A while back, we did a segment on the show about crowd funding, basically, this idea of getting a whole bunch of people to help fund your company, mostly friends and family. well, it turns out, there are a lot of sites that do this in all sorts of ways. we re bringing back bruce ellery, founder of moolala and author of mnks oolala. welcome back, bruce. you could be smart and crowd fund your business. true, and you could be dumb and crowd fund your business and maybe that s not a good investment for a lot of people. anyhow, we talked last time about people giving money to your company and in exchange, you giving revenue. that was through a site called profounder. yes. but there are a bunch of sites out there that allow people to give money to your company. they get bought into the buzz, they re inspired by the idea, and so, they could donate small sums of money through the internet. here s an example rockethub.com. they focus on creative projects. i ve get a film idea. i w
hi, there, everyone. i m jj ramberg and welcome to your business where we give you tips and advice to help your business grow. have you all noticed the trend of companies which give a percentage of their earnings back to charity? this is a world i know a lot about because i run a company like that. but recently, we ve gotten a lot of e-mails and story pitches about this idea. so, i wanted to take a closer look at why so many small business owners are doing this. today we have the story of one woman s journey from patient to business owner and philanthropist. dee rose, founder of seattle-based candleholder company glassybaby, was diagnosed with cancer in 1995. a mom of three and an eternal optimist, she fought the disease and won. but along the way, she realized that she was luckier than so many in her situation, like one woman she met in the doctor s office. she lost her job and didn t have health insurance, and so, she didn t come back in for her routine checkups. wh
My next guest is an old friend, a business journalist and the author of moolala: why smart people do dumb things with their money. bruce ellery joins me from new york. great to see you on show. welcome back to new york. the book, you emphasize, people need to figure out first, what their money is for. before they learn how to manage it. why does that make a difference? because that s their vested interest. no one wants do the boring stuff. and managing your money can be really boring. but when you have an answer to a question of what my money is for, you re more likely to do it. so people say in my workshops, money is for adventure, money is for freedom. money is for travel, money is for my kids. when you re clear on that there s way high probability of doing the boring stuff of signing up for your 401(k). so if money is for saving, that s not all that motivating. it s like saying marriage is for security.
Should know what the dow did, i should know what is going on with the state of the economy it doesn t matter. what matters is what is within their circle of control. okay. in that case, what can we do better? what should i do better to feed that? if people are misreading what we re telling them, what should we be telling them more of? we have to keep focusing on these base messages. and hopefully have some fun while we re doing it. that s why i called the book moolala. it s not about money itself, it s about the tool. so often people disconnect their dreams with the financial fuel that will bring them to life. that is excellent. bruce, thanks so much. i ve been looking forward to this book for a long time. you are a guy that thinks that if people are not getting the message, it s not worth putting the message out. so i hope lots of people get it. the book is fantastic. okay. i ve got a message for president obama, but since i don t think i ll be making it to the white house t
Don t futz about it. if it is your thing, great. but you have to earn your way to the top of the pyramid. so that s brilliant because people come to me without having looked at any of that stuff on the pyramid and tell me do you think i should sell this stock and buy that stock? your point is, wait a minute, have you handled everything below that before you start to tweak or optimize right at the top of your pyramid. absolutely. and i m not even going to talk to you about that stuff until you ve done the stuff at the lower levels. all right, bruce, you ve written an entire book on this. it is based on the feedback that you ve gotten from working with people. what do you think? tell my audience what the biggest impediment to achieving financial success the way you ve described it is likely to be. they re not clear on what their money is for, the context for money and they also mismanage the level of complexity. no offense, ali, but they listen to the media and i think i