Free help with a raise
Raise money from your own customers. For the projects I pick, I'll do the repetitive work.
A crowdfunding raise can pay for a real project, like a second location, new equipment or a buildout. Your backers lend to the business or invest in it and expect a return, so it isn't a donation drive like GoFundMe. Most of the money usually comes from your own customers and network, and the platform's investors can add to it. The day-to-day takes time most owners don't have. I'm looking for a few projects to do that work for, free, because it gives me real experience for a Purdue venture competition.
The repetitive work I take on for the projects I pick
- Drafting the posts and updates that keep your customers and investors in the loop.
- Preparing answers to the questions investors ask.
- Writing the emails, social posts and in-store sign you send to your customers and your network, within the SEC's limits on what they can say.
And getting the raise ready
- Working out whether a raise fits at all, next to a loan, a local program or an offer you already have, with what each one really costs per year.
- Sizing the raise to the project.
- A one-page summary of the project, and a simple page where your customers can say they're interested before anything is filed, with the notices SEC rules require.
- Getting your filing (the Form C) ready inside the platform's own workflow, including a plain-language section on the risks that you review and sign off on.
Everything goes out in your name, to your customers and your network. You approve it first, and if you'd like, I can send the messages to your investors for you.
What it isn't
- It isn't a promise that a raise will fill. Under half of offerings in SEC data reported raising any money, and your backers can lose what they put in.
- I don't charge anything, and no lender or platform pays me. The platform you raise on still charges its own fees, and any accounting or legal costs are yours.
- I'm not a funding portal, broker or lender, and I never hold anyone's money. The raise itself runs on a registered platform you choose.
- This is education and hands-on help, not legal, financial or investment advice. Your filing and every statement in it stay yours.
Who it's for
- Owners with steady sales, ideally a year or more, and a specific project in the next six months that should bring in money.
- Projects that cost roughly $25,000 to $500,000, where your regulars, members or email list would want to back you.
- It's usually not a good fit for covering a slow stretch or paying off a cash advance. For those, Funding Fit can point you to options that work faster.
- Sending the form doesn't guarantee help.
How it works
Tell me about the project
The project form takes about a minute. I reply within two business days, and if it could be a good fit, I set up a call.
We talk for 15 minutes
About the project, your customers and the options that fit. If a raise isn't the right fit, or I can't take it on, I'll say so.
Test the interest first
If I pick your project, I build the summary, the interest page and the messages, and you share them with your customers for two or three weeks to see how much interest there is.
Get the filing ready
If the interest is there, you pick a registered platform and we get your filing ready together. If it isn't, you've spent a few weeks and nothing else.
Who I am
I'm Mitchell Patout, a junior studying computer engineering at Purdue, the president of Investment & Trading at Purdue, and an incoming 2027 summer intern at Coinbase (this project isn't affiliated with Coinbase). This is a project I'm doing for school. I've interviewed 18 owners about how they paid for growth, 12 of whom raised money from their own customers, and I built the calculator that compares an offer with 1,763 real deals and offerings.
About a minute. Only your business, email, the project and your OK to be contacted are required.