Putting the Spotlight on New Startup Offerings

With each week, our mission expands and what we’re doing here gets richer.

We’re just getting started, and already we’re getting huge traction. Just last week, the CEO of a popular startup reached out to tell us he likes what we’re up to.

I immediately bought his product, and he’ll be featured in a video soon.

We’ll add him to the list of CEOs and industry experts we’ve already talked with.

But there’s no video today. We’re doing something different. A slew of new folks who are eager for our insights into the startup space have joined us recently. To those new folks, welcome. With Venture Spotlight and everything else Manward has to offer, you will always have a front-row seat to the most powerful moneymaking trends… like equity crowdfunding.

So today, I will deepen things a bit more and show you some of the newest startup deals to hit our realm, along with some simple thoughts on each.

There’s a lot happening right now. This space is flat-out booming. I couldn’t possibly list all the latest offerings, but I can highlight a few of the most interesting ones.

Let’s do that…

I’ll start with three that all seem to rhyme.

Dharma is valued at $15.2 million and is offering an equity stake via StartEngine.

The company is unique. It offers plant-based “southern cookin’.” It has three locations and plans to add several more in the coming months. If things go right, it says, it will have a restaurant in every major American city within the next five to eight years.

That’d be nice.

Dirt Birger is doing things a bit differently.

It’s offering a revenue sharing note via the Mainvest platform. It offers a whopping 40% return on your money… but the timeline is not supplied. It will simply share a portion of its revenue until investors are paid 1.4X their money.

That could be next year… it could be a decade from now… or, of course, it could never happen. Right now, the company has just one store and is looking to raise as much as $250,000.

This company, too, is in the business of offering plant-based foods. What’s different, though, is that it is a bit more vertically integrated. It has an aeroponic farming operation that helps supply the company’s products.

It’s a hippie’s delight.

And finally, there’s Sazi.

It’s raising funds by selling equity on Netcapital’s platform. This Round B offering puts the company’s value at $1.9 million.

This one, too, is in the niche food market… and deep into its own corner of it.

Its plan is to offer its hemp-based products via a food truck-only business until brand awareness grows enough to create demand from retail grocery outlets.

So far, it’s raised $650.

I put these three together because they’re all quite similar. Each, of course, believes it has the key to cornering the market and pushing the competition aside.

But let’s remember our three must-have criteria for investing in a startup.

It must be part of a big market.
It must have a niche product.
Its management team must have experience rewarding early investors.

Focusing only on the second idea, we see that all three of these companies come with big question marks. Each offers nearly the same thing… and they’re competing with hundreds of other companies spread throughout nearly every town and city in the country.

A food truck or a niche restaurant may be part of a very large food industry, but its reach is very limited.

These sorts of opportunities are good for folks looking to donate a few bucks to a daring entrepreneur’s enterprise… but they’re lousy investments.

They prey on an investor’s emotions. They offer a stake in a feel-good movement… not necessarily a good, growing business.

Reinventing the Wheels

For something a bit more distinctive, another fresh offering is Area 13 EBikes. It just listed an equity offering on StartEngine that values the company at $25 million.

The company manufactures electric bicycles. It already has more than $4 million in sales (tying to the “traction” idea Alpesh nailed in last week’s video) and is seeing good growth. Sales in 2019 were just $600,000.

The bike market is obviously much smaller than the food or restaurant market, but a single manufacturer can have much more reach within that kind of market, especially if its products are good.

Investors could be treated very well if those products are good enough to attract the attention of a major manufacturer.

Finally, another interesting (but oddball) offering that just hit the market comes to us from Magnuss. It, too, is offering equity via StartEngine, in a pre-seed round that values the company at $27 million.

The company is looking to bring sail systems to the world’s tanker and cargo ships. This would provide those ships with a secondary propulsion system that would help reduce the emissions and costs of the world’s ocean-going fleet.

It’s a big dream. I’ve seen it before. And it would require an incredible investment from the world’s shipbuilders and their customers.

But it’s certainly unique.

Test Your Ear

These are just a few of the dozens of companies to enter the equity crowdfunding space in the last few weeks. I chose to highlight them, not because they are good or bad, but because they all hit on important ideas.

None of them is an official recommendation. They don’t fit my strict requirements. But click on the links, explore the companies and see the various ways they pitch investors.

Run each of them through our three criteria.

Does the company work in a big market? Does it offer a novel product? And has the management team found success before?

Get those questions right… and you’ve got a winner.

But it’s not easy. It takes a trained ear to cut through the noise.

Check out these new offerings and see if you’ve got what it takes.

Note: As always, send me the companies you are interested in or have questions about. I can’t cover them all, but I’ll do my best to include my thoughts in an upcoming note or video. Email me at mailbag@manwardpress.com.