Final Community Update 2022 and our plans for 2023

It’s a cliché to say “it’s been a tough year”. This year 4 out of 4 of our team members have relocated. 3/4 moved to different countries. 2/4 experienced all of their digital infrastructure go up in sanction-driven flames. 1/4 is a political refugee, who can’t go back home due to prosecution by the Russian regime. It has been a tough year for us.

By and large, small businesses in the United States and globally also haven’t had it easy.?

• 60% of owners of small businesses used personal savings to cover shortfalls of their businesses in? 2021,
• 99.9% of all US businesses are small; they employ 47% of the private workforce but constitute 40% of its earnings.?
• Small banks used to be the go-to place for small businesses to receive financing, but numbers of small banks are falling, as they are getting acquired by banking giants. Approvals for financing from financial institutions are down, interest rates are up.?
• Approximately 71% (or 22 million) of small businesses reported having unmet funding needs in 2021.?

Simply stated, small businesses are not receiving the financial coverage they need to grow and survive. All too often, small businesses are pushed out of existence by well-funded corporate chains - think Mom & Pop Coffee vs. Starbucks… At the same time, raising investment capital through crowdfunding from communities is both a virtually unknown solution and something that’s way too hard to do for most businesses.?

Our software to make Regulated Investment Crowdfunding (RIC) easier will serve to help small businesses to access financing and connect closer to their communities at the same time.?

This year people in the industry and friends connected us to their contacts, and have given our team their time, information, money, and encouragement. To all that have supported the project to make investment crowdfunding easier - thank you. Here’s to fewer tough years in our lives.

“Hello” from the team

The most important thing we managed to get done was to form the team. All else fades in comparison. The funny thing is that the team was formed through random connections.?

A few words from Peter Rostovsky , CEO

Joshua McSorley shares how he became a co-founder of Kupchiy and why it resonates with him to work on this project.

Alyssa Zaitseva joined in July as the Operations and Strategy Associate. Here she shares how she joined the team.?

Anastasiia Buldakova became a CMO in October 2022. In this video, Nastya talks about her journey from her Creative Producer’s job at Dodo Pizza to the CMO position at Kupchiy.

Plans for the near future (1H2023)

• The alpha version of our solution will enable funding portals that struggle with coordinating crowdfunding raises with their clients. Our alpha launch is planned for March 2023; if you know someone at a funding portal, let’s connect - we’d love to support their work.
• Crowdfunding attorneys, consultants, accountants, and marketers should have an easier time coordinating with their clients through us - if you are in the industry and would like to join the closed alpha, please shoot us an email at [email protected]!
• We are cooking up the following tools for our small business clients and partners

1. Campaign management timeline with detailed tasks
2. Investor relationship management
3. Crowdfunding service provider integration

• A new name and brand for this project are needed! In Q1 and Q2, we will work on re-branding, so that the Beta version is released under a new name that speaks to our mission - to make community capital accessible for small businesses.
• Small businesses struggle with many things, from undercapitalization to hiring, management, etc. Thus, we are building a community for small food service businesses in the U.S. - a place for owners to share their experience with each other on the many issues related to running a small business.?
• In early January, the new Marketing website will be released, so we have something to send to friends with small businesses.
• We will attend the SuperCrowd 2023 conference this year and hope to see and chat with you there.

“Thank you” paragraph

Jordan Sucher , David Carpentier and Pierce Leonard , Julien P. , David V Duccini and Jason Crystal ??♂? , Vincent Molinari , Brian P. Christie , Ben Godfrey, PMP RMP , Kathleen Minogue and Scott Madsen , Devin Thorpe , Brian Belley and Aurelian Young , C?me Laffay, Esq. Samson Williams , Jonny Price and Justin Renfro , Josh Abady , Jennifer Liu, Mario Ismailanji, CFA Kaitlyn Hamm, John Crocker , Sara Hanks , Samuel Genchikmakher , Olga E. , Sonya Smith MBA - thank you all very much. We are definitely missing folks from this list…

Over this year, we “sold” this project to tons of people. Four joined as full-time team members who worked on the idea and the equity promise alone for a while (and we are glad this is over). Others bought into it so much that they joined our team as formal advisors and supported us over these months.

A great many volunteered to support in other ways. We got so much help from the crowdfunding community at Crowdfunding Professional Association and beyond over the course of this year - people referred us to friends in the industry, listened patiently to stupid ideas, and encouraged good ones. Thank you all.?

Conclusion

Being on a mission is life-affirming; that’s what many of us working on this project continue pushing through. It’s exciting to think about what tools we can produce and partnerships to align in weeks, months, and in the whole year of 2023. We hope that we can continue working with you all to make it happen.?

Looking forward to the journey ahead, and Happy New Year!

With love,

Kupchiy Team?