Before the era of online brokerages like e-Trade, plenty of smart people said average citizens would never go online to invest in stocks.

They said you’d have to be crazy to use services like e-Trade.

e-Trade’s annual revenues today? More than $2 billion.

Before the emergence of e-commerce businesses like…

This Week’s Best Reading

The Difference Between Big Markets and Great Markets

The best investors and entrepreneurs often look for great markets rather than great companies. In fact, “you’re better off backing a bad team in a great market than a great team in a bad market.”…

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“This was the hottest deal in Silicon Valley…”

This quote, courtesy of CNN Money, is from Lars Dalgaard. Lars is a partner of Andreessen Horowitz, a top-tier venture capital firm.

He was glowing about their latest deal – a $15 million round for an online company called…

I was “carded” recently outside a swanky club in downtown NYC.

It was a 30-second inconvenience. And, frankly, at my age, having to prove that I’m 21 just makes me smile.

But I got “carded” in a different way a few days later – and this time it was a…

“Who are these companies raising money online?” read the email in my inbox yesterday. “Can’t they raise money the old-fashioned way?”

Over the last few weeks, we’ve received several emails at Crowdability asking similar questions.

It seems some of our members have concerns about the quality of start-ups on crowdfunding…

Last Thursday morning, as I was browsing headlines on The New York Times, I saw an article entitled, “Which Start-Up Could Be the Next Big Thing?”

That’s a serious newspaper and an exciting topic. Coffee in my left hand, mouse in my right, I clicked on through.

After the author…

Can you guess which website raised over $600 million in financing in its first four years of existence?

Zynga?  Groupon?  Facebook?  No, it wasn’t any of those.

How about Kickstarter.com?

Ding Ding Ding!

Crowdfunding is Born

Yes, the site I’m talking about is Kickstarter.com.  And the $600 million they raised? …