Pages

“Cannafundr? But I don’t even know her!”

Well, that’s okay because she can find you on CannaFundr. Well, not exactly that perfect girl. More like the perfect investor. CannaFundr plays matchmaker to cannabusinesses and investors looking to cultivate this growing industry. CannaFundr is built using social media technology and owned and operated by CrowdFund Connect, which is exactly what it is: social media mixed with crowd funding mixed with an investor-business network. Their pitch is basically, in their own words: “Why spend time and money travelling around the country to pitch at conferences and events searching for key strategic investors? Pitch once on CannaFundr - and get heard around the world!”
“CannaFundr plays matchmaker to cannabusinesses and investors looking to cultivate this growing industry”
It’s getting a lot of attention, not just here on cashcowcannabis.com, and so far is the best known of its competitors, which include PotFunder.com, startuphangar.com and The Arcview Group. It’s free, which is attractive. They take it very seriously, it seems and want to build trust. I trust them. They seem solid. If you’re a business, be prepared to spend some time. They expect a complete profile and offer a lot of features to showcase your business. There’s a great deal of insider information that the investor can understand. Maybe not so much the business owner. There aren’t as many, for example, FAQ answers for businesses as investors.
They might even take it a little too serious. To see how it works I started a profile for my James Bong: Cannabis Crusader comic book/movie universe, although I could not complete the entire process as I do not yet have a pitch deck and executive summary completed. I want to believe this website can do what it says it does, but only two projects have been funded so far. It seems like a long shot and lacking a personal connection with investors, it’s hard to believe you could make an impact, or more so, why would an investor be looking on a web site for this? It’s very protective of investors, whereas I think it could be more effective if it encouraged the businesses to participate more.
Of course, you want to look at other users projects to see what they are doing and get inspired. You can’t. Every link to a project goes to a 404 not found message, even my James Bong project page. I asked them about it and they said currently entrepreneurs can’t see other entrepreneurs’ pages. I don’t know why they started it that way. They say they are changing it somewhat presently to allow page owners to choose who can view their own project. But even my own project? People can comment, review, but can’t see the project?
“it’s great I can post so many pics, videos, etc. all for free, and it looks clean and professional!”
As far as the social media aspect, I think it suffers from the same problem as CreativeDistrict.com, an awesome website which I loved but is no longer operating, due to the same reason I am about to cite. Creative District was a social media network for filmmakers, where, say, art directors could connect with screenwriters or producers, and build teams for their projects, and projects competed for $5000 every month. The problem there is everybody had a project. It was mostly above the line talent trying to win the money for their project, and so it was too competitive by nature for artists to connect in a meaningful way and support each other. I reached out to see how active cannafundr.com was, but it didn’t look like there was much interaction between businesses. Only a couple people replied to my outreach, or commented back. I could feel that same sense of “I’m really only here for my own project to get funded.” And not being able to see each other’s projects facilitates that, I think.
So, upon closer inspection and giving it some time, I wasn’t so happy. I will say, my project looks good, and if there are investors out there looking at it, well, it’s great I can post so many pics, videos, etc. all for free, and it looks clean and professional! Something they could add is a way to receive feedback from these investors. That would be helpful. I want the ability to do follow-ups if an investor has shown interest in my project. Alas, we are living in a Brave New World of connected anonymity, and it can be a bit dispiriting. The web site functioning itself is a little troublesome and can be frustrating. Some links just bring you back to the home page. If you scroll below, there are just lots of words to read. The FAQs are mostly for investors. When I tried to go back to some features while building my profile, they weren’t accessible anymore.
I haven’t given up on CannaFundr.com. There is a lot to be learned on this web site if you are serious about raising capital and making connections and finding companies to collaborate with, and you could surf it for hours, I think, if you are on a research mission. With the competition aspect of the social media features, and the amount of hard work for anticlimactic responses, it can be hard to quantify the value of participation. Like the cannabusinesses it is helping to grow, Cannafundr.com is a seed which requires cultivation.

DISCLAIMER: The professionals and companies described are not associated or affiliated with Cash Cow Cannabis, and they may not endorse Cash Cow Cannabis or the information provided. The names of other companies, products and services are the property of their respective owners.

No comments:

Post a Comment