Crowdfunding $140 million for Australian businesses, selling shares to fuel your growth & lessons learned | ft. Birchal’s Matt Vitale

Australian Business Podcast welcomes Matt Vitale, co-founder of Birchal — one of Australia’s best crowdfunding platforms. Matt Vitale talks with Owen Rask about his journey in building Birchal, the lessons learned from helping over 100 founders and why selling shares to raise capital can unlock growth.

Please note: Matt is uniquely positioned to talk about small businesses, how crowdfunding works, how to attract investors into your business and the opportunities for growth. However, it’s important to understand that investing in private companies can be very risky. Nothing in this top Australian Business Podcast episode, including what is said by Owen or Matt should be considered as financial, tax or legal advice, and The Rask Group Pty Ltd strongly encourages all founders to get expert advice before raising capital — and for investors to speak with a financial adviser. See our free education resource:

Equity Crowdfunding in Australia & the risks involved

This Australian Business Podcast Episode is for founders and investors in private companies. Matt Vitale & Owen Rask share their journies and lessons learned from being exposed to hundreds of businesses. 

Australian Business Podcast talking points with Birchal co-founder

• Why Matt Vitale had entrepreneurship in his DNA.
• What is equity crowdfunding and how does it help businesses?
• How, why and when Matt went about starting Birchal? What was the problem, how did you research it, what did you need to do to get it off the ground, how did you find & pick a co-founder — key lessons learned.
• If you start again today, what are 3 things you would tell yourself about starting a business?
• Do you think businesses do better or worse, on average, when there is one founder/owner or multiple founders?
• One of the biggest challenges is funding. How do businesses get financing when they start out, or when they’re already up and running — maybe: where do SMEs go wrong with financing their business?
• Can you explain the different stages of business funding?
• What’s the difference between crowdfunding and VC? Why would a founder choose one over the other?
• If an investor is coming to your platform looking for private companies to invest in, what are some of the key things they should keep in mind?
• For a business owner, one of the best pieces of advice anyone could give you is: “Make your business ready to sell — now” because it forces us to clean up our financials and focus on the profit. What size company would consider equity crowdfunding (versus privately finding an investor) and what can they do to prepare their financials/business?
• What are 2 things most business owners could do better in scaling their business?

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If you liked this episode, don’t forget to consider taking our free business course and tuning into the Australian Business Podcast episode one, in which I shared my journey.

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