1. Find another crowd funding site and describe two projects featured on that site.
2. Learn more about the JOBS Act and how it impacts crowd funding for start-up businesses. What protections are in place for investors with regard to crowd frauding?
If you have a great product idea but no money, never fear, there's Kick starter, an online crowd funding site. Founded in 2008, Kick starter enables companies to raise money from multiple individuals and has helped launch more than 60,000 projects. Pebble Technology Corporation created a "smart" wristwatch called Pebble, which works with iPhones or Android phones, but didn't have the funding to produce and market the device. So young CEO Eric Migicovsky turned to Kick starter for crowd funding. His modest goal was to raise $100,000, but the company raised $1 million in only one day and a total of $10.27 million in just over one month! Nearly 70,000 people preordered the $115 watch, and Pebble now has to deliver on the promise. Kick starter takes a 5 percent fee on the total funds raised and Amazon Payments handles the processing of the funds. Kick starter charges pledgers' credit cards and the project creator receives the funds within only a few weeks the JOBS Act legislation signed into law in 2012 provides a legal framework for this type of financing, which is expected to grow even faster as a result. However, Kick starter and similar sites don't guarantee that the projects will be delivered as promised, and some people are concerned that crowd funding will beget crowd frauding.