Hi there, everyone. Im jj ramberg and welcome to your business. Where we help your Small Business survive and grow. Today we have a great new way some of you may be able to get funding. Crowd funding has been around for a while, equity crowd funding is relatively new. When you raise money through platforms like kick start you give funders rewards. Like a product ar a tshirt. With equity crowd funding youre actually selling a piece of your company. We headed to los angeles to the Fashion Company distilled as it made its equity crowd funding offer public. To take a closer look ho toe you how this all works. Its 11 00 a. M. On june 27th and distilled, an l. A. Based fashion line is about to make history. Hold on. Three, two at that exact moment distilled Equity Crowdfunding Campaign went live, offering their brand evangelists a chance to own part of the company. Im so excited. Distilled is the first fashion and Accessories Company to raise capital through crowdfunding. Newly approved by the government. We have been working on this for a long time. This is not a super simple process. Its not for the feint of heart. The direct to consumer, affordable fashion line is filled with seasonless wardrobe essentials with high quality denim at the core. What is distilled mean when it comes to your collection . Were distilling your closet into only the most essential pieces and only in black, white and denim. We need to reshape this. Okay. Well be good to go. Okay. Mark and corey funded their launch with help from family, friends and some smaller angels and venture funds. Now, two years in, they needed an influx of capital to take the brand sales and marketing to the next level. What were the different options you looked at . Theres always the option of go take the deal new york. They both felt that equity crowdfunding was the way to go. They instinctively knew it could be a game changer. We decided to use regulation aplus, a new crowdfunding act. It allows you to raise money from accredited investors, wealthy individuals that have more than a Million Dollars net worth or regular americans. Two people fell into two camps on this, this is great or this is crazy. And so were hoping it falls into the great category. Before deciding to move forward with an offering, mark and corey could test the waters with the help of seed investment, their equity crowdfunding investment platform. After second out a series of email blasts to tens of thousands of people announcing the campaign, they could see the amount of indicated interest from potential investors. We worked with our existing customer base. I mean, that was the group we wanted to activate in this. Once they decided to proceed and determine the percentage of the company they wanted to sell, it was a long and indepth process to get approved. You need to focus on your marketing campaign, legal documentation. Need to prepare a video. Were focused on making highend essentials built to last. You have to give the back story to make people realize why this is a profound shift in how companies can raise capital. Before distilleds Fundraising Campaign launch, potential investors showed an indicated interest that was nearly three times the 6 million they were looking for. But its easy for people to express interest. The real test comes when the site goes live. So far, distilled has raised nearly 900,000. From the minute your offering went live right mpl in the first 12 hours, how many times did you check to see how many people invested . Hundreds if not thousands. Its a fulltime gig. Equity crowdfunding became legal this may. While this new option for fundraising appeals to many, its not for everyone. If youre not prepared to sell your company like you sell your product, this is not for you. This is not a process for shrinking violets. This is something you have to be prepared to be out there, marketing this on a fulltime basis. Some key things to consider first. Number one, how big is your social network . If youre going to be using your social network to raise money, you want to make sure its large enough to do that. What else do you need to ask yourself . Do i have to the time to do this . Crowdfunding is not an easy way, its a new way to do a difficult thing. The third tip is understand the most important phase, its the prework campaign, preparing for battle. Its really getting your game plan together or how youre going to raise this money. And then executing your plan. Through thur equity crowdfunding, mark and corey are building a tribe of engaged and passionate consumers that are more than just customers. I thought it was unique and special to be involved with the first brand thats venturing into this area of investment. Hopefully one day they get big, i can say i was a part of that. Its really special. I dont think you could get better brand investors than loyal customers that own a piece of the brand. Venus williams rack up a silver medal in rio, making her only the second tennis player in history to ever win five olympic medals. The court isnt the only place shes the boss. Shes the head of vstar interiors and her own athleticware line, eleven by venus. We sat down at her headquarters in jupiter, florida, to find out how she balances her time between her successful athletic career and her companies and while shell never settle for anything less than her best. I wake up in the morning excited about tennis and what i can achieve. Its the same thing for vstarr and eleven. One of my first designs, i had to drawn it out and everything. I was trying to make sure that it was me and then i showed it to serenserena. Shes like do you like it . Shes like, what do i mean, i love it. We know each other so well. Were always so honest with each other. Its nice to have constructive criticism. The sport teaches you so much without you knowing it. Thats the best part, its the best teacher. It gets you ready for life if you allow it to. For business, what its taught me, of course, theres nothing around hard work. Also ive been able to apply lessons of preparation and planning and goal setting and even team building, because even though tennis is an individual sport, you have a team, you have your coach, your physical trainers and you sometimes play doubles. For me, i know that im involved. Thats important because thats what has set the tone for our business and whats made it so special and made us successful is me being involved with our team and our team being involved with me. So its a twoway street. That works for us. And its not necessarily top priority that people know but its nice if they know. Entrepreneurship is an adventure, definitely a choose your own adventure. I get my strength and courage and encouragement from having a challenge. I like to conquer things. I like to know it didnt conquer me. Its about creating a culture and giving people not only work thats meaningful but a purpose. We have a culture of honesty and transparency and thats important. Not only with each other but also with our clients. I have a lot of fun in my life. I work very hard. I dont think people see that side of me. On the court im kind of not so emotional. Im very, you know, i dont know what you call it. Poker face maybe. That is nothing like what i am off the court. Its very opposite. Im just a jokester. I think in the office they get to see a little bit more of that. Reputation is so important. Its everything you have. Its everything that every person has is their reputation. You dont have that, what do you have . Ive always want my businesses to transcend anything that i did on the court and to represent something outside of that and to go much longer than what my tennis game ever will, even though ive been playing for a lot of time, i like to think the businesses will be around longer than i ever spent on the court. Desi starr and eleven are my matches. I probably never played a Perfect Match in my eyes. I think it will be the same for eleven and vstarr. I will try to do better every single day. When you do that, the skys the limit. Stories about malware and n ransomware attacks. At its most basic, its a type of malware designed to hijack a Computer System by encrypting a computers contents or blocking access of data until a sum of money is paid. It can be devastating. How do you avoid getting into a situation like this in the first place . Dan hubbard is a product chief technical officer at cisco. Hes been a pioneering force in Internet Security for more than 20 years. Its so good to see you, dan. Im so glad were talking about this. Thank you very much for having us. Nobody wants this to happen to them. Lets talk about what to do to protect yourself so that this doesnt happen to you. Backing up your data is number one. Yes. Absolutely. Theres really three things we relevant. The first one is the number one way that typically people get insected is through email. Protect your email, your email servers and make sure that doesnt come through your email systems. You need to protect your users on any device at any time. People typically work from coffee shops, at work or, of course, from home. Lastly, you so well pointed out, you have to back up your data. It doesnt matter if your data is on a laptop or on your central server, it has to be backed up. Got it. If you back up your data, is it not a problem . Lets just say im a Small Business, using some Cloud Service to back up my data or i have some other internal system, i get this ransomware message on my computer, i just say, im ignoring that. What do i do . I have all my data somewhere else. I restored the operating system, get a new computer, what would i do . Because your files are inaccessible, you have to rebuild your computer, essentially, reinstall the operating system and restore your files from the cloud backup service. If i backed up my data, basically im fine, right . It might be scary in the moment, it might be a pain to restore everything but i do not have to worry that everything is falling apart, the sky is faing . Absolutely. Youve got to make sure youre backing up your data frequently. You dont wk of work or heaven forbid a month of work. Do that in realtime or at a minimum, once per day. You have to make sure all of your data is backed up. Some systems have you check off what you want backed up. Some of them dont automat, for instance, back up your email. Yes. For sure. All your data is really important to you in your business. You also talk about improving your network hygiene. What do you mean by that . As a Small Business owner, make sure your network is safe from these types of attacks and you can protect yourself with a fire wall, a best practice, or, of course, with a Cloud Service which allows you to do this and do this without the burdensome of management and overhead. Integrate defenses. What do you mean by that . Integrated defenses is about taking multiple products, but actually having them integrated in a way that makes them more effective than having two, three or four disparate products. We highly recommend that for businesses. Explain that a little bit more. Are you talking about Antivirus Software . What do you mean here . Yes. Taking lets say your email, your end point and your Cloud Services and getting them all from one solution really takes away the management overhead of having to manage one, two, three, maybe even four different products. Got it. Got it. Then its easier then to protect them, back them up, restore them, et cetera . Yes. I want to ask you one last question before you leave. I have seen we know about ransomware. Ive also seen people get a message basically saying its a blue screen or green screen saying theres something wrong with your files. You have to call this number immediately. And it seems, first to me like ransom ware, but then they click it off and it eventually disappears. Whats that . Yes, yes. This is a type of social engineering where the attackers are attempting to trick you that something is wrong with your computer. Theres actually nothing wrong with your computer. But theyre tricking you to make it look like there is. They ask you to phone a number or they actually ask you to send an email or go to a website. When you go there, they attempt to ask you to pay to fix that problem. And the actual problem doesnt even exist. So you should just ignore that message, close the browser, close that window and move on. Got it. Because ive seen this happen where people are afraid, suddenly they are being attacked and going to be asked for ransom. And so if that happens, keep trying to close it. If it closes, youre good . Yes. Thank you so much. This is so incredibly important and to your point, point one, two and three are back up your data and you will be okay. Yes. Thank you very much. Weve preached this many times on this program. Your brand is everything. And if customers have an issue with its authenticity, theyll be heading over to the competition. There are five tips from entrepreneur. Com to improve your brands credibility. One, third party award. Displaying accolades will boost confidence in your company and the services you offer. Two, customer review. Customers want to see what others are saying about your services before they take the plunge themselves. So have a good roundup of klein the testimonials on your website. Three, post video content in order to give people the opportunity to see and hear you. This can help garner more trust in your brand than stock photos and text cams. Four, display certified trust seals on your site so clients know youre taking all measures to protect their transactions and information. Five, communicate your brands personality. Make sure the tone, message and format can base the companys character accurately and in an engaging way. After their frustrations with shaving, they realized they could change the process for themselves and men everywhere. The Business Plan was simple, cut the middleman and create a razor thats above the rest. It will soon be available in target stores. Keir simmons has their story. Reporter sometimes inspiration is staring back at you in the mirror. Im andy. Im jeff. We founded harrys. Reporter a dream so powerful, you cant let it go. We were talking to people incessantly about razors. We were pulling our friends together at parties to have focus groups. Getting advice at the parties. Reporter andy and jeff wanted to give men the best shave ever. Their company, harrys was born, equal part internet startup and old world craftsmanship. One of our values is to look left to find right. Reporter look left to find right. Yes. Reporter what does that mean . We shouldnt just take the status quo for granted. Reporter like the every day shave. I need a shave. Can anyone help around here . This is our neighborhood. We live here, office is here. Reporter down the block, their very own barber shop. Dedicated to the art of shaving, where you walk out feeling leak a million bucks. Actually make this a billion. Jeff has one success under his belt. He founded a company thats transformed the eyeglass industry and is worth over a billion dollars. Doing the same with harrys aint easy. Jeff and andy dont like talking about whether theyre there yet. How close are you now to being a Unicorn Company . I think you hate that question, dont you . No. We dont think about valuation as a goal. Has there ever been a moment where you have felt like i just cant keep doing this . Theres certainly been moments that have tried my patience and ability to keep going. Whats the alternative . I think the way jeff and i are both wired is, like, just figure out a way. Reporter they met as college interns, becoming friends. They always wanted to start a company together. But they never imagined it would lead them thousands of miles from new york to germany where theyve been making razors for 100 years. In the whole manufacturing process, really the secret sauce is the blade itself and the blade edge. Reporter they were so impressed they bought the factory. Itself a challenge. They dont speak german. It took a year of tough negotiations. Youre two guys in your 30s. You buy for 100 million a factory in germany. You walk in day one and you think we thought, oh, boy, this is going to be a lot. But we fundamentally believed in our vision to go do this. Reporter these two Young Business School buddies are now employing 500 german workers. Theyre grinding the edge of the blade. Reporter their factory making harrys razors, shipped to the u. S. , sold online and delivered to your door step. Back in new york, the two reflecting on their journey so far. I find it inspiring. Me, too. What are your three tips . You have to have a level of drive to push through those moments where things go bleak. You have to manage both the highs and the lows. I think its surrounding yourself with really talented people. Particularly people that are better at whatever it is they do than you are. You just have to love your idea and what youre doing. You just have to be so deeply passionate about it that all you can do is think about it and want to work on it. Reporter andys next challenge . Later this year, his wife will have their first child. My wife tells me all the time, you have no idea what were getting into. When we come back, should you get funding for your business if youre afraid of debt . Plus, youre viewers favorite tools and apps to help your Small Business. Will your business be ready when growth presents itself . American express open cards can help you take on a n job, or fill a big order or eand your office and take on whatever comes nt. Find outow American Express cards and servic can help prepare you for growth at open. Com how does somebody who is debt adverse take that step and really get the financing thats necessary to move my business forward . You know, i think that a lot of us are debt adverse. Who really wants to voluntarily sink into debt with a lot of uncertainty in your future . That is what entrepreneurship is and i always say there is no chance at having great reward if you dont take on great risk. And so i think the best tip that i can give for someone who is risk adverse and debt adverse in that way is to find, you know, where youre going to have your contingency plan and to know at what point you need to have a stop gap. Because at least you can mitigate, perhaps, some of the risk in that way. We now have the top two tips you need to know to help your Small Business grow. Lets introduce our panel and get advice. Chris palma is the president and general manager of ncr Small Business he previously funded and sold five companies. And cnbc contributor carol roth is entrepreneur, investor, speaker and author. Good to see both of you. Thank you. You too, j. J. Lets start with you, chris. Okay. One tip you think our audience can use for their business . Absolutely. I think probably first is embracing technology so you can get most out of your business in terms of not just analytics that youre using in your back office to determine top sales, end of sales, end of day sales but also the products that are generating the greatest margin for you throughout the day. If youve got more than one business, you need to know this across your businesses. I would say leveraging technology across your business. Easy to say. For somebody who doesnt do this, where do they begin to figure out what sort of technology they should be using. Often times youll go to google and do searches or yahoo and start doing some searches. Reading up within your field of business, technology that can make the difference for your business but as a small entrepreneur, the best thing you can do is arm yourself with information about technology thats available to grow your business. Got it. It will help you compete with the big guys. Carol, youre up. So sometimes entrepreneurship can feel very lonely. But help is not a four letter word. There are so many people out there who want to help entrepreneurs. The Small Business owners sometimes dont know how to ask for help. My tip is, first of all, you have to be very clear on what you want. Too many entrepreneurs say i would love help and are vague or maybe they give seven areas that they need help. Pick one very specific thing. I want to get an introduction to Technology Ceos who make decisions about products that i make. Something really specific so people can have top of mind. Once you have been very specific about it, make it easy for them. Far too many people make the ones who are trying to help them jump through hoops. If youre asking for an introduction, go ahead and write an introduction, send it to the person who you want to make that introduction and say, listen, you can go ahead and change the language to make it suit yourself but i wanted to make this as easy as possible for you. I think thats really helpful. The last thing is give them enough time. I cannot tell you how many people i know, even very influential people, Small Business owners who should know better who have asked for help in a time crunch, because theyve done a very poor job of managing their own time. If you want somebody else to help you, make sure to give them enough time so that they can get it done and a little bonus, always say thank you and be grateful at the end. Thank you both so much for your advice. Both very helpful. Thank you, j. J. Some of the best advice to get comes from our Small Business viewers. Heres some of their latest suggestions for online tools and apps that can make running your business more efficient and profitable. One podcast i would recommend, its called startup. Its basically a journey of two individuals starting a tech company and theres a lot of tips and just, you know, stories along the way that will help Small Businesses grow. You can really learn from it and i do recommend it. I also like to use trip it for all my travels, business or pleasure. You book everything through your own email. It pulls everything out of the email and loads on to this app. Miraculously you have your whole itinerary. Since we started business weve been use iing smart sheet. You can fill it in in any order on any type of device, iphone, ipad. Its useful because your sales force can get connected on realtime and upload their orders to a Central Data Base that can prepare the orders to get ready for shipment. So one of the tools i use that is really helpful is google alert. Theres a lot of research and a lot of stories that are done and presented about maple and the industry and sustainability and climate change. I get a lot of that information through google alert. I get a full feed of information on a constant base i which provides me with a lot of information for my blogs. I run two blogs for tom wood maple. Its invaluable to get that information coming in. This week, your biz selfie comes from tracy. She owns 360 vintage designs in virgeachinia b virginia. She sells gently used clothing for women and men. For the rest of you, pick up your cell phone and take a selfie of you and your business and send it to us at yourbusiness msnbc. Com to we can feature it here on the show or tweet it with the hash tag your biz selfie. If you have questions or comments, send an email to your business at msnbc. Com. Also go to openforum. Com yourbusiness. We posted the segments from todays show plus a whole lot more. Dont forget to connect with us on all of our digital and social media platforms as well. We look forward to seeing you next week. Until then, im jj ramberg. Remember, we make your business our business. Brought to you by American Express open. Visit openforum. Com for ideas to help you grow your business. D tr deadlines racing towards us. A loan would take too long. We needed money, now. My amex card helped me buy the ingredients to fill the orders. Opportunities dont wait around, so you have to be ready for them. Nd out how American Express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open. Com. August fridays are supposed to be dull. Its supposed to be the sort of thing where you can leave a little early from work and nobody notices because theres nothing really going on. This is an august friday that has not been dull. We have changed the list of things that are supposed to be on our show tonight about 17 times over the course of today, because new news kept breaking, that kept displacing other smaller stories. Its been a weird, intense, and surprising day. In the president ial campaign, we woke up to news that the ceo of the Trump Campaign, from breitbart news, we woke up to news today that Trump Campaign chief steve bannon has an arrest record for domestic violence