Andy Field: Hello everybody. Welcome to the GECA Podcast, the voice of Global Equity crowdfunding. I’m Andy Field Steering Committee lead of the Global Equity Crowdfunding Alliance, where we speak with the leading voices who are shaping the future of capital raising across borders. And as crowdfunding continues to evolve, we’re exploring what it takes to run successful campaigns on a global basis, and what founders, platforms and investors really need to know to thrive in this expanding ecosystem today.

I’m joined by Jason Fishman, who’s CEO of DNA (Digital Niche Agency), a US based marketing firm that’s helped over 500 founders successfully prepare for and launch their crowdfunding campaigns. Jason’s got a deep expertise in Reg CF, Reg A and Reg D campaigns. And Jason and his team have been instrumental in helping lots of startups attract investment through strategic digital marketing.

And I should also point out that Jason is a newly crowned member of the GECA steering [00:01:00] committee. So welcome to the podcast, Jason. It’s great to have you here.

Jason Fishman: Thank you, Andy. It’s a pleasure to be here. Been looking forward to the discussion and being able to speak on this global stage to issuers internationally.

Andy Field: Fantastic. and if you enjoyed today’s episode, please make sure you follow GECA on LinkedIn, and visit the geca.org to learn more about our mission. we have our manifesto on the website, our growing global supporter base, and our steering committee, and of course how you could get involved as well.

And it just remains for me to say thank you very much for listening and stay tuned for more voices helping to shape the future of global crowdfunding. Thank [00:36:00] you.. Yeah, and I had the pleasure of meeting Jason in person back in LA that was back in May. And I knew straight away that his insights, Jason did a really detailed presentation and I knew straight away that his insights would be really valuable to our global audience. Especially as more founders and platforms are looking beyond borders as to help to grow their investor base.

So we know that Crowdfunding’s maturing quite quickly in the US but the ecosystem around the world is still fragmented and probably has to catch up a little. And at GECA, we’re focused on helping to create alignment globally and conversations like this one are really, important. they form part of the learning from different markets and different approaches.

And, Jason’s experience working hands-on with campaigns and, very closely with platforms, I think make him the perfect guest to [00:02:00] help us bridge that understanding. So I think we can dive straight in Jason, if that’s okay with you?

Jason Fishman: Absolutely, Let’s do it.

Andy Field: Great. I think well. Let’s, for, the purposes of, and the benefit of, people that haven’t come across you or, DNA yet, can you give us a little bit about the origin story?

So what led you to start a marketing agency which focused on crowdfunding?

Jason Fishman: Yeah. I’m happy to go back there and relive the days where I had, first I was working on a mobile advertising network. Building relationships with publishers, running campaigns for Fortune 500 companies. Advertisers got a good sense of what worked, didn’t work across a whole spectrum of industries, budget levels, timelines, but I wanted to get back into the startup world.

Had experience here in Los Angeles, California was part of a social gaming company, be before getting emerged into the world of ad tech. And was asked to partner in this agency, DNA. We’re talking back in [00:03:00] 2014. We began as a growth marketing firm and we found capital raising. To be a common theme among our clientele, whether it was working on the marketing section of a business plan to be presented to investors, putting together pitch decks, modeling a first campaign, showing performance, so those results could later be presented to an investor and have more capital injected into that company.

Even participating in investor meetings themselves, we were always brought to this conversation around capital. So when I was introduced to Reg D. Regulation 506C, allowing for solicitation of accredited investors, high net worth, high household income individuals. The light bulb went off because I was able to tell clients, Hey.

we can use our digital marketing skillset. We can use these same channels to bring investors to your offering, generate leads, nurture those leads. The first campaign we worked on, was successful, on a platform at that point called [00:04:00] Fundable, and we were introduced to more issuers on that platform.

On others. We also got attention from the. Reward crowdfunding world, Kickstarter, Indiegogo campaigns. We started getting white labeled by agencies in that space and over the next year worked on a good 40 50 of those. Started embracing the fundamentals of what a crowd sale consists of, and those groups actually introduced us to our first Reg CF clients.

back in May of 2016, day one of Reg CF, we had advertising live. Started getting more introductions, more referrals, getting invited to speak at events. Yep. worked on a regulation a plus campaign later that year. And at that point it was our key focus regulated investment crowdfunding to date have worked on over 500 of these deals that have collectively produced nine figures of capital.

We’ve worked on campaigns this year just here in 2020. Five that has have surpassed nine figures of capital. I look to showcase, [00:05:00] the results on my podcast. Just put out episode 209 each with a different guest, many of the top issuers. I’ve been on it. yep. Of course. As I was saying, the thought leaders in the space Andy’s been on, and, I try to be an open book in terms of what physically drives results and what is under-producing in the market today.

Andy Field: Amazing. Amazing. I’m just wondering, in those early days, was it often the case? Did, all of your clients come to you with the intention of raising funds or actually, was that a suggestion you brought to the table and said, look, have you thought about this? Marketing can be applied not just to the, the marketing plan and strategy of your business, but also for this very specific purpose of, raising capital.

Jason Fishman: it was primarily through introductions. What ended up occurring is. These clients, these perspective groups would see our case studies and say, Hey, this is interesting. Yeah. Perhaps we should be raising capital. But I do say that there are other [00:06:00] considerations beyond marketing that groups want to take into account before determining whether they want to go down this, path of regulated investment crowdfunding, using digital tools to source investor conversations, to convert, those discussions, those audiences that they’re going after.

I am a, big believer that every group that is. Doing a Reg cf, a regulation a plus campaign, really even a, Reg D 506C should absolutely be marketing. yeah, but I’m usually not telling every company that they should do one of these rounds. and part of it is I want them to be committed.

I want them to know, hey, yeah. This is the path we’re going down so we can then focus on the marketing discussion. And I’m not speaking too much to legal, to accounting, to areas that are, outside of our expertise. I could share notes there Yeah. But can really have an in-depth, interaction, along with recommendations on how to effectively bring investors to a deal.

Andy Field: Okay. That, yeah, [00:07:00] that makes sense. Typically today then, what sort of clients are you working with? I can see how the power of the recommendation of the case study, is going to bring those clients to you. But do you have a typical, DNA, if you like, of a, client?

Jason Fishman: I put it into three categories, groups that are in planning, groups that are plateaued, and I could speak more about success rates and groups that are scaling.

There is not one ideal customer persona profile as much as they’re in one of those three stages. Scaling probably the most exciting for us to talk about. Yeah. could tell you about campaigns. Advertising performance. We’ve seen this year with Mode Mobile. They hit 45 million. their full cap on regulation A plus in May could share results from BOXABL RAD Intel, which hit its $12 million goal.

And maybe going further from here, can talk to you about Atom Beam, can talk to you about [00:08:00] avidan hit the $5 million cap on Reg CF in 43 days on May 8th. So a, lot of different groups that I would say are serial issuers. they’ve, yeah, run multiple campaigns. They’ve built up an investor audience, still driving new people on a daily basis and retargeting everybody.

it’s then different if we speak to a group that is stuck. They’re on a Reg CF platform, perhaps, and they’re not really seeing any traction. Yeah. Or they’ve at least plateaued where, their, movement is pretty consistent and it’s not gonna get them to their full goal, different type of, conversation that I have with those groups.

And then you have the folks in planning where there are, more variables. You could set up a full campaign strategy, algorithmic roadmap, if you will, taking them from point A to point B into each milestone, in route to their full goal. [00:09:00] it’s encouraged that first degree audience comes in during those early stages.

So that’s a bigger part, of the plan. But I usually put it into one of those three categories and across a whole list of different verticals. I like to say it’s typically. it, it’s commonly, reflecting what we’d read about in the media. If I’m yes, researching on a business site, entrepreneur site and hearing about new fields that, are emerging, it’s pretty common that I’ll receive a call from a group in that space in the coming weeks.

We even wanna make our headlines, our copy reflect what a target audience member may be consuming in the media that week.

Andy Field: I bet that can help with your planning as well. So that’s quite useful.

Jason Fishman: absolutely.

Andy Field: so just moving on a little bit to the global perspective and, your experience and views about that.

Obviously DNA is, based in the US but are you seeing growing interest from, founders or from [00:10:00] investors? Actually just. from your sort of experience point of view, are you seeing more interest, on an international basis, so investors who are looking to, invest in international businesses and founders who are looking to gain investment from international investors?

Jason Fishman: Yes. Yes, absolutely. So it really goes back to 2017. In 2017, we started getting inquiries that would include the word blockchain in it and. We started getting invitations to speak at conferences globally and not just about Web3 projects, but, a, full list of, different, industries at that point.

I’ve been Istanbul for the World Congress of Angel Investors Forum. I’ve been to. Australia for Google Startup Grind APAC. I’ve been to conferences, in Asia and Europe. I think I’ve spoken, at events in eight different countries. And each of those would have side [00:11:00] meetings with different investment banks, funds, publishers, accelerators, consultants, and have these contacts regionally, in each of these markets that we can use to, accelerate campaigns.

There’s, Reg S we’re working on Reg s campaigns right now. I’ve been doing so for years. there are various different types of, audience building campaigns that we’ve worked on internationally. We’ve had to exclude, US investors from, many campaigns at that. Yeah. we’re, not advising the clients, Hey, here’s exactly who you should and who you shouldn’t be targeting in terms of, country and location.

As much as they’re telling us, Hey, we wanna do this globally, Hey, we want to go after investors. We’re allowed to target investors in these three countries, these five countries. Yeah. Which is often how I look at global campaigns. By the way. I still [00:12:00] want to build, a marketing campaign, a funnel that speaks to audiences in a more personalized fashion.

In general, let alone when incorporating geotargeting. So yes, I’ve had the opportunity to, run campaigns that brought in, both retail and accredited investors in Europe and Asia. I can tell you that there’s, definitely interest from groups internationally to target US investors and vice versa.

There are US campaigns where there’ll be an extension on a different portal or with a different broker dealer, and from an advertising perspective. We could geo geotarget down to, very, small areas we could geofence around buildings. Yeah. And target people who’ve been in, let’s say, conference centers in the past six months, on basic ad platforms in the US it’s the zip code level.

but we can, really be specific on who we’re going after AB tests so we could see the [00:13:00] pockets of performance, where we’re getting the best results and doing more of what’s working.

Andy Field: And I guess, yeah. So the technology and the methodology is universal. It’s there anything can be done to the level that, that you’ve outlined there.

I suppose though there are, some hurdles to, to this and, have you noticed any specific hurdles for campaigns who are looking to raise capital across borders?

Jason Fishman: compliance is, yeah. Always, part of the discussion. If we speak with the group and they say they’re launching in a month or three months, we wanna prepare to do a longer pre-launch campaign so that if there are any delays, we can continue audience building, engaging, those groups.

Building more community so that the first day, the first week of the raise, are more substantial, going back to reward crowdfunding tactics. And, it took a lot of best practices from that. [00:14:00] It, really sets the foundation of your campaign. If you have a strong, we’ll call it first chapter, instead of putting any time limit on it.

Targeting is not being done correctly. You could be generating leads from investors. You could have investors coming to your offering that are not able to physically participate. in the US we call it KYC, know your client. They’re not able to pass through the KYC process. That language is more commonly used when speaking about accredited investors and their household income, their net worth requirements to be able to, purchase shares in that round.

Yeah. Similar types of, prohibits, on some of our international campaigns, especially if it’s around a fund. lp, gp, limited partner, general partner, acquisition campaigns. We’re bringing in larger investors to come in and there’s some type of obstacle, monitoring press globally Yeah. Is a different animal.

So definitely, yeah. What [00:15:00] may be relevant in terms of messaging to us here in the us? It may not be, reflecting the times, internationally. So we have to keep a very close pulse on what news is coming out. Is that it’s, disturbing that, as Americans, we may not, may, we may not be, we may not be receiving all the news that people in Europe, people in these different areas are, and vice versa.

So it’s very important that we’re putting ourself in the shoes of the target audience and doing appropriate searches so that we’re able to get a better idea of what they’re being told.

Andy Field: That’s a really good point. I’d never even thought of that, but that’s a really interesting point.

Jason Fishman: Yeah, We could say something that, is out of line in advertising messaging.

Yeah. Or more importantly, we wanna model the campaign off what’s working today. When I work on one of these rounds, I recommend beginning with the strategy, could get more into that, but section, I built a model called the eight point plan. [00:16:00] Generally working on two sections a week over the course of a month, starting with the industry overview and moving to the competitor marketing audit because we want to have a

good understanding of what those prospects, what those potential investors are seeing on a daily basis. We do not wanna be shooting in the dark. What other investment opportunities are they being presented with? Via advertisements on social platforms, on the media sites that they frequent, through email and newsletters that they subscribe to.

And success leaves clues we want to take from that when building a campaign, right? Yeah, of course. Putting a brand’s touch on it. have to do a, more intensive dive. Extra layer of research for international campaigns as a whole.

Andy Field: and that kind of everything you’ve outlined there covers the question I was going to ask you next, which was what advice would you give for non-US founders who are hoping to attract, US investors?

So, people perhaps in Europe, businesses in Europe who are looking to target [00:17:00] investors in, the us. I don’t expect you to answer that question. There’s so much detail to that question. I know, but you’ve covered a couple of the main bits there actually.

Jason Fishman: I could elaborate on that a bit further because that eight point plan, building a strategy, it, it is often overlooked by founders and CEOs.

It sounds self-explanatory. But so does budget conservation. Yeah. And so does overall, finance, use of the existing funds. Marketing generally requires some type of budget. There are many things that you can do, using human capital and, leveraging existing audience. So I don’t wanna say it has to, but just.

It commonly does. So when it comes to allocation of those funds, hey, let’s skip the strategy. Let’s just run advertising. Let’s just do outreach. Let’s just pay to be featured in these publishers, programs. [00:18:00] I Wanna make sure everything we’re doing is direct response, meaning we’re able to measure a return on ad spend, the cost, of capital.

And I, I would encourage everyone to create a marketing strategy first. When I think about Reg CF, when I think about regulation a plus, I really define it as a marketing exercise, and that’s not just because I’m a marketer. You can hear lawyers, you could hear CPAs, accountants who are working on these campaigns saying the same thing.

It, is contingent on enough traffic if the deal is listed online, which, these filings are enough traffic to the offering page with a average, if not close to average conversion rate and a strong enough average investment value. Without enough traffic contingent upon that conversion rate coming through, you’re simply not gonna hit the full goal.

So you need to ask yourself, how am I gonna get this traffic? What is going [00:19:00] to engage them? What is gonna move them forward? When I talk about the eight point plan, just firing through the headlines, you’re looking at two to three different industries looking to take stats from there so you can really present the market opportunity, and have everyone involved, more connected to what the ecosystem looks like today, that competitor marketing audit.

Oh man, that, that’s the most important part to me. Yeah, I will do a brief one even before speaking with issuers, just so I have an understanding of what’s occurring in this space today, what the conversation between investor and issuer looks like today. you then map out your target audience personas.

Like I said, you wanna put yourself in their shoes and really understand. What do they do on the weekends? Where do they go online? What makes them move forward? What are they converting on today? before you start to, to pitch them and digital allows for this, you, could look into all of it, and have variance.

It’s not just one type of investor. you should be going after at least three to five. You want to understand the touch points of [00:20:00] those audiences, how you can reach ’em with paid advertising, how you can reach them with organic content on those channels. You then wanna prioritize. again, budget time.

Which channels do we wanna start with? Yeah. industry. competitor marketing, audit audiences, channels before you determine what am I gonna put any of these channels, what is going to be, the messaging in the first sets of ads? What does the content calendar look like? Yeah. Because you’re taking the audience through an experience, it’s likely gonna be seven touch points or more before they convert.

Even on a lead form, let alone a retail investment offering page. I say that because it’s, a lighter minimum. It’s gonna be at least seven touch points. You wanna be intentional about what those audiences see when they’re searching around and doing their own due diligence. A and this may sound a lot like a lot of work, but this is an opportunity.

Imagine you’re speaking to someone offline, you don’t know what they’re gonna look at, you don’t know where they’re going. From there, digital, you could actually get a good sense of where they’re going [00:21:00] and position for that. There’s headline worthy announcements showing up on ads, on organic content, on, third party mentions and they keep seeing you and with engaging content, you wanna look at strategic partners that could really have everything move faster for you, reach out to their existing, loyal, warm audience.

It’s how I’ve seen campaigns move the quickest. And then after the competitor marketing on it, the most important section for me is the projections. I think it’s the most important section for a lot of groups. the CFO will classically, just flip to the spends and the budget levels. Yep.

The projections. but it’s very important. The only way to measure is with numbers. So how much are you raising the first week, the first month, the second month? Not, just total amounts and, taking a guess as much as what does the algorithm look like? I, mentioned a term earlier of algorithmic roadmap, so I like to think of it [00:22:00] in digital terms of impressions, clicks, and conversions.

True. How many times an ad or a piece of content is being seen, how much traffic is it driving to an offering page or a landing page? You wanna look at the offering page after that, if it’s a landing page, but to, to an offering page. and then how many conversions are coming through and average projections.

You could even put an average transactional value, an average investment size, which I, could tell you for different filings, you could research for different filings. Again, there’s plenty of issuers that have done this before and the information is there. Sure. Maybe you see some larger investments that get you to a much higher average, but, I like projecting conservatively, if it’s a 1% click through rate and a 2% conversion rate.

On a Reg CF campaign last year, $1,500 was the average investment regulation a plus was about $2,300. Given we’ve worked on regulation A plus campaigns this year with, over $5,700 as [00:23:00] the average investment value. Reg D. If it’s a 100k minimum, maybe it’s a $260,000, $280,000 average investment, but you have to take in account how many leads it’s gonna take

maybe one out of 50, one out of a hundred. Convert your cost per lead, your acquisition cost. If you don’t know these numbers, you’re just hoping it’s gonna work. Yeah. Yeah, and that ties your hands to that thought. Once the campaign’s live, you may just shut off a channel and have no replacement for it.

You want to be able to speak about it in a very granular fashion of, Hey. We should be at this click through rate. we’re a bit lower. That’s affecting our conversion rate, cost per acquisition, and the conversion rate’s low too. So we’re paying way too much. You have to know where in the algorithm traffic’s per, falling off and I guess optimizations there.

Andy Field: I guess that helps founders as well plan for their budgeting because obviously they’re ev every, [00:24:00] absolutely, every cent, or every penny is counting for them. So they have to be able to, see what every single penny or cent that they are spending is doing. and I think you, when we were in LA we were talking very much about testing and learning and optimizing

and that’s absolutely crucial because you need to be able to measure and show to the founders everything that’s being spent has a an action if you like. So that’s, yeah, that, that’s really interesting. I’m sure we could talk loads more about tactics, but time is gonna prevent us doing it on this occasion.

Jason Fishman: Of course. We could probably do another,

Andy Field: of course, we could probably do another, another session though. That would be really interesting. But, so, you’ve worked closely with a range of platforms. What does, in your opinion, what does an ideal founder platform marketer relationship look like? How does that dynamic work?

Jason Fishman: I like how you depicted that. You didn’t ask me, Hey, what’s the best platform? What portal is gonna produce the best results? What you just described [00:25:00] is the right way for a founder to look at a platform, which it’s a tool that they can use to complete investments, that could drive traffic to the offering.

Yeah. And it’s really that, that collaborative between them. What does that relationship look like? Clear communication. Yeah. I’ve, spoken to founders that felt is their words. They were oversold by portals and, perhaps, the sales team. I, wanna say, in some cases it would. Younger sales staff

over promised, over committed. Hey, we’re gonna be able to raise $5 million for you, the full level on a Reg CF we just did this campaign, it did 75 million. This is gonna be a breeze. This is dangerous for a portal to speak. to speak that way. Yeah. same with [00:26:00] a tech platform or broker dealer.

And just referencing, past successes. Those are the outliers, or at least, top 10%, if you will. it, I, wouldn’t say, Hey, let’s just focus on the failures or success rates. Some of these platforms, they’ll look at the, minimum raise. There’s a minimum and maximum on the filing and say, they have a 90% success rate because they’ve hit the minimum on all these, which the minimum should always be hit.

you’re setting it to say, no matter what, we’re hitting that point. Yeah, that’s right. It’s the baseline. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. pay extra attention to the stats. But I would say, you speak to three, maybe five, but I like three. And you know who you have those best, conversations with the communication, the rapport you really want, gonna wanna gravitate towards them.

And then it’s a matter of setting up a good plan more than just the marketing plan. what you’re doing on the filing, the valuation, the offering [00:27:00] page, the pitch video. Starts getting into marketing where you’re planning your updates, you’re planning what you’re gonna post on social channels, on email channels, on long form content channels outside of the offering page.

You’re determining your traffic sources and what’s gonna go through. You have an understanding from the portal of what they can do. Yeah. And they cannot, FINRA regulates the portals here in the US and they have to treat. Every issuer the same. The portals cannot play favoritism. Yeah. So they build these, these rules of how they promote, issuers.

You hit 50 k, 120 5K, 2 50, 500 a million. Each portal has its own set of guidelines on how they work with issuers, but they’ll promote to their investor audience at that stage. You do not wanna work with the portal and think that. Me merely listing with them, you are going to raise the full amount, or their audience is gonna get you to the full [00:28:00] level.

If their audience comes to bat and 50% of your investments come from them, fantastic. But. You do not want to hold your breath on that. And, really when they say 50%, it means as you’re raising funds, you’ll see more of their audience, participating as well. Yeah. Yeah. Increased exposure to their existing investor base.

Andy Field: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s probably when you just said it resonated with me. my next question is actually going to be along the lines of, what, would you say is the one thing founders must get right if they’re preparing a campaign today? But you mentioned the plan there and that.

That’s always been, certainly been how I operate. the, there’s the famous quote isn’t the something like, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. so I that, that sounds like it’s probably going to be along the lines of what you’d say is, a really important thing that founders need to get right, is their planning.[00:29:00]

Jason Fishman: Yes, but I don’t wanna be repetitive, so I’ll add to that. So what the plan is gonna tell you is that you need to have these traffic sources and you need to have this content to continue engage them to the point of conversion. So the reason I say the plan is it, builds all that out. They say the plan.

Great quote, by the way. It’s one I say a lot about if you fail to plan, but another one is that the plan is more about the process Yeah. Than the finished product. Yes. It’s asking yourself those questions. How am I gonna get enough people there? just to throw some numbers at it, on a Reg CF campaign, I said $1,500 is the average investment.

So if you are getting 50,000 visits. To the offering page and you’re seeing a 2% conversion rate. Google says an average conversion rate internet wide is 2.35%. in studies that I referenced, [00:30:00] thousand investments average of $1,500 each. That’s $1.5 million. To some people, $1.5 million is not a lot of capital.

It’s all relative. but that’s a thousand investors on a Reg CF campaign. That’s 50,000 visits. Can you do this? Yes. Do you have to have the traffic sources and ensure that you’re getting 50,000 people there? Yes. It, could happen, viral marketing. Yeah. Publisher finds you an email newsletter that charges investors to receive deal flow, finds you, there’s all types of things that, that could occur, but I having the resources in house so I’m not just, crossing my fingers, relying on chance.

yeah, You wanna have scalable channels. That’s why I like advertising so much. Outreach. It can work for larger investors, but be prepared. The outreach it has to generate that traffic. So think about the volume of outreach you need to do [00:31:00] to get that amount of traffic. There much more straightforward path to do that with advertising, but I would say scalable traffic source sources such as advertising and a good content marketing funnel to take those audiences from awareness.

To consideration. They’re considering investing to intent, they’re intending to invest, and there’s still a drop off there. Those that intend, it’s only gonna be a small percentage of ’em that actually do invest. So you only have content to support each step of the puzzle and get a higher conversion rate all the way through.

That makes sense, Jason? I got more. The more social proof, the better. The more third party validation, people don’t believe what they see online. The more of that, the better, all the way through.

Andy Field: That. Yeah, I was just gonna say that you’ve mentioned that to me before. I’m sure you did in your presentation, so that’s fantastic.

So just coming on to, your role with gcca and you, so you’ve, you’re obviously a seasoned expert in all aspects of, crowdfunding marketing. [00:32:00] but you’re also now, a valued member of our GECA steering committee, and I’d just like to. Touch on what motivated you to get involved with GECA? obviously I approached you because of the expertise.

I know you bring to the committee. what do you hope to contribute as part of the group? And then from your perspective on the steering committee, how important do you think that global collaboration is when we’re shaping the future of equity crowdfunding or, regulated crowdfunding as it’s known as in the US.

And what role do you think GECA could play in moving that forward, in breaking down some of those borders? Long question.

Jason Fishman: I’m gonna fire off a few points here. Yeah. That lead into GECA. When I look at the stats industry wide for the investment crowdfunding industry, I don’t believe there’s enough investors.

Yeah. I don’t believe there’s enough issuers and I don’t believe the success rate for either side of the table is great. I’d love to see a higher success rate for issuers. Yeah. Yeah. Industry wide. we’d love to see more awareness for the past. [00:33:00] Nine years. I’ve been explaining to people virtually every day what equity crowdfunding is.

Meanwhile, so many startups fail because they’re undercapitalized, and they should know about these tools. It’s why I put my energy into this space. it’s very fulfilling to be part, of a campaign where a company’s growing and working on later rounds, and I see their offices, their team, their market share, everything ramping up.

This is where I feel I could be most effective. I joined the Crowdfund Professional Association, the CFPA, here in the US January of 2024. I’m now on the executive committee and. Have been thrilled by the work that we’re doing. We’re working on tax incentives for investors here in the us, which would bring far more awareness, meeting with legislators.

Yeah. meeting with all different types of regulators, meeting with groups that can really get more attention, [00:34:00] to these exemptions, to these laws here in the us. and when you approached me about GECA, I said, yes, Let’s do this on a, global stage. I think, worldwide there could be more of an awareness.

And I, do believe that, five, 10 years down the line, this is gonna be the primary approach towards capital formation. And I wanna set the right best practices in place for marketing with the learnings that we’ve had. So speaking to founders all over the world, speaking to investors about what this type of deal flow looks like, it’s right in line with our initiatives.

And so I’m excited to be a part of.

Andy Field: That’s amazing. And, I couldn’t agree more with what you’re saying there. it, it resonates well with me and you’re a really valuable and welcome addition to our steering committee, so thank you so much for that. and, that’s actually all we’ve got time for, today.

Jason Fishman: Okay.

Andy Field: And I know we, we’d love to, to have a future session with you if that’s okay Jason, just to go into a bit more detail.

Jason Fishman: my pleasure. [00:35:00]

Andy Field: We’ll make sure there’s a link to the website where people can find out more about your, your eight point plan and all of the other services, that, you offer.

but I just wanna say a huge thank you for, joining us today and for sharing all those valuable insights. it’s clear that platforms like DNA are doing vital work in making, investing more inclusive and, then aligning with the global vision for a, more connected and, a better equity crowdfunding ecosystem.

Thanks Jason.

Jason Fishman: Again, my pleasure. Good to get the information out there and happy to speak further to your audience at any time.

Andy Field: Fantastic and if you enjoyed today’s episode, please make sure you follow GECA on LinkedIn, and visit the geca.org to learn more about our mission. we have our manifesto on the website, our growing global supporter base, and our steering committee, and of course how you could get involved as well.

And it just remains for me to say thank you very much for listening and stay tuned for more voices helping to shape the future of global crowdfunding. Thank [00:36:00] you.