I like my business articles, marketing factsheets, sales perspectives, customer focuses, employee motivation guides. So I end up looking around a large number of websites, and today I’ve had to stop.

Today, I’ve been doing some research for a project – which requires me to look into money spinners as it were. Quick bucks, easy money and risk free investments.

I’ve been in a few forums and read Spam about, well – here’s the spiel:

“How would YOU like to be in a home-based business, where you do NO Prospecting … NO Advertising … NO Selling …NO answering questions … NO Speaking to prospects …and make absolutely NO telephone calls? How would you like to discover a great home business in which you can make great income just being totally passive? It is a legitimate company and it is a real business run by real people.”

How absurd is that, I’ve read this – or allusions to, and paraphrase of, rubbish all day.

They’re all topped off with the ubiquitous:

“To discover this amazing opportunity enter your name and email address to receive your free report, without obligation.”

It’s not just Spam posts, Spam comments and emails that have 50 links to services and products you have never heard of. Their banner ads on and sponsored links on sites that aim to provide you with information about how to run a business.

The last banner I saw before writing this post said – “Turnkey systems with no selling”. I didn’t bother investigating that one.

They might as well say, “Enter the sweepstake, now!”

Getting money without work is, despite it being née-on impossible, there’s little or no point to it. A budding entrepreneur needs a drive to get stuff done (good point made here) – not to free load. Yes, we all like it a little easier sometimes, and most of us like to think of – If I won the lotto’ scenarios. Surely, though, the whole point is to chase the challenge?

Crowd-funding, sometimes called ‘micro investing’ among other things, seems to becoming quite the fad.

It’s a type of angel investment; only downscaled on the ratio of investors to capital – and an increase in the amount of investors involved. Just likes its older, more mature sibling, crowd-funding, can be community based, and a way for successful people to give back to the community. However, with crowd-funding, it’s easier for there to exist motives that are apart from money. Where the crowd could want different benefits – not just fiscal ones.

Crowd-funding opens the way to improving services and local facilities, adding value to the local area or making the community a better place to live. Sometimes it’s not about getting money in return – sometimes, it’s about getting a better product onto the shelves or a different level of service.

This isn’t new of course, community initiatives have been around for years – now however, entrepreneurs are beginning to get even more involved and improve things further with their expertise and skill.

After keeping up with John’s blog, and reading about his thoughts on crowd-funding, and his views on companies like:
My Football Club, Nvohk, Tribe Wanted and not leaving out the new Haveyougotthenerve.tv – it’s becoming evermore popular, better still – evermore successful. The wisdom of the crowd certainly is kicking in.

To quote John again, “It’ll be interesting to see what’s next for crowd-funding. What business do you think would do well with this model?”

Well, I thought I’d take him up on that – and I’m currently working away at writing up a proposal, meeting up with experienced business leaders and people from my community. I have something just about to start, and I’m excited.

You’ll have to wait a little longer before I give you the dirt on it.

Just another excuse for you to come back!!