Episode 5 – The Conversion Code: What Actually Moves Global Investors from Interest to Investment

Theme: Education & Conversion
Moderator: Scott McIntyre (WEconomy / CfPA)
Panelists: Jason Fishman (Digital Niche Agency); Sarah Hardwick (Founder/CEO, The Crowd; former CMO, Aptera); Claudio Grimoldi (Founder, Turbo Crowd)

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Scott McIntyre – Moderator Co-founder of WEconomy and Vice-Chair of the Crowdfunding Professional Association (CfPA) board, plus GECA Steering Committee member. Scott champions trust, transparency, and investor protection in alternative finance while implementing equitable social and financial movements. A longtime advocate for industry growth, he brings deep expertise in conversion optimization and cross-border regulatory challenges.

Jason Fishman Co-founder of Digital Niche Agency (DNA), GECA Steering Committee member, and board member of the US Crowdfunding Professional Association. Jason has guided hundreds of equity crowdfunding campaigns with data-driven marketing approaches, specializing in international investor outreach and conversion optimization. He brings systematic funnel analysis and performance measurement expertise to global capital raising.

Sarah Hardwick Founder of The Crowd and former CMO of Aptera, where she helped orchestrate a $140 million crowdfunding campaign. With two decades of marketing and communications experience, Sarah specializes in authentic storytelling and founder-centric conversion strategies. Her expertise spans sentiment analysis, values-based targeting, and building compelling narratives that drive investor engagement across cultural boundaries.

Claudio Grimoldi Founder of Turbo Crowd, a specialized marketing agency in Italy with deep expertise in European equity crowdfunding markets. Claudio brings unique insights into cultural investment patterns, regulatory navigation across EU jurisdictions, and conversion strategies for first-time investors. His experience spans the complexities of ECSPR implementation and cross-border campaign optimization.

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Andy Field: Hello everyone. I’m Andy Field. and welcome to our Architects of Change Think Tank series. Now this is a series of five round table discussions, all with subjects that align with one of the GECA core pillars. Now, GECA stands for Global Equity Crowdfunding Alliance, and our supporters all share one vision, which is a truly borderless global equity crowdfunding ecosystem.

One of the pillars that we’ve detailed in our manifesto is education and investor empowerment, and today we’re going to dive into some of the most important aspects of what really drives investor decisions across borders. From data-driven insights on global investor behavior, to how founders can best prepare for international raises and the educational and marketing strategies that actually convert interest into investment.

So we’ve called this session the “Conversion Code – What Actually Moves Global Investors from Interest to Investment?’ Now to guide us through this discussion, I’m delighted to hand over to our moderator, Scott McIntyre. Scott’s a highly experienced crowdfunding strategist and longtime advocate for the growth of the industry.

He’s co-founder of WE Economy and a higher base non-profit, implementing an equitable social and financial movement, powered by a revolutionary set of tools that help establish thriving regional economies and as well as being a valued member of the GECA Steering Committee. Scott’s also vice chair of the board of Directors of the Crowdfunding Professional Association in the US and he’s been a leading advocate for trust, transparency, and investor protection in alternative finance, which makes him the perfect person to lead today’s conversation.

And introduce our panelists. So thank you very much, Scott, over to you.

Scott McIntyre: Thank you, Andy. Very kind words, I don’t deserve half. I’ll leave that to another day. So welcome everybody to another round table of the Global Equity Crowdfunding Alliance series. I’m Scott McIntyre, as Andy said, and I’ll be moderating today’s discussion.

The Conversion Code – What Actually Moves Global Investors From Interest To Investment? So over the next 60 minutes or so, we’ll explore what really influences investors when they decide to take the leap from data-driven insights, which are oftentimes hard to find and maybe even harder to trust into global investor behavior, to how founders can actually prepare for international raises. Something that is still quite new to most of us. So the strategies that, in turn, turn interest into commitments is what we’re trying to get to today, and I think we have a perfect cast of experts to discuss that.

So I’m delighted to be joined by three incredible panelists. With deep experience across marketing, investment behavior, and cross-border capital raising. So let’s introduce them, starting with Jason Fishman, colleague of mine. Jason is a seasoned growth strategist and co-founder of DNA. A digital marketing agency specializing in equity crowdfunding. And he’s guided hundreds of campaigns, bringing a data-driven approach to investor outreach and conversion.

He’s also a valued member of the GECA steering committee and a recent addition to the board of directors of my firm, the US Crowdfunding Professional Association. We are, by the way, an all volunteer trade group, largely responsible for the introduction and oversight of regulated investment crowdfunding industry in the US. And we take Jason’s edition, very seriously ’cause he brings a key set of skills that a lot of securities attorneys just don’t have. And that’s usually what boards are stacked with at the beginning. So I’ll leave that to another call as well.

We’re also joined by Sarah Hardwick. Sarah lives in a town that I once lived in, San Diego, California, and is founder of ‘The Crowd’. A very big title there, Sarah. So Sarah is also a marketing strategist and communications expert with two decades of experience helping entrepreneurs connect with audiences and build compelling narratives that drive investor and engagement. And there’s one thing, as a trained journalist, storytelling is critical in bringing meaning to campaigns. If you don’t relate to people, don’t connect with people, don’t inspire people, don’t give people the imagination, then you’re going to be suffering the results. So Sarah, I look forward to learning from you today as well.

And of course, joining us from Italy, Claudio Grimoldi. So Claudio is founder of the Turbo Crowd, and also a specialist marketing agency owner in Italy. Claudio brings a wealth of experience in global capital markets and investor relations, particularly in connecting European platforms and founders with international investors. Again, a very rare trait. So he has the unique perspective on what resonates across different geographies, and we’re going to grill him on all of that.

So thank you guys all for joining us and taking part in this conversation today and adding to GECA’s mission of more seamless international investing. So let’s get started by perhaps setting the scene on investor behavior. So it’s always good to start with the big picture guys. I’m sure you relate.

Investors today have more opportunities than ever, but moving from interest to actual commitment remains elusive. And yet even more critical, especially as we begin to open up these opportunities to investors everywhere and not just accredited investors who may be more used to these types of sophisticated terms and relationships with retail investors, what the US describes as unaccredited investors.

And this is also a topic that I hope to hear from, Claudio in particular today on how he views the differences and how people may be associate themselves differently with these types of definitions abroad. Let’s get into it. So what do you see as the most important factors that influence whether a global investor actually makes that leap from interest to investment?

And we’ll start with Jason. So Jason, from a data and marketing perspective, what signals or behaviors tell you that an investor is ready to commit?

Jason Fishman: An investor is ready. I like to picture it as a funnel. There’s this term of the marketing funnel, taking audiences from awareness. A lot of people at that stage, consideration, intent, even those that intend to invest, there’s going to be a big drop off and only percentage of ’em are going to move forward to the conversion stage of that process. And there’s advocacy, peer-to-peer marketing at the bottom, the ultimate form of marketing may I add.

So I want to set up a digital environment where I can see where these audiences are moving because we’re talking about scale, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands more prospective investors in many cases. So rather than trying to put my judgment on each of them individually, I want to see based on their digital behavior when they’re in market, if you will. We’re very specific about who we target. Start with the strategy program. I actually learned from Sarah quite a bit on target audiences and profiles and archetypes and how important that is even to start considering what story to bring to the table, how that lives in advertising, messaging and content that’s populated at each stage of the funnel.

But then I can have the data show me what’s working. ’cause I’m always going to have assumptions going into a campaign, Scott, but it’s all about the results. It’s all about the performance. Many of these groups need the capital. The marketing budget’s tough. they’re trying to raise here. So the performance has to be able to produce enough investments for them to do a rolling and close fund. The next stages of advertising traffic, flow if you will.

But if I put it in place to say, Hey, this person moved from the offering page to the checkout page. This person moved from an ad to a form to a webinar. They’ve engaged with three different emails. I’m going to be able to see some different signals, and as I look in the analytics for those pockets, performance can do more of what’s working from there.

Scott McIntyre: That’s pretty detailed. I think that actually peaked a side question that I had written down in my notes, and this one’s kind of going to be open to all of you. I’ll get back to my program question for Claudio in just a second. But, increased exposure to investment opportunities. We’ve seen this obviously since the advent of radio and television, and then onto the internet. We now have very specific channels, very direct channels, and very loud channels. Casting these opportunities of a lifetime get in now, fear of missing out. All of these emotional factors really do target people in ways that I know that is beneficial to people that are in the business of finding people quickly, for their own interest.

But how do you guys see the investors react to what a lot of people call noise as opposed to targeted messaging because, without any strict, what’s what I’m looking for, enforcement of transparency, which is still very new and still very cloudy in a lot of ways, particularly in the US regulatory environment that we’re in now. How do you help people break through that noise and make sure that what they’re hearing from you feels, and is, sincere, genuine, authentic? Sarah, if you want to just tackle that one.

Sarah Hardwick: Yeah. I think I feel like that, that really, it’s about that transparency and I think there’s an opportunity or, I guess I would say. a challenge and an opportunity for companies who are facing that noise to really get beyond that. And I think one of the ways you can do that is starting with that one-to-one relationship where you’re really being honest about the ups and downs. And I think there is, can be a tendency to really want to sugarcoat things and to really want to talk about the fluff and really not get into the details. And sometimes they’re hard to share and sometimes, it’s not always positive. And so I think one of the things that really helps to cut through the noise is when you can be fully honest. And when you can nurture that so that people can expect, hey, things are going great and there’s going to be some really exciting stuff happening. But also here are some challenges that are being faced.

So I think it’s a challenge and it’s an opportunity because there is so much noise out there. But really one of the key ways to cut through is to really have that candid conversation from the very beginning and really bring investors along through that journey and be honest about the triumphs and the tribulations that are happening in the midst of what you’re building. And really share the honest truth of what’s going on there.

Scott McIntyre: I guess that that connection, you said the term one-to-one. I know that’s almost impossible metric to achieve in the business that you’re in, so I appreciate that you would even get to that level of intimacy with any particular person. Man, I just wonder how is storytelling versus data reporting? stats and figures and case studies, all these things are quite moving when it comes to investment decisions. But how do you weigh the meaning, the story, the relevance to a person’s. Perhaps emotional disposition as different from their analytical disposition.

Sarah Hardwick: And from my perspective, I do a lot of sentiment analysis. So I’m looking a lot at the reviews. I’m looking at what people are saying. I’m looking at the way that they’re talking, what they’re talking about, who they’re talking to. And so I think beyond the actual numbers, clicks and conversion, I’m really digging into the messaging and the words they’re using and that kind of getting a lot more context that way. And that’s one of the places I think AI can be very helpful in analyzing and getting really granular when you’re looking at the sentiment specifically.

Scott McIntyre: That is awesome. That’s exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to hear, and I can appreciate why Jason would’ve pointed at you as having learned from you because having experienced his process firsthand and outreach to our potential members and potential attendees to our summit, I can tell that he’s taken that to heart. So congrats to both of you on that.

Claudio, do you see a difference in this process across different countries in Europe? And if you don’t have particular difference in that, let us know too. If you’re dealing specifically with just Italians, that’s cool. But what are your thoughts on differences country by country, for example, do Italian investors behave differently versus those from other areas of Europe?

Claudio Grimoldi: Yeah, thanks for the question. Thanks again for being here. And yeah, we are completely different between Italy, Spain, France, we have also, Netherlands, we have UK which is not in Europe as well. And talking yesterday with Jason was something super interesting for me because it’s completely another behavior from us. You know why? Because we don’t have those type of serial investors.

There is a very interesting study in Italy, which is running each year from the Polytechnical, which is one of the most famous university out here. And they are highlighting how just the one point 18, it was just decreasing every year more, investors are doing serially, those type of investments, like more than 10. And if you look into the numbers, 90% of them are just doing one or two investments in their life, like the 75% just once in life. And the 15% are just doing just two times in their life. And they don’t have to be, they don’t supposed to be in two different companies. Maybe they’re just investing in two different rounds in the same company as well.

And the thing it’s about, so in this is in the south of Europe, because in the north they don’t have. Ready for this, Andrew. They don’t have equity crowdfunding. They are completely into lending crowdfunding. If you look at the numbers, it’s completely mesmerizing. I can say like in the Netherlands, they are raised something like 700, 770 million in six months. And the Netherlands is just a little part of it. So it’s very small market. And more than a billion in one year as a turnover, and which is 99.9% of lending crowdfunding.

So you can see completely different behaviors and way to interact with the campaigns and so on. And for me, Italians are not so famous for investments and so on. We don’t like to risk our money. The only people who are even worse than others are Germans. Sorry, Germans. But they don’t, they are the only ones who run without European regulation here because we are under the same law here, under the same umbrella. But Germany are like, no, we are not under the European ones. So it’s pretty, it’s a pretty mess.

The actual one is called ECSPR, like European Crowdfunding Service Provider Regulation. And yeah, it works technically, but still working on this. So from my perspective and sorry for being super long, the thing it’s about transforming your clients or potential ones to investors because the thing it’s about the company itself. Cannot afford very big investments in marketing and so on, and blah, blah, blah. So they need to focus on the actual market they are already addressing. So they need to address the same person that they are already facing during their average day at work. And the thing it’s about transforming, then using rewards.

So the final answer from myself, it’s about transforming your client or potential one, and not pointing to the capital gain, which is undefined potential and you need to pay taxes on it. But using rewards which are interesting and they’re relevant to your actual audience, and then they know how much they are earning from those type of rewards as well.

And the, I think the most important example here, it’s Brewdog, which is just a brewery, and they were giving us beers if they were subscribing and getting shares of the company itself. So yeah, we are digging more into it later. But that’s my 2 cents about this.

Scott McIntyre: I think that’s a very interesting mix of strategies and I think I should like to investigate that perhaps personally over a beer with you in Italy soon. So let’s make a plan for that. But you opened up another question too, and that begs the question to me. How do you feel the sentiment in Italy in particular, or across Europe in general, as you’ve said, it’s more interested in the lending side. Do you feel that there’s an interest, more so gaining in securitized investments because of the success in the US or not, or just because of their own interest and knowledge of the space evolving? Or do you think that it’s just a cultural difference?

Claudio Grimoldi: It’s a cultural different from US, you say? Yeah. So it’s decreasing under the crowdfunding itself, but it’s just evolving in different ways. Because at the beginning, like startups were offering shares by themself. Thanks to equity crowdfunding and everyone start to think about crowdfunding as a marketing tool just for startups, but they were wrong.

Startups are just capital intensive. They were looking for any way to get funded, so everyone was just misclicking something in their mind, understanding wrongly. So people were investing into it, treating them as SMEs. Like the 95% of startups are failing. So after it, they were, they got something like dreams broken and they stopped to invest in different startups. And just to be clear, like in Italy we had something like 40 different equity crowdfunding platforms, and trust me, 40. When I say four zero platforms, even before the ECSPR, it’s a very big number. No reasons why we need all of them, right? Because they were just following a sort of trends, trends. So they were like, yeah, maybe this type of market we will, growing the future, something like, but then it’s declining and it’s getting different.

But if you are looking for others, like in the lending crowdfunding, it’s getting higher and higher every year because it’s the same for us because it’s called crowd investing. So they are putting about equity and lending under the same umbrella. So they are like, this one is getting something even more because you can see like your capital gain getting back to your portfolio, to your wallet compared to a startup, just for who is looking for equity crowdfunding for raising money somehow.

And then try to do a profit strategy, an exit strategy for an investor, which is very difficult to achieve. You actually, you’re causing me to have all kinds of other questions. Sorry Andy. but this session may run long. So the beauty guys is we’re not doing this live, so take your time answering. Don’t worry if I talk too fast, we can slow it down.

But that actually brings me to another question. So is, if I’m hearing you correctly, the lending space is still growing and you have a healthy competition base, but on the equity, on the securitized crowdfunding, the investment side crowdfunding, you saw a glut of new companies go into that space hoping to drive this type of investment, but now they’re starting to falter as most startups do.

Do you find that those companies have been dying off by attrition or are they merging and combining? Are they being acquired by other firms? And then secondarily, do you see that the companies that are more focused on lending will be perhaps expanding or duplicating their work into the equity side?

Claudio Grimoldi: So the startups are aiming for a classic profit strategy for investors like getting public company, getting listed somehow somewhere in Europe. because in Italy we also invented the crowd listing, which is, I think amazing for all of you because you can get listed in France on, Euronext Access+ growth market. Just raising 2 million by 10 people and was perfect for crowdfunding because we are eligible to get public just doing crowdfunding. So you are just avoiding a lot of costs and yeah. the private offer, so how it’s going your path.

So the thing is about, yeah, startups are just. And people are just understanding that startups might be a very risky asset class. So they are going slower on investing in different startups. But then the real SMEs are going to see the crowdfunding equity one as a real opportunity, calling it as community funding because they are like, I have, for example, I have a shoes e-commerce. The one I was talking about three days ago, it was like a brand, a brand for shoes, Italian dream, shoes, whatever brand stylish thing. And at the beginning, three years ago, they were like, no, you cannot raise via crowdfunding. ’cause we are not a startup in Italy. We have tax benefits if you are an eligible startup. it’s a way to describe companies. So you are getting like 50 up to 75% of tax credit that you invested in the company. So they were pushing on it, but it was just the only type of reward, we can call it as a financial reward. And people were like, no, if you’re not a startup, we are not accepting you.

But it’s so stupid because this one was, is someone who is getting something like three up to 4 million revenue every year, and they can invest money into marketing. They already have a lot of people there. They have they have actual customers. They are not looking for them. So for me it’s about. Your platform is very stupid because the real business, it’s on SMEs because they can invest money, they can turn potential clients into investors for real, right? Going to change, using using crowdfunding as a marketing leverage compared to others like the other brand shoes there. So yeah, the thing is about evolving in those type of things.

So we need, from my perspective, we need some time, in order to get to see other mature, more mature companies creating a sort of track record for others because startups already have. So we need to see someone more mature to do that and others will follow as well.

Scott McIntyre: That is a lot of information Claudio, thank, I feel like we could do a whole separate discussion just on that topic. And I think that Andy is nodding his head. We will probably call you for that, and I really wish we would’ve heard from you earlier or known about you earlier because the CfPA has been sponsoring a similar proposal to congress and to the legislators to allow for a tax credit for investing in these types of offerings. So I will be calling on you again for descriptions of that.

So let’s move on to founder preparation for international raises. So one consistent theme we hear is that founders often underestimate the level of preparation that they need to inspire confidence from international investors, much less the work that’s required to actually go through the offerings, which I’m sure Jason and Sarah and you will also have some comments on.

So the question is, what should founders do differently when preparing for cross border fundraising compared to raising locally? And we’ll start out with Sarah. So Sarah, from your background in messaging and storytelling, what have you seen that works best in building trust and credibility with international investors? If you’ve had the good fortune to address them?

Sarah Hardwick: Yeah, I think, I have, and I think, there’s a lot of opportunity for brand dilution to happen with language, with culture, and so I think having really clear and consistent messaging is just absolutely critical. And really doing an audit of your messaging across all of your touch points, whether it’s social and web, and all of these, your different assets that you’re putting out there, and really making sure that your message is absolutely as clear and consistent as possible is one thing.

And the second thing I think is leaning into, and you’ll hear me talk about this probably a lot during this talk is really leaning into this idea of universal values. And so rather than looking at demographics or geographics, and trying to target, and I think that is important and that is one layer, when you’re preparing for an international kind of campaign, you really want to take a look at things like what do they have in common? And look at things like sustainability or innovation and looking at these factors that you can really, that bring people together and that you can utilize to move the needle to bring a community together that’s outside of what you might traditionally do from a segmentation standpoint.

Scott McIntyre: That makes sense. Appreciate that. Claudio, what regulatory or compliance expectations to international investors. Most want to see addressed up front, and I’m going to preface this is the fact that obviously we’ve been in this business since long before regulated investment crowdfunding was legalized in the United States only in 2016. We founded in 2012. And so we had a lot of time to prepare potential investors for the day that they could actually start to convert into shareholders. And that was a process. So we still get people that call on us to advise them on their campaigns for rewards and donation campaign. I’m like, that’s not even our space. We can’t really compliment, it’s not regulated. It’s something that we really, we want to rely on the platforms to do better education and preparation for the people that use their services.

On the other hand, a lot of people think that should be government regular. That should be something that a trade association should do. Unfortunately isn’t all volunteer trade association. We don’t really have the luxury of spending all of our time, of our volunteers time anyway. On preparing. We do it through the occasional video conference. We do it through our annual summits and such. But actually getting into the business of education is very expensive as anyone who’s founded a nonprofit knows.

How do you feel about it? Do you think that this should be something that’s tackled more by an association or more by the government? Or should it be laissez faires like what we have in the United States?

Claudio Grimoldi: I think as, who will do it in the future will get a lot of potential clients because people need to be educated starting from the company themself because they need to understand different behaviors. Like in the Europe, we have those type of different way to invest money. And also we have some barriers I would say based on the language itself. Because we are from Italy and you can hold my, as my accent and I can barely speak Italian as well. So think about English and try to figure out, if you try to do something like this in Germany, then you have something in France, then you have something in, Netherlands, then you have something maybe Norway, they have different behavior. It’s a nightmare. Completely nightmare.

And thinking about something like this in u in the USA, starting from the late, the compliance side, we can say, getting everything all together with, thanks to the ECSPR might be the first step to get something across between Europe and in the USA in the future. And maybe something thanks to the technology like we need in Italy, in Europe we have DLT Pilot, which is a sort of tokenization itself allowing others to be able to wrestle the shares is easier than something just gathering information from someone else who will be interest to shares of some company itself.

So it’s pretty difficult to explain everything at the beginning. So yeah, the thing it’s about starting from the company itself, they need to understand where they want to invest they, when they, where they want to raise. So the behavior of the potential investors. So if you are in the USA, like Y Combinator, it’s super famous to set up a, not an SPV, like a company in Delaware. So they already know everything about the regulation there. So startups are very famous in Delaware and in Europe, for example. You need to understand which type of companies as a SPV, maybe because you need to raise via equity crowdfunding, need to be set up in another company, in another nation like. In their country, sorry, like in Germany. So you need to set up a GMBH, which is their type of standard company. And starting from it, people will trust more because they are like, yeah, we are from Germany and we can invest into a German company, which is an SPV from another one.

So it’s pretty difficult one. And we are working, we as a Europe, working on the definition of European startup, which allow everyone to invest in the same company. Without those type of barriers and limit limitations, then you have the language and then you need to be relevant to the market itself. So if no one is just understanding what you are selling of because maybe you are, you have more Italian clients, or potential I investor is not relevant for someone else, which is in USA to invest in your company itself. So it’s about getting relevant and trying to follow the behavior of the potential investors. I think.

Scott McIntyre: It’s got to be quite a challenge. We are fairly monoculture in the US and at least in the in that all of our major platforms focus almost entirely on English speaking customers. So it is a challenge. I do not envy you on that, but it seems like Italy’s got at least Italy from what I heard from you. Anyway, that’s some pretty progressive mechanisms in place to really inspire people to at least investigate the space. I’m curious, how some of that’s going to translate to bottom line, but I guess on the lending side, the risks are much, much lowered. I think just by the timeline, you can, lending terms are I think easier for people to get their heads around.

Claudio Grimoldi: That, sorry for, but you know that Italy was the first one in you in the world. Probably something like to organize and be able others to invest via equity crowdfunding. We did it even before Barack Obama. So we were into it at the beginning, but then we are famous as the cradle of laws. So we need to dig very much into every type of law because we are reading everything. So it’s a nightmare for the platforms right now, but we were like pioneers at the beginning.

Scott McIntyre: How do you feel, how do you feel the Italians or Europeans in general view the US regulatory regime, rush to the dollar, invest, invest, invest. Is there a general consensus on this? the style of American investors.

Claudio Grimoldi: They are dreaming about America as the American dream. The real dream is finding American investors, but I think it’s about not being able to be there because, they can be not relevant, probably because they don’t have enough effort as a financial or marketing and whatever from that side because they are not big enough.

America is not, it’s 100,000 more than Italy. So we are trying to compare like France to USA, we’re not trying to compare Europe to USA, so we are so small compared to your country and your continent. So for us it’s just about for me, San Diego, it’s like the neighborhood of New York. Yeah. Because we cannot, so it’s completely different. We cannot compare them because the weight is completely different. So it’s, it’s, we are just dreaming about American investors and trying to follow them, but we have different behaviors and trying to replicate those type of behaviors here, it’s completely wrong, but we don’t have the regulation to do that.

So you need to be there in USA opening like the, your Delaware or whatever company, and you are. Creating your actual company here in Europe probably will become your branch and the American one will be the most relevant one. Sorry for being so no.

Scott McIntyre: Again, please. we have until 3.30, so hopefully you guys aren’t slipping out of here anytime soon. And it’s Jason, it actually brings a ton of perspective and I think in particular, you and Jason, and you and Sarah should probably keep close notes because I imagine that translating these opportunities to foreign investors is going to be a real trick. And anybody who gets a handle on that, that not just intimacy, but that relevance, that perspective that’s shared is really going to be a gold mine when it does happen.

So Jason, any feedback from your POV on investors coming in from perhaps, rewards and donation? I don’t know how much of the education space you need to give in that, or are you fine tuned on securitized investors.

Jason Fishman: I worked on Reg D accredit investor campaigns first, that actually got attention from the reward crowdfunding world. And I have a portfolio of over 50 Indiegogo and Kickstarter campaigns. I took a lot of fundamentals from there working on the securitized rounds and I said took, I talked about studying everything earlier. I really do think it comes down to the research and the planning. So going back to your question earlier about which audiences from which markets, going to this question about which audiences for which type of filing, which type of vehicle success leaves clues, Scott.

I want to know exactly what the conversation looks like today from my target audiences and my competitors, people who are competing for the same audience. I say my, this is from the eyes of the issuer, the founder, the company. When I’m asked to run a global campaign, when I’m asked to run a campaign that targets Europe, I don’t want to run an advertising media buy that says Global or Europe. I want to run variants and say, Hey, I’m going after these five, these 10 different audiences. Here are the geolocations. Here’s what they do online, even before determining audiences, I want to do a competitor marketing audit. I want to say, Hey, what were the top five campaigns to date in Italy or in Germany? I understand the rules are different there, in the UK, whichever market I am being tasked with by the client.

I want to know which campaigns are performing with the most velocity today, as well as to date, I want to find the issuers, the companies that are most similar in terms of vertical. and when I research, I’m looking at their offering page. I’m looking at their pitch video, understanding this could be reward crowdfunding. You see the crossover. I want to look at the reviews from the backers, from the investors. I want to see the faces, the individuals, what made them move forward. So then as I’m looking at the target audiences that can move the needle for this round, I can say, Hey, here’s a few different audiences we’re looking to reach in Italy. Just playing off that example. Here’s how it differs. If we’re targeting the US and I’ve worked on campaigns that have to exclude US, here’s what it looks like in the UAE. In Japan, Korea, different countries. I’ve spoken at conferences in eight countries. I could tell you how it differs in APAC and in Australia, but it’s not just a matter of pressing a global button because beyond the parameters of the targeting, I now need to determine the creative, the messaging.

I’ve already researched the marketing that these other guys put out. I already know the key elements of the pitch. But what do I want to highlight? Do I have to translate it? Who am I working with to do that? Because I need to make sure it’s going to sound authentic to whomever I’m going after. You can imagine just the different types of English and I’ll speaking English here, different types of, I’ll use the word slang around it. Different words that can be used to show expertise. I play golf. If someone throws different rules around about a positive handicap, I immediately understand, okay, they, they get the game.

So I need to be able to do that for different verticals. But as I’m determining the audience, as I’m determining the messaging, I’m then looking to figure out the channels this is going to run on and the partners I can use to help accelerate it. There are different publishers that are specific to given verticals in given regions beyond just countries that if I point to them and say, Hey. We were featured here, or they do put out an email newsletter, a post, there’s some type of content created. The campaign may accelerate much faster there. And while Claudio mentioned, and Claudio, I’m taking notes on everything you’re saying is so fascinating to me. And this is why I love being involved with GECA and the fact that Andy built this and the potential for all of us globally.

I want to be able to understand. How to hit the different goals in these markets and then optimize towards the markets that are working best. There are many campaigns I could tell you about Web3 campaigns that the US was not the strongest performing audience, that there are stronger investors in other places. I need to cast a wide enough net while setting the analytics up to tell me where to gravitate towards, where to make data-driven decisions towards, and then ramp up what’s working from there. Not just, I’ll use the word again, assumptions or initial thoughts at the beginning. That this is going to be global and this is going to be huge. As much as saying two weeks in, two months in, these are the segments that are working best. This is what we’re going to do more of.

Scott McIntyre: That’s a lot too. Thanks Jason. Appreciate that. Yeah. Andy, I’m going to apologize in advance. I’m giving you a lot of editing to do, my friend. Sorry about that. So we’re going to move on to educational strategies, more specifically, educational strategies that convert.

And although the conversion side is never in the wheelhouse, CfPA, that’s not our business. As someone who’s also founded and helped build several nonprofits, I assure you that knowledge of risks and opportunities is vital to both issuers and to investors. So it’s a heavy burden for trade groups when we’re introducing something new that hasn’t been done before. Much like entrepreneurship, you’re doing something that hasn’t been done before. The challenges are oftentimes unimaginable, and yet you find yourself in them very quickly when you start to get the word out to something that’s so promising, as crowdfunding came to be in the United States anyway.

That perhaps tees up another topic, but if it tickles you, feel free to comment on that. Here’s the main question though. So education seems to be one of the most powerful levers in moving investors forward, whether it’s webinars, data reports, or community engagement. So what strategies or engagement tools have you seen actually move the needle in terms of conversion rates?

Talk specifically to these tools, such as webinars, data reports, or community engagement, and how do you weigh those when you’re engaging an issuer? And we will start with Jason. So you’ve run hundreds of campaigns, which educational content or tactics consistently deliver the strongest ROI? What are they?

Jason Fishman: Sure. I wasn’t sure if my answer before was too long, flattered that you came back. You get a chance to write up right now, buddy. Go for it. you want to look at traffic drivers that bring people into a funnel, mid funnel. You mentioned webinars. I love webinars. I think they’re an anchor to content marketing. If I look at content marketing, it’s really short form across social, including LinkedIn, YouTube type channels, email, you have to get people into that system first. But then the long form content, articles, videos, live events. I’ve worked on live events that raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and from both retail and credit investors. During the pitch itself, I’ve worked on webinars that was in a 24 hour window. I’ve been over a million dollars raised. It gives you an opportunity to market before, during, after. It gives you an opportunity to pull in that social proof, those third parties that can say, yeah, what they’re doing is great. I’ve invested. Here’s why. If that speaker as an audience that they can bring to that live event. And I say live event, ’cause it could be webinar, it could be in person with a digital extension from it. So you mentioned webinars. I’d see the direct correlation to a higher conversion rate from that as well as retargeting ads. Everyone should be running retargeting ads.

Scott McIntyre: Great. Appreciate that. Let me take one second to update my notes and we will move on to Sarah. So how do you strike the balance between providing information and keeping the message compelling rather than overwhelming? So I know that’s got to be hard, especially when you’re doing mass marketing.

Sarah Hardwick: Yeah, absolutely. I think leaning into emotion, three quarters of our decisions are made by that emotional factor and so I think you really center in and hunker down in that why and that purpose and then you back it up with proof. So I think starting off and really focusing in on inspiring on making that emotional connection and then of course backing up with those facts and those proof points. And I think starting in that way is very powerful.

Scott McIntyre: Excellent. Alright, that is the bulk of it on education. Claudio, do you have anything that you wanted to add from a European perspective on education? How people perceive it, how it’s delivered?

Claudio Grimoldi: I think on the marketing perspective, it’s about creating and delivering information are better as a lead magnet instead of a direct conversion because people need to understand the marketing, to understand the company itself, whatever, and blah, blah, blah. So I completely agree that. For me, like the 90% of the effort online must be driving to webinars because it’s a sort of one to many selling, as a live pitch to everyone else. So people are not feeling as threatening by the founders, whatever. So think about having a direct call with Jason who is trying to sell you his own company. It’ll be like, being in the same pool with a shark, I can say. But if you are there with us, Jason is just about telling, speaking to others and they can deal with it. So they can just putting questions, whatever in the same time. So they are not doing this in the, in a one-to-one way to do that.

And also promoting information online with like reports, white papers, whatever, and so on. It’s a very clever and smart way, and I would say the standard way to interact with potential customers and or investors as I said before. But I think the most important thing at the beginning is to translating those type of internet and remote interactions to a physical ones, because when you bring someone. One of the, my best clients in the past raised 17 million via equity crowdfunding with zero revenues. And it was a thing, right? And the best deals were done, on, in, at dinner. We are Italians obviously, but everyone was there like in the internet. They were not they were like, is these people real? Are those people real? Is this person existing for real? are those type of businesses out there? Whatever. So they were like, okay, we interacting the, in the internet, but now it’s time for the real life so you can bring there someone else. And I think mixing all together and being able to show you are there, you’re doing your things. It’s the best way to convert someone to a potential investor, to a real one.

Scott McIntyre: That actually, yeah, please, Sarah.

Sarah Hardwick: Of course. You guys raise your hands anytime and chime in as you like. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I think this idea, that Claudio mentioned of this, it’s almost like community led education is really important and whether it’s an ambassador program or whether it’s an event, I think this idea of arming people, arming your supporters, arming your fans, arming your backers with information that they can take out, and then that really becomes very authentic. And I think that’s a really powerful force on a grassroots level that I think you can really take advantage of.

Scott McIntyre: I think you were just literally reading into my notes. Sarah, obviously we are related, so I’ll go a little bit deeper in that one. So my thought Claudio was with so many borders and so many cultures, have any of the platforms in Europe like discussed contributing to a common body, an objective third party that would handle this type of education on a region by region basis, so that investors really trust a more authentic, objective third party as opposed to always worrying whose motivation is behind this message, this education, if you will.

Claudio Grimoldi: No, everyone, every platform is looking for itself, I will say. And they are not working together for something like that. Just because, like two platforms are real cross borders, more or less. someone else is just about, yeah, I have my international license, but I know I not working there. I’m just allowed to gather some potential companies in the future, but they’re not established into another country, something like that, and so on.

So you are more educated by, I would say by the company itself. Because the, you are not facing any type of crowdfunding platforms till your favorite company is getting listed there in the platform. And then from the founders, whatever you are getting into the those type of informational processes and funnels as Jason said before. And it’s the very cool way I can correct way to interact with, because you are trusting founders in that type of usually in that type of phase funding phase of the company itself. You are investing into people not, you are not investing into companies because they’re new on the market. They maybe they could be like a sort of bet you are just doing something like this.

And just to close what Sarah was saying before and I completely agree with her, the think it’s about if you are. After the campaign closed, if you’re interacting to your investors and whatever, and you are providing a lot of stories, even if when you are failing, when you are facing some problems, you are just preparing the ground, as we said here from the second round, with the crowdfunding. Because transforming clients to investors and investors into ambassador means adding smart money. Because if you’re just looking for the money itself, crowdfunding is even, it’s even more expensive than banks if you’re good looking for loans or VCs or whatever you’re looking for. But if you’re looking to them as a smart money, as someone who can bring you a business in different types, like new partners, new clients and whatever, and blah, blah blah. You are just need to set up with, as Jason already knows, like referral or athlete programs in order to pay back someone else. And they are participating in the real way to your company, which is their company itself.

Scott McIntyre: It’s very interesting the perspective you gave and you used a phrase in particular that I noted and I don’t know if Jason or Sarah heard it the way I did, but investors there are looking at really making an investment in a person rather than in a company, especially with startups. ’cause it usually is that one person with the vision, one person that does the hard work, that guy holding the bag as I like to tell my students. So I wonder, Jason and Sarah, have you guys encountered campaigns where you really want to focus on the visionary founder as opposed to the metrics or the promise of the investment or the rewards that they may get downstream. You want to start, Jason, please?

Jason Fishman: 100%. people invest in people and I like polling retail and accredit investors, especially at events. And when I hear people say, Hey, we’ve invested in Start Engine deals and Wefunder and I found this one on the Dealmaker, they’ll reference the CEO by their first name as if they know them. And it’s very important to be able to show the captain that’s steering the ship. Again, we’re going to optimize towards, we’re seeing the best performance, but it’s commonly the founder, the management team, and you have your own publishing channels. So if you’re putting their voice, their statements, their likeness out across social media, email, long form content channels, I absolutely see that show up. I see the opposite at times as well too. Where there’s not a picture of the founder, even in the team section or maybe just there and you start asking questions, always a red flag for me. If there’s not real people behind it, I immediately turn the page. I swear. That’s exactly, I’m exactly, that’s interesting. I appreciate that. Sarah you want to add.

Sarah Hardwick: Yeah, I think, in my experience when I was working with Aptera, we raised 140 million and the two founders became a huge part of the story. And then part of it was because people could relate to them. There were these two guys who had started this amazing company from their garage and they people felt oh, I can relate to them. And then to see them progress and to see them learn and to see them evolve and to see them move, people felt like they knew them. And I think there’s a lot that can be said for putting yourself out there. And we talked about transparency, but being humble, they were never like flashy. They weren’t like trying to be anyone. They weren’t we, they were just very authentic and they were themselves. And I think that really resonated with their investors.

Scott McIntyre: I need to qualify that. I’m not being paid to say this, but Sarah, if you were behind Aptera, I’ve been following them forever and I immediately saw an identifiable personality. I saw real people with real vision, but it was also done in such a perfectly smooth and brilliant delivery of that message and that branding. I got to tell you that some of the best stuff that I’ve seen. So if you were involved in that anyway, kudos to you.

Sarah Hardwick: Yeah, amazing. I was the CMO for several years and was behind the whole campaign, so I appreciate that.

Scott McIntyre: I’d love to hear an update at some point offline. We’ll talk about that another day. But I’m a huge, I’m a giant outdoor person and camping and recreational vehicles to me are all that. I’m curious and hopeful that their story continues. ’cause I know there were some hiccups along the way as we all face.

So that said, Andy, I also felt like I should chime you in here because we did touch on the subject of whether or not governments, regulatory bodies, platforms, who are all the parties that are involved. And when you’ve got different languages and different cultures, it seems a group like GECA is going to be desperately needed when we’re starting to open up these cross-border investments. You want to chime?

Andy Field: Yeah, I will do. And this is the first time I have actually spoken in any of these round tables. I’ve managed to stay right in the background. But no, you’re absolutely right. This is exactly what GECA is going to be establishing by putting out our white paper as a result of these amazingly fruitful conversations with industry experts who actually know what they’re talking about. They’ve been on the ground, they understand the pain points, the problems in dealing with all of the things that we’re trying to achieve, which ultimately comes under the one umbrella of the borderless utopian borderless equity crowdfunding.

So. All of the afore mentioned institutions that you’ve mentioned there, Scott, policymakers, governments, regulators, they all need to be aware of the difficulties on regional levels as as well as, we have to tackle the regional issues first. But then once that’s happened, the harmonization process has to occur in order for the industry to scale as it should do, and as it’s got the technology, it’s got the people. It’s got the investors there are obvious things that are stopping that happening and they’re the things that we are going to try and address with GECA and with the help and support of the other existing organizations that operate more regionally.

UK Crowdfunding association, I say that because I’m in the UK, but obviously, you guys with the CfPA, and of course, the European Digital Finance Association, in Europe and further afield as well into Africa, Asia and Australia. so yeah, that it’s about harmonizing all of those things to to try and get a more coherent ecosystem, I think. And that’s what we’re going to be doing.

Scott McIntyre: Eloquent. As always, Andy. I will say, when you approach me with your concept, as you may recall, I told you, oh, I’ve been there. I’ve thought about this one before. Yep. And I called mine the International Crowd Finance Leadership Council. I thought it was a pretty big sounding name. It was cool. But the beauty of the acronym was I click ICLC. So I thought, oh, we can get away with this. No, it is such a challenge what you’re doing, because it’s not just about harmonizing, as you said. And I love that word because music is my thing, but harmonizing is one thing in that with a cacophony of voices and different styles of music and languages, that’s going to be a challenge in itself. I would think that you might want to think more about distilling the ethical points of each of these differing cultures and approaches to investment and view on investment will maybe reach a better result. Finding these common ethics, I think will be the trick. And being able to.

Andy Field: And I think that’s very valid and that will form a part of the white paper. I think that’s completely right. But on the other hand as well, we can only do this with the support and voices from across the globe. And we have managed to build that over the last 12 months or so. We’ve got 70 supporters now across the globe. We’ve got steering committee of 13 members from across the globe, all very key people in the industry. And having those voices just makes us able to shout louder and that’s what we need to be able to do. So we’re now really going to start producing the goods, if you like, and start on our mission now. We’ve had that growth period. So that’s what I’m really excited to do. And all of you guys actually are on board. I know. So it’s, thank you for that. And long way it continue.

Scott McIntyre: Thank you for doing the hard work, my friend. I know what’s behind it. So more congrats to you than to us, but we will definitely show up because we all believe in this for the right reasons, and I think that’s a huge component of why I’m involved. So thank you again.

And that kind of tees us up to the final point, folks. And we’re right at three o’clock now, so I think we’re in the middle of it. looking ahead. So as the global investment landscape continues to evolve, and it will, especially with new tech and increased exposure through the new channels of media, conversion may look very different in five years. So how do you all see investor conversion changing in the very near future, especially as technology regulation and global access continue to shift?

And I will start with Claudio. What role do you see for cross-border platforms in reshaping investor expectations?

Claudio Grimoldi: Looking at the regulation, I can say, I bet the most important part will be related to the secondary markets. Until we are not able to grant everyone to be easy, a very easy way, to sell the company, to the shares of the company, by both Sorry, means clicking many times this time, 0 4 0 4 at 9:00 PM from you, from the English. So I have to do it again. So I was saying, looking at the regulation, until we are not ready to grant a real secondary market, in the same way as your buying Tesla or Nvidia, or pick your favorite American company on Robinhood. Because Andy is from UK and you are you are, it’s a very easy way to resell the shares themself. Until we are not able to do something like that in the future, the primary market will be still cut somehow. It’s the same way as. You think about, can you buy, you want to buy that house or that car or that pair of shoes, even if you are not able to sell that in the future, like the Jordan brand, right? So you’re not facing that type of problem.

So starting from that, we need to look at the tech, the technology, the tech stack, be able to grant those type of opportunities. And I think the tokenization in the real time, like not the Bitcoin material, something like that, the real tokenization parts will be super important here. And as I said before, the DLT Pilot regime in Italy, I think might be the first step, to bring something like this for the European companies. And then even in the future, I, already, I put like DLT for the, from Google, alerts. And I’m looking for something like this, even the, in the USA market.

So yeah, let’s see what’s. This brings us in the future, but the other way to interact and from the marketing perspective, Jason already knows everything about this, with AI, we have a big problem with the AI overview in the future. So it means every type of, Paid advertising online will increase even more because you are gathering less, visitors on your website. And it means you need to cover those type of laws somehow. And you need to push more on the online marketing maybe, but it will be super expensive. I did it from 2012, put me putting my money on Facebook at the beginning. So yeah, I remember how cheap was it at the beginning? And people are right now still thinking about, it’s a very cheap way to promote yourself, but it’s not, it’s just more efficient on the way of tracking everyone else.

So in thinking about you need, we need to face new way to raise money using old ways to promote yourself like, such as radio, television, offline media, whatever, and track them as a offline conversions to an online marketing assets, as. We did in the past for the online media as a new media, which were super cheap at the beginning. Merging those type of technology from the marketing perspective and from the financial side, I think will be a very sweet spot in the middle for everyone. Be able to raise money internationally and sell them and whatever, and yeah. That’s it.

Scott McIntyre: once again I can say that Andy has done his homework in bringing you to this group because you have spawned question, every single comment you’ve made. So I’m going to do another diversion. Sorry, Andy, on the editing, but here’s what it is, and you put it very subtly. It flowed into the conversation, but tokenization is a very hot topic in the US right now as a result, I think largely of the allure of this new mirror token, which we can talk about in a second. I’m definitely going to put that on Jason and Sarah’s desk.

But secondary markets, first and foremost, as lucrative as they may be for platforms and for lawyers and for brokers themselves, they pose a huge risk to early stage companies that live and die by very volatile market performance when they’re still evolving their very business model oftentimes it’s very different for instance, than they’re living on a daily basis, right? They make a mistake one day and all of their followers are going to know about it. Brokers are going to start hawking it, and sales are going to start going out the door, driving down their valuation. So their next round is going to be challenged as a down round.

This is a horrible performance issue, unlike public markets where at least they have quarterly reports to work toward, right? They can say, okay, just wait for the quarterly report. We got 90 days to figure this crap out. So I’ll put it to you, Sarah, first, secondary markets, tokenization, mirrors, in particular, the stage is yours.

Sarah Hardwick: Yeah, I think it is the evolution is happening so quickly, and I think on one hand it’s really very exciting. I think. I see, and I don’t know, Jason, I’d be curious your opinion of this, but some hesitation on the behalf of issuers and investors as well, just to explore some of these new avenues. And I think it’s going to be a little extra layer of, yes, it’s exciting and it’s this cool new thing, but it’s also, I see people whoa, freezing in their tracks a little bit. where do we go from here? And this is scary and exciting, but it’s this beautiful idea and opportunity. And so I personally, I’ve seen some hesitation, so I’d be curious what you see as well, Jason, in your world.

Jason Fishman: Yeah, so there’s a lot of different angles to answer this question. essentially as a marketer, I want to be able to reach the right audiences and offer them value through the offering, taking ’em down the funnel. I’ve worked with groups that bonus tokens alongside their equity on Reg CF campaigns. I’ve worked on various types of token sales. I’ve worked with cryptocurrency exchanges, and I think some of the fear, and I know we’ve talked about this, Scott, is what happens when things fail, right? Because mirror token, we’re talking an IOU and from a middleman, it’s not the stock. Sure the company may not survive, but what happens in those type of scenarios? I’ve seen massive organizations that I felt had all the right players and if you will, were too big to fail. Fail. I worked with some of the cryptocurrency exchanges that overextended themself and then had lending clients go default on their loans, and it tumbled the whole thing. And again, all the right people involved, not fraudulent activity. Just when one domino chip fell, all these other groups in the space fell.

And I think that’s in the background for a lot of the people. Analyzing from the Web3 perspective and from the regulated investment crowdfunding standpoint, for us it’s about capital formation. Sure. All sides of the table founders getting access to investors, access to capital, investors getting access to early stage, growth stage. I like to say deal flow. I think it’s an amazing thing and I get a little bit of fear around these instruments ’cause it could sour the waters for everyone involved. Could even lead for bad actors. There’s ways where this can be manipulated or at least left with a lot of people holding the bag I’ve given my thoughts to the CfPA. I know we’re putting different notes out there. but I think it all comes down to transparency. It all comes down to audience building. It all comes down to that relationship with the founder and speaking to their audience and how that’s tracking, how they’re pushing them to different vehicles. So if it’s a token in this market, if it’s straight equity in a different market, the tracking that Claudio was mentioning as well too, if you own your audience, you’re going to be able to see a lot more of their actions in general. And I know there’s different blinders for different markets around it. So at the end of the day, I think the one-to-one, one to many, but from the one instead of a middleman relationship is ideal. And what we’re all seeking out.

Scott McIntyre: Yeah, I think closing that gap is big. one thing I will say is, ’cause the word transparency has appeared many times today. My opinion on transparency is without enforcement, it’s just marketing by another name. So I really, I caution you as you’re all contemplating the international waters, I think. I think that international investors are going to see it a lot more from my perspective than American investors do.

American investors have a certain amount of luxury in that the retail investor marketplace is so big and so deep here that these are just seen more as gambles. They’re just seen as, oh, I’ll throw a little money at that, a little money at that. Because we do have more disposable income perhaps than other countries might have at this stage anyway, at least for now. Anyway. So I think that’s where the import on mirror tokens is particularly contrasted. Tokenization in general is a vehicle for easing and creating more fluidity, I think is fine. But when you’re talking about mirror tokens on a company that’s not even public yet, without firsthand information, it’s just, it’s such a classic Wall Street. Just sell, don’t worry about it. Just sell. And that troubles the crap out of me. So I will say that.

So any other thoughts, folks on, any one piece of advice? I’ll leave this out to all three of you. Any one piece of advice you have on maximizing global investor conversion? If there was one piece of advice, what would it be? Leave us with something to quote you on. Yeah, Sarah.

Sarah Hardwick: I would say go all in on values and build a movement that is bigger than you that people can believe in. That paints a picture of what the future is going to be like and really double down in your why and your purpose.

Scott McIntyre: Okay. Claudio?

Claudio Grimoldi: I would say. Don’t look, don’t look for the tool or the instrument to raise money, but do something that people are looking for and do something relevant. When do you do something relevant and everything is getting easier. So you can get easily way to sell yourself, easily way to sell your company itself. And then you will understand if you’re going to do a lending or equity organization, whatever, instrument or whatever you’re looking for, because people will follow easier, the project itself, because it’s something interesting for the market itself.

Scott McIntyre: And Jason.

Jason Fishman: Do more intelligently, but do more. When I look at the success rates in the space. They’re not high, higher than offline, but when I analyze those deals, they didn’t have enough eyeballs. And from the right people have your traffic projections, have your messaging to walk ’em through it. Understand people don’t under, people don’t really know what regulated investment crowdfunding is, or whatever it may be called in a different market. I have to explain it to people every day. I’ve done so for the past nine years. You really have to be educational in the process. So traffic, messaging, variance, conversations with experts in the space, do more.

Scott McIntyre: Very good. Very good. I’m going to close here. Before I hand it off, Andy, let me apologize to you again, my friend, for the gargantuan editing effort that this, all these diversions will cause you. As an editor myself, video editor myself, I appreciate that’s most of the work of video production, sadly is in the editing. So again, my apologies.

and to Jason, to Sarah and Claudio, thank you so much for your valuable insights. I know that sounds token in itself, it’s not, you guys have been doing the work and the fact that you’re putting yourselves out there as volunteers and contributing to even a program like this is really meaningful.

And I hope that we can all promote this this video and all the others from GECA because it is really important what we’re doing. Trust, preparation, education. These are all themes that I heard today. And for founders, the takeaway is quite clear. Use data to your advantage, but more than anything, make sure that your transparency is authentic and you’re ready to withstand the type of scrutiny and enforcement that will certainly come from the crowd.

If there’s one thing we know that the crowd’s good at, it’s finding a flaw. It’s like your mom, she looks you right in the eyes. So for all of us, in the crowdfunding ecosystem, the opportunity is to keep refining these tools and the strategies that make cross-border investment simpler, safer, and more compelling.

So thank you all very much for joining us. Thank you, Andy, for hosting us, and we look forward to seeing you again next time.

Andy Field: Thank you. Scott, I just want to say, and thank you so much. I’ve learned so much as well. Scott expertly summarized it. I don’t think there’ll be too much editing. I like the way the conversation flows like that. It’s great. Good. But as Scott says, we’re going to be revising some of the topics. We’ve only scratched the surface of here. And my summary would be very much the same. The same themes are coming up across this whole series, regularly. Transparency helps the all important story build, and that gives trust and that’s crucial.

Founders have got to be open, honest, relevant. We’ve just spoken about the universal values and sentiment analysis that Sarah talked about are obviously crucial. And Scott talked about founder, competitor analysis being crucial, and AI and other technology can help that. So look, the marketing challenges from translation to differences in regulatory frameworks to cultural differences, they’re all there and they all need to be addressed.

And that has to happen when planning a campaign that’s going to be run internationally. So whilst there are loads of differences. The marketing fundamentals will probably still remain the same. The webinars, the long form content, the retargeting ads, they’re relevant. They’ll they’re consistent, they’ll always be there.

As well as, of course, good old fashioned face-to-face communication because remembering that people invest in people, and that’s one of the key messages that I took from that. So thank you all so much. We really appreciate it and we’re speaking to you again soon no doubt, to carry on the conversation. Thank you.