shopping at a body armor store when he was accosted by a fan in 1994?" Yeah, it gets that weird... but it all gets written down.

When I'm done, I then sort what's left into three basic categories - "stuff to do", "stuff to keep thinking about" and "totally random".

As it happens, very little of what's rattling in my brain involves things that actually need action. Most of it is noise. But by going through the deliberate exercise of pulling all of those thoughts out of my head by committing them to a document, I get to visualize and organize what was just noise.

After a few days and weeks, I've noticed a pattern. The random thoughts tend to go away as they are committed and forgotten about and my most important action items more consistently occupy more of my mind.

Now I just need to get back to my Gary Coleman research.

Meet American Brewing Company- $1 million in Revenue & Growing

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:56:00 GMT

Creating the perfect batch of craft beer requires a unique combination of scientific knowledge, excellent taste, concentrated passion, and patience.

Skip Madsen is the artist behind the brews produced at the American Brewing Company. He has meticulously created more than 200 beers, winning countless awards nationwide. He takes his craft seriously, and as the lead brewer, he creates beer for a wide variety of tastes and preferences.

American Brewing Company was created to meet the increasing demand for full flavored craft ale- an industry that saw a 15% growth in sales last year.The rising star small-batch brewing company provides high quality, full-flavored, craft beers through their award winning brewery and brewing team. They’ve established a dedicated and growing following and their success lead to a $1 million dollars in top line revenue last year, as well as a Pacific-coast distributorship through Safeway.

Visit Fundable to learn more about American Brewing Company

Meet Decision Desk - Hits $550k Revenue Target, Sees 300% Growth

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:32:00 GMT

DecisionDesk is changing the way that admissions departments and recruiters manage their applicants.The innovative application streamlines the evaluation process and helps organizations make faster and better decisions. The platform also provides access to a large global pool of talent, with over 100,000 curated applications available to organizations.

The team has a unique background of performing arts and recording talent, blended with technical business acumen. They understand intimately the unwieldy systems that organizations typically use to filter applicants. They decided to create a comprehensive applicant hub to replace the archaic solutions available, and offer organizations access to rich media and video content submitted by applicants, as well as a suite of tools to manage the flow of applications.

DecisionDesk’s expansive features have attracted a client list of the top performing arts schools across the country. In addition to Juilliard, Oberlin, and Boston University illustrious institutions like NASA, Carnegie Hall, and Fulbright have implemented the system in their applicant tracking process. They've receiving great feedback from all of their users achieving a 95% client retention rate.

With their 300% annual growth, the DecisionDesk team has become a recognized thought leader in the performing arts space. CEO John Knific was recently recognized as one of America's Best Young Entrepreneurs by Bloomberg Businessweek.

The team is gearing up launch advanced features and address additional target markets. Learn More

Local Businesses Leveraging the Power of Crowdfunding

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:38:00 GMT

We've seen some great success from local companies on Fundable, leveraging the power of their own local community to launch and fund great businesses.

Funded: Karma Yoga and Fitness!

Creating a Community Hub for Health and Wellness

Located just outside of Portland, Founders Cassia Mark and Kris Myers saw a gap in education in their community and sought to fill it with their holistic approach to health and wellness. They plan to provide workshops on varying holistic and healing arts including yoga, meditation, and reiki massage to their underserved area.

World of Beer- Global Flavor in Your Own Backyard

The founding team of New Tap LLC is bringing World of Beer to Ohio, Indiana, and Northern Kentucky.Their passion lies in democratizing craft beer, constantly seeking new and innovative brewers and allowing people to sample unique flavors from their own neighborhood and from across the world in a lively music-filled environment.

Founders Mark Pottschmidt and Darren Green have seen an outpouring of support for their flagship locations in the Brewery District and Easton shopping district in Columbus, OH gaining loyal customers and an active social following. They will be opening a third location in Cleveland, OH this spring.

Custom Built Pizza- Reengineering Pizza for the Las Vegas Crowd

The Custom Built Pizza concept combines popular artisan-style wood/fire roasted pizza with successful fast casual restaurant business models like Chipotle and Panera Bread. Guests can custom build their own gourmet pizza without the typically required order-in-advance or standard pizzeria delay.

Founders, Larry DuLittle and Michael Atkinson have over 60 years of combined restaurant experience and plan to leverage their previous success and business savvy to create a scalable franchise concept. In the meantime they’re receiving rave reviews and have plans to open 2 additional area locations within the year.

Happy President’s Day! Entrepreneurial Presidents and the Startups They Loved

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:46:00 GMT

Given our love for all things startup-related here at Fundable, it’s no surprise that the arrival of President’s Day inspired some research into the entrepreneurial backgrounds of commander-in-chiefs throughout history.

Ten of our previous forty-three presidents could be considered entrepreneurs- that’s a whopping 23%. When compared to the 11% of the general American population that own their own business, its a definite jump- those voted into the role of U.S. President are more than twice as likely to own a business.

Entrepreneurial presidents include:

Abraham Lincoln. Law, Retail. Not only is Honest Abe the only U.S. President to ever receive a patent, but he also once tried to file a patent for a 19th century Facebook. He envisioned each town in the U.S. having it’s own Gazette with personal pages including quotes, favorite books, and happenings around town that could be shared with the public or could be distributed only to a person’s friends and family.

Warren G. Harding. Media. Harding purchased The Marion Star for $300 (the modern day equivalent of $3818) and later sold it for $550,000 (the modern day equivalent of $7,000,000).

Franklin D. Roosevelt. Polio treatment spa. After being diagnosed with polio, FDR learned of a spa treatment facility in Warm Springs, Georgia. After experiencing the spa’s treatment, he purchased the facility and used it to treat other polio sufferers.

Harry Truman. Retail. Unfortunately, Truman’s men’s clothing store went out of business due to the Great Depression. However, Truman refused to declare bankruptcy and eventually repaid all debts related to the store.

Jimmy Carter. Agriculture. By the time Carter was thirteen, he had saved enough money to purchase 5 houses and rented them to area families. Later on, Carter left a military career to run his father’s peanut farm after his father died.

George H.W. Bush. Oil. Bush founded three separate oil companies: Bush-Overbey Oil Development Company, Zapata Petroleum Corporation, and Zapata Off-shore. The Bush family is still involved in the oil industry to this day.

George W. Bush. Investments. Bush invested $606,302 in the Texas Rangers between the years of 1989 and 1991 and later sold his stake in the Rangers for $14,900,000.

Herbert Hoover. Engineering. Hoover began an engineering business in 1908. His business helped to reorganize companies and find mining prospects. His business ultimately employed over 175,000 people around the world.

James Polk. Law. After graduating from the University of North Carolina, Polk formed a successful law practice in Columbia, Tennessee.

Lyndon B. Johnson. Multimedia. Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, ran several radio and television stations in Texas. In fact, the stations made up the bulk of their wealth.

With so many of our founding fathers also founding companies, its no surprise that entrepreneurship in on the rise in the U.S.

Happy President's Day from the Fundable team!

Meet The Fundable Startups Changing the Way We Connect

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:58:19 GMT

Huddlebot Launches and Makes Collaboration and Meeting Planning a Breeze

Huddlebot is downloadable software that allows users to seamlessly organize their calendars and schedule collaborative meetings through file-sharing platforms such as Dropbox. Unlike other attempts at solving the scheduling pain, Huddlebot strikes the right balance among efficiency, privacy (no one can read a user’s calendar), and control (a user does not cede control over scheduling – only common availability is disclosed).

Founded by a team frustrated with the inefficiency of meeting planning in their own professional lives, Huddlebot lets users schedule meetings and conference calls without the email ping pong and phone tag, regardless of whether the users are on different calendar platforms or whether they work for different companies

Co-founder Joe Helm spent years organizing meetings as an international tax attorney at KPMG, he knew there had to be a better solution to allow people to collaborate. His team has launched their rewards campaign to fund customer development and are allowing backers to purchase Huddlebot for life at a deeply discounted rate. Their off to a great start- 13% funded and recently featured on CNET’s Download.com

Congrats to GASHIE on reaching 100% of Funding Goal!

Changing the Way People Connect on a Global Level

GASHIE is a communication platform changing the way that people connect across the globe. Founded by Michael Amegashi, who immigrated to the United States from Ghana and learned first-hand the importance of being able to communicate with loved ones around the world.

GASHIE has launched their campaign to perfect their (VoIP) system and provide low-cost local and international calling services to customers across the globe. GASHIE has reached 100% funding with a week remaining in their campaign.

BodBot Continues to See Success- 189% Funded

Bringing a Personal Trainer to Your Phone

Bodbot founders Eddie Laux and Sergio Prado continue to see incredible support for their breakout fitness app, BodBot, combining a personal trainer, nutritionist, and fitness coach in a single dynamic app for iOS and Android devices.

The team launched their campaign on Fundable to introduce improved features and become a force to be reckoned with in the fitness world- and are currently 189% funded bringing in $37,800 dollars so far. Stay tuned for continued Bodbot success- they have 37 days remaining in their fundraise!

Parke New York Re-Designs Denim, Lands 90k of Pre-Orders in 30 Days

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:38:48 GMT

Parke New York is a new brand of denim using technologically advanced materials and US-based manufacturing. Created by Startup veteran Solomon Liou, Parke combines premium fabrics and artisanal craftsmanship to provide the perfect fitting jeans.

The unique line has already become a fast hit with consumers. Solomon launched a rewards campaign taking in $90,000 in pre-orders in 30 days. After this initial success, Parke New York has now joined Fundable to further expand manufacturing and distribution capabilities, and bring Parke to consumers across the country.

Delivering Quality Through Vertical Integration

According to Solomon a key strategy is “to sell things effectively online ourselves and bypass traditional retailers. I think that the next Ralph Lauren of the world is going to look really different from what it is today. It’s going to be online first.”

By selling directly to consumers online, he can ensure the quality of the product and offer prices that are 50% less than traditional brands, creating a huge competitive advantage.

The Buzz

Hailed as a revolutionary new brand in outlets like ABC News, Esquire, and Refinery 29, Parke New York is slated to revolutionize the way jeans are produced and sold.

You can check out Parke New York’s Fundable Profile Here

How Bodbot Launched the Fastest Crowdfunded Fitness App

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:23:00 GMT

When Bodbot founders Eddie Laux and Sergio Prado began planning their crowdfund, they knew that it would be critical to tap into their established online community to ask for their support. According to Sergio, “Before we started our fundraise we took time to plan out our strategy and assess what we had learned from our previous success.”

It worked. During their first week, they successfully brought in 458 backers and $21,550 - making crowdfunding history by becoming the fastest funded fitness app.

Here are some of their tips for launching a campaign with impact:

Evaluate Your Network

When beginning a crowdfunding campaign, it's important to evaluate your network and establish exactly who will make up your base of support.The success of your crowdfunding campaign will largely rest on how effectively you communicate your launch within your various networks. Once Bodbot successfully identified who their core group of backers would be, they were able to tailor their rewards to incentivize their network to contribute. They did this by offering their personal training app for life for a low fee and saw an outpouring of contributors looking to take advantage of the limited time pricing.

Sergio’s Tip: Try using your campaign as a customer conversion- rate enhancer. “Emailing new users about the campaign within a week of their signing up resulted in substantially higher conversion rates.”

Create a “Hard Ask”

It is critical that you let your backers know exactly how much you’d like them to contribute, and explain what they get in return. After sending out an initial email asking their network to contribute, Bodbot saw a good amount of pledges come in. They introduced Bodbot Plus at a discounted rate.

The team decided to send a second email to their network letting them know that the offer was a limited time opportunity and asking backers to contribute $50. They saw an incredible influx in support and reached 100% of their funding goal within hours of sending the second e-blast.

Sergio’s Tip: “Each time you contact backers, make sure you have a purpose to do so with a specific ask in mind.”

Time Your Communication

Do some research into the times that your audience and backers surf the web, share on social channels, and open emails. Have you noticed that any of your company’s emails get opened or responded to often on a certain day? Use that knowledge to plan when you send emails to your network. By making a more strategic play and timing your communication, you create an opportunity to get in front of more potential backers.

Bodbot used data from emails they had previously sent to their community members and learned what days would be most effective. They timed their emails to take advantage of these peak days and timing, and saw fantastic results.

Sergio’s Tip: Sundays are a particularly good day for conversions for our industry. Emailing in the early afternoon is also particularly good for conversion. Do some testing and research prior to your campaign to determine when is your best time frame for sending.

Curious about other ways to gear up for a successful launch? Check out more tips here.

Meet BodBot - 40% Funded in 24 hours

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:39:00 GMT

Young Entrepreneurs Eddie Laux and Sergio Prado have launched BodBot - combining a personal trainer, nutritionist, and fitness coach in a free app for iOS and Android devices.

The app launched in alpha version just a few months ago, but already has over 100,000 active users. The team has launched their campaign on Fundable to introduce improved features and become a force to be reckoned with in the fitness world.

How is BodBot disrupting fitness?

A game-changing algorithm.

In a world of fitness apps crowded by data trackers and instructional libraries, BodBot stands out. The app was created using an algorithm based on biomechanics and physiology, that provides tailored recommendations to reflect an individual’s goals. Suggested fitness routines and meals are customized to a user’s previous fitness experience, equipment available, schedule, body dimensions, nutritional needs, strengths, and weaknesses.

The app creates personalized exercise and meal plans, and continues to adapt and adjust with user progress. If you go for a hike, eat an extra slice of pizza, or miss your regularly scheduled workout, the algorithm dynamically adapts with you.

Both founders are a living testament to the transformational power of fitness

Eddie grew up obese, and lost 70lbs as a teenager through hard work and careful research. At the other extreme, co-founder Sergio grew up underweight standing 6 foot and 120lbs as a gangly 17 year old. Through purposeful learning and dedication, Sergio put on over 60lbs of muscle.

After his dramatic weight loss, Eddie was admitted into Columbia University at the age of 16, where he became a collegiate athlete and studied neuroscience. Eddie’s studies on the neural regulation of appetite and weight have helped him gain additional perspective on the intersections of exercise, nutrition, neuroscience and endocrinology that are the foundation of BodBot.

Sergio grew up the son of a Mexican immigrant farmer in rural Missouri - and against long odds was accepted and admitted to Harvard, where he graduated with honors. While in attendance, Sergio also competed and trained in karate. Since graduation, Sergio has worked at both Google and Microsoft.

Eddie and Sergio have used their technical knowledge and personal journeys to create BodBot as a tool to help others on their path to becoming healthy and fit.

View more on BodBot's Fundable profile!

Gearing Up For a Successful Crowdfund

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:06:00 GMT

Crowdfunding is an incredible tool for startups looking for funding and visibility. Like any tool, to get the most out of your crowdfund, you have to put in plenty of hard work. Behind every top notch crowdfunding profile and raving new product review is a hardworking entrepreneur. The most successful campaigns involve weeks of preparation leading up to launch.

From perfecting the visual components of your profile, to thoroughly researching potential media placements, taking the proper steps as you gear up to launch will ensure the best chance of success for your campaign.

T-minus: 1 month

If possible, plan your launch date in advance to give you plenty of time to prep.

Build a social following. Social media marketing is a key component to a successful crowdfunding campaign. A month before your crowdfunding campaign launches, begin building a social following on a platform like Twitter, Facebook, or Linkedin.

Create a List of Potential Backers. Support from your network will be your foundation for success when you launch. Start brainstorming a list of potential donors from your network and make your rewards compelling to them.

T-minus: 3 weeks

Finalize your Message. Your crowdfunding profile needs to perfectly capture your business and your story as an entrepreneur. Write your copy, edit it, write it again, and don’t hesitate to ask for peer reviews!

Create Strong Visual Representations. Make sure that you have good images and collateral that explains your company and product. When potential backers click on a profile, they scroll first and read second- you want to make sure to catch their eye! It may be worth your time to hire a product photographer, or find a local photography student for a more budget-friendly way to get great visual collateral to accompany your fundraise.

Craft a marketing plan. Begin to build an outline of steps you’ll take to promote your crowdfunding campaign. Create a plan that includes social media, email marketing, media outreach, and any other forms of marketing you’d like to incorporate. Be creative!

T-minus: 1 week

You’re getting down to the wire; it’s time finalize your fundraise and prep for launch mode.

Notify your network. One week prior to your crowdfunding campaign’s launch, let your close friends and family members know about your plans. Planting the seed early will prepare them for your future busy schedule, pledge requests, and get them thinking about how much they can contribute to your campaign. It also gives them time to start spreading the word!

Helpful Hint: Separate everyone you know into various segments to be emailed separately once your campaign launches. This can include close friends, acquaintances, family members, and business associates.

Research media outlets. Achieving placements in relevant media outlets can drastically increase your campaign’s likelihood of success. Research journalists who cover stories relating to your industry - read a few of their recent articles, take note of their style, and find their contact information. It’s useful to build a spreadsheet with this information for later reference.

Make final edits. One week prior to launch, take a look at all of your documents, copy, and visuals to ensure that it looks professional and appealing. Make any last minute changes as necessary.

Launch Day!

Congratulations, you’ve made it! Today is a big day for your crowdfunding campaign, and your hard work preparing is about to come to fruition. Keep your momentum going by:

Notify your networks. Remember that segmented list of everyone you know? Send them all messages (tailored to be appropriate for each group) notifying them of your official crowdfunding campaign launch. Be sure to include a link to your profile!

Helpful Hint: A launch party is a great way to kick off your crowdfunding campaign and a great way to gather support. Invite your friends, family, and business associates to join you in celebrating your big day. Don’t forget to bring a laptop or two with your Fundable profile displayed in case party goers would like to be one of your first supporters.

Share via Social Platforms. Since you’ve been growing your social media presence for a month, you should now have an audience of people to announce your crowdfunding campaign to. Encourage followers (particularly those who engage with your brand the most) to check out your profile.

Pitch your story to the media. Use your carefully researched list of journalists to pitch your story to as many media outlets as possible. Be sure to reference past articles to show that you’re engaged and know what each journalist likes to cover.