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Comment by amilner42 | Hacker News Reader

It's very high-risk. I guess it's a philosophical question of whether you think the public deserves the right to take super high risks and invest in startups (1000x more risky than the public market given there is no secondary market).

On one hand you'd think the people with the least amount of money are the ones that need the options to take risks the MOST. To get out of their situation.

On the other hand, will this help them? Will the companies be good enough? Will they provide returns. Is helping 1% of people escape their situation worth it for the other 99% that will invest in startups that fail.

Interesting

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There are four concepts that we are testing to mitigate risk to the general public:

1) We have a screening committee with deep operational experience (we have 50 founders that ran companies collectively valued close to $4B) to identify the founders most likely to be successful. We have more operational experience and industry insight than your general partner at a venture fund.

2) We attracted exceptional startups to broaden our applicant pipeline by making it open to the global community and guaranteed a $50k pre-seed investment.

3) A three month period where startups were mentored, stress tested, and cleared for launch.

4) Finally, as with all investments on Wefunder, company risk and financials risks are made transparent for the public.

Successful companies often have the greatest value creation at their early stages. It is unfair to only limit this value creation to "accredited" millionaires and billionaires. In a world where payday loans and lottery system prey on the poor, we are trying to create a system of equitable wealth creation, for everyone.

One thing to note is that the SEC does limit the amount non-accredited investors could invest here to: $2,200 or 5 percent of the lesser of the investor’s annual income or net worth. So while yeah investing in startups is risky, they can't bet the house.

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