Democracy wins Wall Street – “You are the few but we are the many”
This is a guest post from Legion M founders Paul Scanlan and Jeff Annison.
The sequel to Occupy Wall Street came out this summer, and unlike the original drama full of burning cars and angry protests, this one came as a feel-good drama with pure, hopeful, positive democratic reform.
The story line began Monday, May 16, 2016, with the SEC kicking off summer with a historic breakthrough for entrepreneurs, the public, and potentially the U.S. economy. They call it the JOBS Act. If you haven’t heard about it, you soon will.
The JOBS Act passed through Congress with rare bipartisan support and is amending the antiquated securities laws that have rigged our financial system in favor of the rich for more than 80 years. At its core, the JOBS Act is enabling equity crowdfunding which gives the general public the opportunity to participate in early stage financing and investing, a domain that until now had been exclusive to venture capitalists and high-net-worth individuals (accredited investors).
Passing the JOBS Act may not seem like big news, but when these new laws collide with a rising distrust of the financial industry and a millennial-infused vigor to rethink everything, the result could be a transformative new era of business. This is the follow up to Occupy Wall Street, where protests, complaints, and aggravation are replaced with street-smart initiative, and grass roots collaboration to align communities of people together to support the next generation of companies. These new companies are built by the people and for the people from day one, and they have the power to be a new economic force in America.
The Potential
Imagine the potential for these new companies, empowered by their legions of shareholders to disrupt, empower and reinvent entire industries. Imagine shareholders getting involved, investing in something they have a passion for and working together as a community to support the company they own together.
A flock of companies have already launched their JOBS Act round of funding this year, many of them announced on May 16 when the crowdfunding rule came into effect.
The Wealth Gap
Until now, the general public not meeting the SEC definition of accredited investors were only allowed to support startups like this through platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. By those traditional means, campaign backers were essentially donating to these companies or prepurchasing the product. Appreciation was demonstrated by way of t-shirts and tote bags but not stock. Accredited investors, on the other hand, could own equity and participate as shareholders in the companies. With the JOBS Act, that power to realize a gain from an investment in a start up is open to everyone.
A telling example is Oculus, the now famous VR start up that raised $2.4M on Kickstarter and less than two years later sold to Facebook for $2B. While many of the accredited investors that backed the company early on did quite well after the acquisition, their loyal Kickstarter supporters got nothing.
The Risks
To be clear, it’s not all upside and optimism. These investments are early stage which means they’re high-risk, high-reward propositions. More than 90 percent of startups fail, and when they do, it usually means the investors lost most, if not all, of their money. But when they hit, they hit jackpot big. But before you think about going all in on any one company take a lesson from the wealthy venture capitalists and spread the risk across several investments. And ultimately, do not invest more than you can afford to lose.
The Future
This is only the beginning, a preview of what’s to come. The JOBS Act will lead to a whole new breed of entrepreneurs and revitalized industries. We expect to see lots of new companies created many of them in industries long overdue for disruption. The JOBS Act will bring innovators and consumers together in a way that has been unprecedented and spark the next huge wave of innovation and growth.

Legion M is the world’s first FAN-OWNED entertainment studio. We work with top Hollywood creators to develop and monetize content together with FANS. With Legion M, FANS own the company, FANS get behind the scenes, and if we are successful—FANS share the rewards! Legion M has been eagerly waiting for the JOBS Act to pass, and we were ready with our plans once it did. We set out to re-imagine the entertainment industry with a new company that would be owned by passionate fans with a mission to create the most influential new entertainment company on the planet. We have seen an immediate response with our audience as fans enthusiastically flocked to our website to get involved in something cool, to contribute to something they were passionate about and to have fun in a community of like-minded peers. But it’s more than that…for us, having fans as our shareholders isn’t just good fun, its also good business. The M in our logo has a bar over it to represent our long-term goal to have one million shareholders. We set the minimum investment at $100 to allow as many fans as possible to participate. We aren’t looking for Wall Street investors and we don’t want anyone investing their life savings. If all our shareholders invested just $100, we would have $100 Million to invest in movies, TV shows and other projects. Each of those projects would have one million fans emotionally and financially invested before they start production.
Legion M isn’t just a company, it’s a movement. We are pioneering what we think will be a crowd driven-renaissance of business with the potential to shape the future of our economy. Join us at www.thelegionm.com.
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