Copycats Are Putting You at Risk!

There has been no shame by people who "copycat" our pro athlete business accelerator immediately after speaking with them; however, I am not concerned about that. What I am concerned with is they are taking shortcuts and skipping over pre-requisites when it comes to protecting the athletes overall.

The top 3 missing elements by copycats are: 1) Protection of personal capital, 2) Protection of personal brand and 3) Protection against securities violations.

If you are being approached by people who are selling you an "opportunity" to use crowdfunding to build your brand, here are the questions you need to ask as related to items 1-3 above:

1. How much money do I need to invest? The answer should be zero. Otherwise you are exposed at the onset of engagement.
2. What is the use of proceeds for the capital raised through crowdfunding? If they say "it's up to you" or if more than 5% of the bottom line capital raised goes back to those that are involved in raising capital, you are exposing your brand for other people's mistakes.
3. What is the asset that is backing the "token"? If you do not have an asset backing capital, and any one of the shareholders decides to file a lawsuit against the company, they are going after your personal assets first. Always assign an asset to the capital in the initial raise.

The bottom line is that the 360 Sports Pro Athlete Business Accelerator has made significant strides in a process that offers arbitrage investment opportunities for active and retired pro athletes where they put zero of their own capital at risk.

We offer a business method that begins with a real business partnership (as opposed to an agent - client engagement) with the athlete and we take on the risk of the startup costs including with the tech platform, legal, transfer, edgar, trading, accounting and all other startup related fees.

If someone is approaching you and they ask you to pay for the launch costs, then they do not believe in you and/or your business. The fees are charged up front because that is where they make their money. It also validates they do not believe there will be compensation from the equity upside; which is the sole purpose of crowdfunding in the first place.

Lawyers like to say "well then you do not value my time". Do not fall for that line. It would be different if you approached them and asked to help you launch a crowdfunding campaign.

In terms of accounting, do they offer PCAOB bookkeeping as part of their startup process? If not, you are going to have to "re-spend" on accounting to make the books PCAOB compliant.

Next, we do not rely on the athlete brand to raise capital. Nowhere do you see any athlete's name planted on our websites or marketing materials. They are there, but we don't broadcast them; because doing so, makes you a target by trolls looking for nothing more than to target you with the hope to receive compensation from settlements through the GL insurance carrier. We have a proven track record on zero out of pocket costs for defense (including zero insurance claims) based on a no settlement policy that's made clear to trolls from the onset of company formation.

Another risk management factor is on the sale of the equity itself. This needs to happen before crowdfunding begins. Our business method begins as a 506 (c) offering to accredited investors (as opposed to a Regulation CF or Regulation A offering) in the form of Class A common preferred shares backed by the assets in the targeted acquisitions of the company. This way, you have a much lesser risk of both personal and brand liability when it comes to failure within your entity.

Failure in business is generally defined by shuttering at a loss or bankruptcy; however it goes beyond that. Failure is defined by other people's perception based on the success of their investment into your brand. Your greatest risk is loss of reputation which most likely happens prior to loss of capital.

In closing, there are very few people with decades of experience in risk management within the pro athlete branding space. Everything we do is built upon protecting the athlete reputation, first. Hopefully the copycats will see this and step up by not skipping over the aforementioned risk factors, plus the other 100 risk factors not mentioned in this article. We want everyone to have success including our competition. It only makes us better.