[api]

I'm imagining the hordes of frothing con artist sociopaths that are about to create flashy demo videos and cutout companies with lots of fakey "social proof" and cutout demos sold as real products.

Equity crowdfunding for the general public should be a good idea, but unfortunately I'm afraid it's not. The asshole to elbow ratio is just too low. I'm deeply concerned that the entire seed stage market is about to get shat upon rather copiously. The frauds will actually drown out the good deals, since they'll almost by definition be better at flash and promotion.

A lot of people are really naive about this stuff. Organized crime will likely get involved. It will not be pretty. But hey, those companies that make flashy startup intro videos are about to do a lot of business.

[involute1344]

As long as any adult can squander their life savings in any casino in America, I don't see why the SEC needs to protect them from this crap.

[arfliw]

It'll be just like Kickstarter. Yes there is fraud and yes there are well meaning failures but you also get huge successes like Oculus (and many others).

Just as there are sure to be well publicized stories about people getting fleeced -- there will be stories about other people getting rich.

[api]

The quantities of money are larger, which will attract a different class of scammer.

[arfliw]

That does not change what I said.

Yes, there will be scams. And there will be successes.

[sjg007]

This is why you will have syndicates run by proven individuals (aka known angel investors etc...)