The JOBS Act

The second edition of this book shows how full implementation of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act by the SEC in 2016 enables entrepreneurs and SME executives to leverage crowdfunding platforms to raise significant amounts of capital for their startups and small-to-mediumsized businesses. The unprecedented fundraising opportunities contained in the hundreds of pages of new SEC rules have generated tremendous excitement in the startup, small business, angel investing, and venture capital worldstempered by uncertainty about the correct interpretation of the rules and the compliance risks implicit in them.InThe JOBS Act: Crowdfunding Guide for Small Businesses and Startups, 2nd Edition, crowdfunding pioneer William Michael Cunningham trawls the hundreds of pages of new rules for the essential takeaways and practical tips on successfully tapping the new crowdfunding sources that the JOBS Act opens up to small businesses and startups, while complying with new SEC regulations in the least burdensome way. The 2nd edition ofThe JOBS Act delivers the following new material:

• Updates and augments the 1st edition with description, analysis, and discussion of post-2012 SEC rules and forms implementing the JOBS Act
  
• Focuses on the final SEC rules that implement Title III (Regulation Crowdfunding) and Title IV (Regulation A+) to make the JOBS Act a practical fundraising vehicle for small business and startups
  
• Presents case studies of successful JOBS Act-compliant crowdfunding campaigns
  
• Tips readers to the opportunities, loopholes, and hazards in the hundreds of pages of new SEC rules that crowdfunders need know to maximize their fundraising success and avoid inadvertent non-compliance
  
• Deploys new graphical analysis tools and financial models summarizing and comparing characteristics of various equity-based and donation-based crowdfunding campaigns 
  
Reviews and describes significant Title III offerings and highlights relevant Title IV offerings

• Lists all SEC/FINRA-approved equity crowdfunding platforms (funding portals)
  
• Describes Title VII and provides crowdfunding-pertinent information on the new Offices of Women and Minority Inclusion at twenty-nine federal agencies
  

Who This Book Is For
Entrepreneurs and small business owners who wish to leverage the JOBS Act to crowdfund their enterprises. The secondary readerships are investors, angels, venture capitalists, securities lawyers, community development specialists, and visitors to crowdfunding platforms, which are required under the JOBS Act to demonstrate to the SEC and FINRA that they are proactively providing educational resources to potential crowdfunders.

William Michael Cunningham is the founder of Creative Investment Research, where he is Managing Partner for National Crowdfunding Services. A former securities broker and institutional salesman, he works with pension fund trustees, investment managers, community activists, government agencies, and financial industry organizations to create and implement social and community investing initiatives. In February 2006, Cunningham warned the SEC that his Fully Adjusted Return Methodology statistical models signaled the possibility of system-wide economic and market failure. He has testified before the Ways and Means and Financial Services Committees of the U.S. House of Representatives. In an October 1998 petition to the United States Court of Appeals, he opposed the elimination of the Glass Steagall Act, citing evidence that growing financial market malfeasance greatly reduced the safety and integrity of large financial institutions. Cunningham has been involved for twenty years in the provision of online resources to small businesses, including crowdfunding prototypes. An economist, investment advisor, researcher, and social investing policy analyst, he serves as a Capstone student advisor in the Real Estate Program at Georgetown University. A strong advocate for the integration of human values in finance, he involves his students in developing new ways to combine social values and investing. Cunningham holds his MBA in Finance and MA in Economics from the University of Chicago.

Part I: Summary of the JOBS Act.- Chapter 1: The JOBS Act: Summary and Definitions.- Chapter 2: Startup Financing Environment: Is the JOBS Act Still Needed?.- Chapter 3: Emerging Growth Companies: Facts, Figures, and Potential.- Part II: Disclosure and Crowdfunding in the JOBS Act.- Chapter 4: Accounting, Reporting, and Other Standards in the JOBS Act: Form C.- Chapter 5: Crowdfunding.- Chapter 6: What Title III Crowdfunding Costs.- Chapter 7: Portals: Crowdfunding Industry Model.- Part III: The JOBS Act, by Title.- Chapter 8: Title I.- Chapter 9: Title II.- Chapter 10: Title III.- Chapter 11: Title IV.- Chapter 12: Title V.- Chapter 13: Title VI.- Chapter 14: Title VII.- Chapter 15: Appendix A: Form C.- Chapter 16: Appendix B: Form A-1.- Chapter 17: Appendix C: Sample Pitch Deck.