Growing the Bright Community

We're taking a step back to think about community -- both in general and our Bright community in particular. We've been so fortunate to spend 2021 meeting the people who make Bright what it is -- writers, photographers, storytellers, developers, and everyone in between. This is an amazing project, and building something like Bright is an undertaking that calls for the very best of us, and we're constantly amazed at just how great that can be.

In a sense, this week is a chance for us to reflect on how far we've come as a group, and how much more exciting work we have to do. As the year closes, we're all focused on the things that are nearest and dearest to us, but it's also a chance for us to look to what comes next. And for the Bright team, "next" is all about growing our community and expanding what, and who, Bright is.

That's one reason we're taking the next few weeks to talk about our crowdraise. We let you all know last week that we were going to do a crowdraise in order to expand the ownership of the company and give others the opportunity to become a part of the Bright founding team. 

This week, we want to give you a little bit more insight into what a crowdraise is for Bright, and why we think it’s a good idea. We also want to give you a little bit more insight into where we are in the process and let you know that it’s just about to get underway.  

Crowd raises are a novel and fundamentally different approach to fundraising for startup businesses. Instead of following the traditional route of looking for venture capital firms that want to invest, crowdraising at an early stage allows companies to diversify their ownership, bring in people with a passion for the project, and secure funds they need to grow and scale. It’s a great way to avoid some of the more complicated aspects of VC funding. It also means that the business has a chance to reach new people and new customers as the investors share information with their own networks.

For a social media company, that effect is extremely powerful. In fact, Bright’s goal in this crowdraise is to find people who would otherwise not necessarily be involved in investing in an early stage startup precisely because they’re passionate about the things that matter to Bright. And although there are values investors and folks for whom ESG is a real focus in building up their portfolio, a crowdraise really lets you identify people who see what you are doing as exactly the type of project they want to join. And, of course, they’re a great node in network building, and are more likely to be interested, engaged, community builders on the network itself.

In just three short weeks, we’ll move from pre-registration to the private launch, where the people who have preregistered have an exclusive opportunity to buy shares before the general public.  

Then, a few days later, the full public crowdraise will launch, and anyone who registers on Seedrs will be able to invest in the company. We’re excited about that for obvious reasons, but also because we can’t wait to share our crowdraise updates and fill you in on the amazing things we've been up to.  We'll also update the campaign talk page, where we can engage directly with investors and prospective investors to answer questions and help people see why we think Bright is a great investment both from a personal and a portfolio perspective.

We're thrilled to give you an early look at our crowdfunding video, which provides an overview of our raise and an opportunity to meet the team.  You've already been such an important part of our journey and we can't wait to take this next step with you.

As always, we'll see you on Bright!