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IFH 356: How to Raise $1 Million Using Equity Crowdfunding with David Willis

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Today on the show we have filmmaker David WillisWillis is the first producer in the United States to raise over $1 million and make a feature film by using Equity Crowdfunding. Equity Crowdfunding is a new, disruptive method of fundraising in the United States, from a law that went into effect in 2016, opening a whole new avenue for filmmakers to make their ideas reality. And it’s working. Movies are getting made this way.

Equity Crowdfunding (officially called Regulation Crowdfunding, or Reg CF) can be used to finance almost any new or existing business. Unlike Kickstarter or Indiegogo, Reg CF campaigns do not focus on donations from friends and family, but instead on the hundreds of thousands of interested investors already on approved platforms. Because of this, the average Reg CF campaign is almost twice as likely to be successful and raises more than eleven times the average Kickstarter campaign — if you do it right.

David is running an Equity Crowdfunding Masterclass. No one who has successfully raised money using Equity Crowdfunding has ever given a step-by-step masterclass like this, showing exactly how they did it. He’ll teach you how you can also go from zero to over $1M in investments in six months as he did.

Check it out: Equity Crowdfunding Masterclass (DISCOUNT CODE: HUSTLE) to get $100 off the class.

Enjoy my conversation with David Willis.

Alex Ferrari 2:03
And our guest today, David Willis is the first filmmaker to ever generate over a million dollars for his film, doing equity crowdfunding, and he's been inundated by his friends and colleagues in the film business, asking him how he did it. And he's actually putting on a workshop in Burbank, November 16. And at the end of the episode, I was able to convince David to give all of the tribe members 100 bucks off. So if you really want to get into the deep, deep weeds, on how to raise money, with equity crowdfunding, this is a place to go. So I brought David on the show because I wanted to not only just dig into how he was able to do it, just explain what equity crowdfunding was, I'd heard of it passing through, you know, my feeds, and the people I talked to, but it's not something I really looked really deeply into. But when I actually did research on David and saw what he was able to do. And in this conversation, you know, I asked him every single question I wanted an answer to, so it is going to be a treasure trove for you guys, and a new way to raise money for your projects. It is not for every project. But I think it's a good good option for many, if not the majority of independent film project. So without any further ado, please enjoy my conversation with David Willis. I'd like to welcome to show david Willis. Man, how you doing?

David Willis 3:28
How am I doing? I'm doing great. I'm on the Alex Ferrari podcast, man. I'm pretty good. Thank you very much. How about you?

Alex Ferrari 3:36
I'm doing good, my friend. I'm doing good. So before we get into it today, what how did you get into the film business in the first place?

David Willis 3:43
Well, I started as a street magician in New York City, a comedy street magician. And it's a great way to start because if you're no good people will just walk away. immediate feedback. And I was I was funny. I was good. I made a living that way for a couple of years. I was like 17 and then I got rid of the magic and just did the comedy moving into comedy clubs to comedy for a long time. Did a one man show with over 200 colleges Vegas cruise ships, the whole thing. Comedians, I moved to LA wrote for a couple of shows a couple of comedies and then decided I needed to make movies

Alex Ferrari 4:22
You got bitten by the bug is

David Willis 4:23
Yes that the mental health problem of needing to make movies.

Alex Ferrari 4:28
That's that's that's disease that does not there's no there's no cure for it. Once you got it. It's yours. Yep, without question. You got a bad case of filmmaking boy. It's a bad bad case. Alright, so you will reach out to me because you've done something pretty unique. You've used equity crowdfunding to raise money for your film and not a small amount either. So can you please explain to the audience what is equity crowdfunding and how it differs from just traditional crowdfunding?

David Willis 4:59
The equity crowdfunding that's different than Kickstarter, Kickstarter, Indiegogo are called rewards based crowdfunding. If you donate money to Kickstarter to a campaign, you will get a reward. If it's a few bucks, you'll get a thank you. If it's more, you will get a T shirt or poster, a DVD, whatever. With equity crowdfunding, if you put money in, it's not a donation, it's an investment, you will own a piece of that project, in our case, a movie. It's like traditional indie film finance, where you put money in and you get on a piece of the movie, except you're going out wide to the entire world. That's essentially the difference between the two.

Alex Ferrari 5:43
And there's no like it. Because when you when you're requesting money from an investor, there has to be certain legal paperwork put into like product placement, memorandum, all that kind of stuff, that you just can't just I mean, unless it's someone you know, specifically, you just can't go solicit from a stranger somewhere without some paperwork, legal paperwork, is that correct?

David Willis 6:04
Absolutely correct. That's the way it's always been. You still can't do that you still cannot just randomly put on Facebook or the internet, hey, invest in my movie, it's still illegal to do that. And it's frustrating for filmmakers, because you do have to have paperwork, if you're doing equity crowdfunding, like I did. Or if you're just doing, seeking investors that you don't know, the SEC actually uses the term friends and family, you can ask your friends and family for investment. And you can ask business associates, but if you don't know somebody, they can't invest in your film unless you have filed certain paperwork. Now, I don't know about you, Alex. I didn't get into show businesses to do paperwork. or math. That's not why I did this, okay. But I decided that even though the equity crowdfunding threshold for paperwork is much greater than Kickstarter, you can go on Kickstarter, and in 90 seconds, create a campaign and launch it, it takes weeks, it takes a couple of weeks at least, to do an equity crowdfunding campaign, because you do have to file a couple of paperwork, things. You don't need a lawyer, if you're familiar, but you should run it by a lawyer before you launch. I'm not a lawyer. And we we did a lot of the paperwork, and then we ran it by a lawyer, and he needs to do some tweaks and stuff like that. Because you don't want to mess that up. You know, it'll just get in the way. And it's not a big deal. And it didn't cost that much. Right. So these platforms don't provide that service for you. They're just basically a platform, correct? No, they do. Some of them do. It depends on which platform you do. You also you have to launch it on a platform. There's, we launched a start engine, there's also micro ventures, we funder there's like 40 platforms, but those are the top three. And you must go through the platform. And another difference is with equity crowdfunding is they have to accept you. You have to say, here's my business. Here's what I want to do. You need a business plan. Most filmmakers, indie filmmakers have a business plan. And they said, we're gonna do it. We're gonna take it to festivals, we're going to spend the money this way we're gonna just do

Alex Ferrari 8:15
Obviously, you obviously have not met many filmmakers. You obviously have not met many filmmakers, if you think most filmmakers.

David Willis 8:28
I'll take your word for it.

Alex Ferrari 8:31
But a lot of a lot of them do. A lot of them do.

David Willis 8:34
Because nobody's got invested with you. If you just say, Well, I'm going to make a movie. Let's say, I'm going to make a movie. I'm going to spend X amount on cast X amount on locations, you know, they want to know that they can trust you with their money that you have some kind of plan. Another thing, big difference between Kickstarter and equity crowdfunding is the SEC does a background check on you? So that you launch a campaign? They want to know that you're not a crook? Okay. Okay. I most filmmakers aren't

Alex Ferrari 9:09
Most of them. I would agree with you most most distributors are but most filmmakers are not.

David Willis 9:13
Oh, oh.

Alex Ferrari 9:18
It's a rough crowd. Oh, it's a low blow but true. Very, very true.

David Willis 9:25
So so so it's no big deal. I mean, I passed it. I'm not that interesting. So I mean, there's they didn't find anything, and they don't care about you know, if you got caught smoking joints in high school, they hear about, you know, fraud crimes, financial stuff like that. So, so since equity crowdfunding went into effect in May of 2016. There haven't there haven't been those frauds getting in because it's, you know, stacked against yourself.

Alex Ferrari 9:51
So this so basically, this is taking the traditional, I'm going to go hunt for money, but and putting it into a crowdfunding crowdsourcing kind of way, and opening it up to a lot of people, because everything you're talking about is basically the traditional way of going about to find you in without the, you know, you could do it with a ppm and talking to a lawyer and get all the paperwork done. And then you physically got to go and hunt and send us footpath forms. But this, this actually allows you to go out to the world. And anybody in any, you know, Tom, Dick, or Harry can actually go in and spend 100 bucks, whatever the minimum is, yes, that's in your movie. So it's, it's pretty awesome. Actually. That's it. And there's so much regulation around it is actually really nice as well.

David Willis 10:39
Yes, yes, we, it's the SEC. When they made these laws, Obama signed this into law in 2012. And it was it not to get political, but it was completely bipartisan. It's one of the few things that everybody in Congress went, Okay, this is good and got signed into law that it took the SEC four years to actually do all the regulations. Shocking. Yeah. And they're, and they continue to evolve the regulations and make it better, and they made it as easy as possible. for ordinary folks like us. To do this. They've actually made it pretty easy. There's, there's a pretty low hurdle. Normally, if you want to issue stocks and do things like that, it takes hundreds of 1000s millions of dollars, armies of lawyers, etc. With this, we started with less than $2,000 in startup costs. Hey, and six months later, we had a million dollars to make.

Alex Ferrari 11:36
So let's let's we just I don't want us to kind of fly over that. So let's talk specifically what your story is and what you were able to do with this with crowd equity crowdfunding.

David Willis 11:47
Sure. Yeah, I did the I did the the rich person dance the dosey Doe, the courting of rich people. And I mean, I'm in showbiz. I'm going to showbiz all my life. People in show business don't invest in indie movies like this. they they they are looking for money, too. So the rich people I know are in the business. So I had to get friends or friends as well. And you got to fly around the country. You got to meet with them. I ended up the last meeting, I had a meeting with a guy who just sold his winery for $100 million. And I'm sitting on his veranda, we're in wingback chairs, like Casa Blanca, right, I get excited to go solo, do you have the papers right next to his private Lake, and his incredible art collection is looking at me and I had to spend all day and explain to him the movie works on the movie business and, and he didn't end up investing. And he just, it was so much work to talk to each one. And it's very nerve racking because these people when you talk to him with a swipe of their pen, they can make your career you know, with with a little flight, then there's your money and you're off to Cannes or wherever your destiny

Alex Ferrari 13:03
Sundance whatever.

David Willis 13:04
Yes, exactly. And so it's also kind of nerve wracking. And then I discovered equity crowdfunding as like, because I kept researching, I was not going to give up. And I saw that, wait a minute, I can do my pitch once. Put it up there and the world will see it. People who are looking to invest, not people who are donating because Kickstarter, there's a burnout, I couldn't do Kickstarter, because I've been hit up so many times for Kickstarter. People say Oh, investment, you know, we don't need for this don't need for that. And there are talented people, I know them. But there's a limit after you, you know, don't have to like 20 of them. You kind of just you get Kickstarter fatigue, you know, either question. Yeah, but the best of causes, but with the investment. People are, you're telling them, I would like you to make money on this, as opposed to like you to fund me learning how to make movies or whatever it is you're doing on Kickstarter. And it's a you're in a different playing field. Because there is a bit more paperwork. People take you more seriously. Because you're offering a commercial product. It's a business and it's also art. And so I said okay, I got to do this. I got to do this. This is it. If I if this doesn't work for me, then nothing well, and so I just studied really, really hard. All the campaign's that were out there. And at this point, there are only like 100 or so. And I saw what worked. I saw what didn't

Alex Ferrari 14:38
What was that? Was that 100 films or products?

David Willis 14:42
No, since since equity crowdfunding started in May of 2016. There have been 18 films made.

Alex Ferrari 14:47
Wow, that is so no competition. It's called a blue ocean. You know, the blue ocean red ocean.

David Willis 14:54
Right. And you Alex, you I can't think of anybody more plugged into the indie film world. Then you and you didn't know about this.

Alex Ferrari 15:02
I Exactly. It's scary. I've heard of it. It flew by, but I never gave it a real second thought. Because you're like, Oh, it's just crowdfunding again. Like, it's just another crowdfunding thing. And if I don't know about it, and I'm in this world 24 seven Yes. talking to everybody all the time. I'm so glad to have you on the show. I think that's when when you when you when you presented me the pitch to be on the show. You're like, Hey, I made a million dollars doing this. I'm like, let me I'm sorry. What? I'm like, Oh, it's a it's a Christmas movie. It's like, like, what? like wait a minute, there's there's something here let me investigate. And I was telling you off air I'd actually had seen your campaign float by me somewhere in my I seen it. When I went back to before our interview, I was doing research. I went back I'm like, I've seen this before. I'm like, Oh, I remember this. But I never really connected the dots. I'm like, Oh, this just has to be another crowdfunding scenario. I really never took it seriously until someone said oh, I made a million dollars so continue and just just to be clear, I did that make a million dollars and I raise you raise excuse me raised a million dollars that if the FCC if the SEC is watching, if he's watching he raised a million dollars but

David Willis 16:27
Yeah know that money went up on the screen believe me it's better on the screen than me buying a cappuccino with it. So So yeah, so so I said I got to do this. I studied it intensely for like six months I went my nerd brain my writer brain my just went into analyzing every video that was up. What how they said it, the production quality, every little detail, and I analyzed Why do I like this one? Why do I not like this one for all kinds of businesses, a bunch of CBD, technology, medical technology, a guy who was raising money to grow his business, which was vertical farms, vertical hydroponic farms, that could like grow so much more in one space, and he's born. And all this stuff, like the future of electric vehicles, a jet packed, some guy raised a lot of money for the first civilian jet pack.

Alex Ferrari 17:27
I've added been promising that for decades, now I'm waiting for my jet

David Willis 17:31
pack. Well, it was I mean, all kinds of businesses were doing this. So I looked at the ones that were successful. And I made sure that my video communicated what we were going to do, and communicate it in a successful way. And I gotta tell you something, I was a little worried that I was gonna have to turn into Mr. Pitch man, Mr. infomercial,

Alex Ferrari 17:56
hey, doing? Yeah,

David Willis 17:57
I thought it was gonna have to be like cheesy, and just as a salesman, and nothing against those people or that profession. But that's distasteful me. And the big surprise I discovered is that the more I was myself, the more people connect, the more people want to be involved in the project. And that was extremely reassuring to be a human being that just be yourself. And I realized, the campaign's that I watched, when they were being themselves. That's what I liked them, you know?

Alex Ferrari 18:28
Would you agree that there's in this now we're going into a much deeper conversation about the self, and in general, but but isn't there, especially in the film business, but in many other areas of our lives is that we are afraid of being ourselves, we're taught to not be ourselves, we're taught to actually be part of the crowd do what everybody else is doing. So we actually hide who we are. But the ironic thing about it is that is the secret sauce to your success is just being you because there is nobody else. Like you. I always tell people, look, I can't compete with anybody else. And no one else can compete with me what I do, because there is only me, there's only one me in the way I do it. And same way like you like, you know, I would approach it completely differently than you would approach it. And but that's the secret sauce. And I think that's one of the keys to any kind of pitch or, you know, just trying to connect with people. It's just being yourself.

David Willis 19:26
Alright, yes, I agree with you. And, and it does sound like going into esoteric territory. But it's like the primary lesson and that's also why famous actors who are really good are are that way because they allow their quirks if you do an impression of famous actors, there's always quirks you can pick up on the way Christopher Walken talks and just that when Robert De Niro talks these are not these are not smooth, you know speech to school kind of guys are

Alex Ferrari 19:57
Yeah, they're Chino Yeah, he I mean, like, like, you know, unapologetically themselves. You know, I haven't I haven't I have to tell you I saw this. One of my posts off of my office in a post house when they when I was still in post, and I had an out front, I just think is the best. And I'm sure I don't know if you've ever seen it. It was a picture of Christopher Walken on like, photocopied and said, We accept walk ins. I've never seen that. So soberly. And people would walk by and people would knock on the door. I was like, it was brilliant. So you use it. So you use multiple platforms to do this?

David Willis 20:39
Yes, I did. I did. Once I made the commitment to do equity crowdfunding versus Kickstarter. Another thing by the way, before I forget, the success rate of Kickstarter is 37%. Which means 63% of Kickstarter campaigns fail to make their minimum, which you can get all this, you can get these statistics on Kickstarter itself, they have the lowest set, the Kickstarter success rate for equity crowdfunding 64%, almost twice the success rate. And the average amount raised for a successful Kickstarter is 24,000. Little over 24,000 average amount race on an equity crowdfunding campaign over 270,000.

Alex Ferrari 21:19
So is it because I mean, obviously, there's less competition? So there's no question that there's less competition because there's a couple more hoops, you've got to jump yet to do. And that's actually a good thing, because you don't want what happened with Kickstarter and Indiegogo and these other platforms, too. Like there's like 1000 filmmakers doing this. If you're, if you're smart, you do your homework, you do your research, you jump through a few hoops, do some paperwork, you can be your baby, you know, the concept of the blue ocean, red ocean? No, actually. Okay, so the blue, the blue, this is a book called The Blue Ocean Strategy, which is everywhere, like we're gonna use this as an analogy. Kickstarter is a red ocean. That's where there's a lot of customers, a lot of people who want to spend money and donate money. But there's also tremendous amounts of competition. So there's blood in the water. So the waters read, oh, equity would be a blue ocean where there's still amount of good amount of people, but nobody goes there. So the fishing is a lot easier. So there's less competition. So that's the blue ocean red ocean strategy. So equity crowdfunding, as of right now of this recording is still a blue ocean is an even and even more, so for films. It's a blue ocean period for everything. But for films is like you got little to no competition. Yes, out there at the moment. Yes,

David Willis 22:39
I mean, Kickstarter just turned 10, like two weeks ago, um, so it just it just turned 10 equity from funding is like two and a half years old.

Alex Ferrari 22:49
Right. And it's really hasn't it really hasn't caught on heavily yet, in our industry, at least

David Willis 22:54
in other industries that has other interests, the money that's being invested in this platform goes up year over year over year, but it has a long way to go before it reaches the 4 billion that's gone through Kickstarter, you know, with, with, as you said, all the competition that goes with

Alex Ferrari 23:10
it. But when you were the first movie on Kickstarter, you could raise three, four or 500,000. Because you were like, wow, I can be part of a movie. And that was that whole, that whole first date. You know, early puppy love right stage of the relationship. Now we're just like, Oh, God, I just, I just can't even deal with this relationship anymore. And equity crowdfunding is the new Oh, she Oh, she's nice. In many ways,

David Willis 23:40
yeah. Yeah, that's totally man. And also people like they put money into the Veronica Mars movie. Yeah. And then they see it playing at their local theater. And they're like, Well, I'm not seeing any piece of that. I got a T shirt. You had

Alex Ferrari 23:54
an autographed picture. That doesn't really? Yeah. And it's, you know, that's is what it is. But it's nice that if the movie makes money, you would make money too. It's just nice. It's a definite, it's a different evolution to this whole concept of crowds, which is, crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing. It's just adding $1 $1 amount to the crowdsourcing aspect of things. So you're using the crowd to fund and but now you're instead of asking and begging for money, you're actually offering them a business proposal. Now, you said you use multiples I saw you use how many platforms is used to raise the full million.

David Willis 24:31
We used to we started on start engine. And we did three months there. And we finished that campaign. And two weeks later, we launched on we funder, which is a competitor's platform. And they operate the same way. They each take a percentage, they have just different style, different website, different user base. We were very happy with startengine. But according to my research at the time, there were about 100,000 users on each platform. And there was About a 60% overlap 60% of those people would look at both sites. So I wanted to reach the 40% people that we funder who weren't going to started. And also at that point, because we'd done it for three months, we then knew what we were doing. There were a lot of small granular things that as you learn how to do them, they add up to a big deal that gets you momentum. So by the time we went to we funder, we knew it. And so we were raising over $10,000 a day, because we knew how to reach our crowd. She knew how to reach the people who wanted to do it. But we ended up with only a little over 20,000 people visiting our campaign during the entire time.

Alex Ferrari 25:42
How many people actually invested? 893? And what was the biggest investment? Well, I can't think of one investment.

David Willis 25:51
for privacy reasons. I can't say exactly, but it was six figures. Wow. Also, sir.

Alex Ferrari 25:57
So just explain, walk me through the walk me through how you people can invest. So you said it, because I'm thinking still crowdfunding, like, you know, for $5, you get this and for 50,000, you actually open ended. So somebody can actually come in and go, you know, I know you only want 10,000. But I really want to invest 100,000, let's talk.

David Willis 26:16
Yes, that's what happens is when you get the minimum investment is $100. If you're a filmmaker and you want to do a campaign, you can set the minimum investment higher, you can set at $500 instead of 5000. But you're cutting more and more people out if you do that. We kept it at 100. So that as many people, you know, we know some people would invest, and they say on Facebook, hey, I put $100 into a Christmas movie, I'll probably never see it again. But it's fun. I'm like, Okay, well, we'd really like you to see it again. But thanks anyway, you know, and and other people would put in, you know, 1000s, that when you go online, as an investor, you have to fill out a little form, it's not a big deal. But you have to say what your income is, which we don't see. They don't see it, only the backend people see it. So that is an SEC law, the SEC wants to make sure that you're not investing too much of your assets into this is there to protect people. Okay. So people who are high net worth individuals had like a $25,000 cap, because of the way the formula works. So they would contact us, excuse me, they would contact us. And we would do something called a regulation D equity crowdfunding is called regulation, crowdfunding or reg CF, regulation D. All it is, it sounds like so who big deal is is you take that crowdfunding contract that you used to get on the platform, you have your lawyer make a few minor changes. And then you file a regulation D form online. Very simple. It's very cheap. And that allows you to accept money from strangers, who are accredited investors, which is an SEC term meaning about the top 3% of wage earners in the United States. And they're allowed to give you as much as they want with a regulation D, and they give it to you outside the platform. It doesn't go through.

Alex Ferrari 28:16
So Oh, so it's so in other words, they don't get a cut of that.

David Willis 28:20
Right, which which they're fine with. They're they're very the platform's are very happy for you to raise tons of money outside because it means you're being successful.

Alex Ferrari 28:29
So are you so does that money show up on the platforms itself? Like as a total, or it's completely outside the

David Willis 28:36
We posted it on the on our updates, so you could read there that it was that was coming in.

Alex Ferrari 28:43
But it's not in the final total.

David Willis 28:45
But it's something it depends on how the platform shows the total. Sometimes they'll show the total two different ways. They'll say we we raised $308,000 on we funder and then we funded we'll put next to it total, they'll total that plus the start engine plus the private regulation D stuff. So they'll put the whole total so it's whatever the platform feels like doing but we put it on there so people know that we're getting the money. Let me put it this way. We raised about $550,000 on start engine and we finger together. The regulation D investors doubled that.

Alex Ferrari 29:23
That's insane. That's insane. And by the end, by the way, this is a movie that doesn't have any if I'm not mistaken, have any marquee major names in it correct? No, no, it has some people where you go Oh, I've seen them. They're funny faces. But yeah,

David Willis 29:39
there's no Adam Sandler. There's no Tom Cruise, nothing like that.

Alex Ferrari 29:42
Yeah. And so. So you raise the million dollars for a Christmas movie that has no marquee value of marquee actors in it. Which if you would have tried to do that outside of this scenario. I I can't see it going well, I mean, it's it's a challenge. It's a challenge. For my from my experience, raising a million dollars in today's environment of independent filmmaking. It's not the 90s. So it's, you know, it's it's a different world. This is a, this is a tough sell. But because of the equity, and I'm assuming because they saw other people investing, and there was that kind of helps the situation. Yes. Yes. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

David Willis 30:38
Another thing I like about it, as opposed to Kickstarter, is I didn't have to bug my friends and family. These were all eventually couple my friends and family put in anyway, because they heard me talking about it, because I was obsessed with it. But, you know, maybe six or seven friends and family put in, unlike Kickstarter, which is almost

Alex Ferrari 30:57
always mostly its mom and dad, Uncle Bob got it.

David Willis 31:01
But yeah, but the thing is, with this outreach, you have to you have to you don't just put your campaign on sit back and say, Oh, it's money's gonna magically flow. You have to we had to outreach to bloggers, we emailed 1000 bloggers to get just like 20 of them to write about us. But those 20, who wrote about us, really helped get us noticed, we did podcasts at the time we did it. We did a lot of outreach, and we spent about $50,000 on Facebook ads. How much did you spend? 50,005? Zero,

Alex Ferrari 31:35
so you spent that money from the raising of the money or? Okay, so he's used that as part of investment back into the movie. Yeah. And then you difference between

David Willis 31:44
that and Kickstarter is you don't have to wait till the end of the campaign. Oh, give you the money out as you go. Oh, wow. It's cast you can get to production. You can?

Alex Ferrari 31:54
Oh, my God. So then. So then you were targeting on Facebook? Certain net worth individuals? Yes. in certain areas, had certain likes and dislikes like, hey, do like Christmas movies and have a net worth of $20 million. This might be for you. But am I wrong? Am I wrong? Oh,

David Willis 32:15
no, probably not the $20 million. Of course, of course, targeting people towards the end. In the beginning, we were targeting everyone because we wanted every we just wanted eyeballs to cherish like towards the end, we were targeting only people who made over like $75,000 a year. Because the average investment across all crowdfunding all bets are all equity crowdfunding is $833. Across ever since 2016, across all platforms a lot bigger than Kickstarter. It's a Kickstarter, 80 bucks. But our average investment was about $1,075, our average investment because we targeted them towards the end. So there's other a lot of factors involved in making the momentum work. And a lot of it had to do with a campaign and our video and I'm going to sound like I'm bragging here because I am the the what the average rate at which people convert convert is the word they use mean, somebody who looks at your page, who converts into an investor. The average rate for equity crowdfunding is one half of 1%.

Alex Ferrari 33:24
Just make sense. Make sense?

David Willis 33:26
Every 200 people who look at your campaign will invest. Okay? We never fell below two and a half percent every 40 people. And then once we figured out really what we were doing in the last couple of months, we got up to 5%.

Alex Ferrari 33:44
And we were saying conversion rate. It's kind of like open rates on email lists, like geeky You know, there's a certain level that you it's hard to get back.

David Willis 33:50
And the reason we did is two reasons. One, we really tried hard to find people who would like us. You might find the people who go, Oh, I want to do that. I'm so glad you're doing that. I would like to be part of that. You just got to find them. They're out there for every movie. So people out there who get you. And the second thing was is we worked really really hard on our campaign page. And every second of that video, every little tiny thing tight. I saw it. It's Thank you, thank you and oh my we've put so much work into that because those two things, finding the right people and having that video that really, really works of that makes the conversion rate really high. That sounds and Well, I

Alex Ferrari 34:38
mean, I'm sold. It sounds it sounds it sounds like where do I sign up? How do I do no joke, but this is actually it is just another option of many options out there to raise money. But again, this is not raising the 10 or $15,000 movies. We're talking about a million dollars which is a lot of money for an independent film.

David Willis 34:57
Yes

Alex Ferrari 34:57
In today's world with no money Key stars attached. I mean, it's actually almost unheard of. And also, it's a genre that is a marketable genre. You know, christmas movies, christmas comedies are a marketable genre. But still, it's still interesting. I'm, I'm really impressed that you were able to do what you were able to do with it. Well, thank you, Alex, I appreciate that. Now, what is your distribution model to recoup these? Because you got to come back out with over a million dollars in revenue. So what was the distribution plan? And where is this this movie? Is it done? Is it out? Is it still post?

David Willis 35:31
It was released in Christmas season last year? 2018. Okay. But because, you know, it's, I'm laughing because of who I'm talking to, we had just one of those sad distribution stories with a big deal in place with a big six figure advance that just crumbled at the last minute. So we,

Alex Ferrari 35:51
but you had they offered you a six figure advance?

David Willis 35:53
Yes, yes. We had we had, it was all great. And then, and then it fell apart. And you know, that's show business, right. But the problem was, we then had to scramble last minute, so we didn't get out. We didn't get on the platforms till December 4. And people really start buying this stuff in November. So we thought, Well, we'd rather do it. Now the way to here is we sold off the foreign rights. And there they also had to get a late start to so we had like, half a season of distribution. We did all domestic. We did Amazon. How did we? Yeah. Where did you go an aggregator?

Alex Ferrari 36:29
Who if you don't mind me asking what aggregated? Did you go through? Giant interactive? Oh, sure. Okay,

David Willis 36:34
I know that all right. And, you know, and then iTunes, Hulu, every cable company video on demand the whole thing. And and we sold off all the foreign stuff. But oh, we're really looking forward to this Christmas season. Because it'll be the first full season and then we spent money on marketing to we've got we've on Fox and Friends Fox and Friends held us up as a as a great last minute gift idea. Wow, some political segment, obviously. Yeah, they were just so so you know, we will see what happens this year with we absolutely had plans, you know, we absolutely had a plan in place to do it. And I looked at, if I don't sound like I'm sucking up too much to my hosts here, I certainly looked at your site and your podcasts and, you know, got as much information as I could to figure this stuff out. And then in the end, we went with someone we knew who got us place to these places, so Oh, very

Alex Ferrari 37:33
cool. Very, very cool. And, and the thing about a Christmas movie is, you know, they, they they are evergreen, and you know, to a certain to a certain extent even I mean other than maybe a decade or two back where the clothes just don't look right anymore. And they're holding up BlackBerry's you know, you know, or rotary phones, but generally speaking Christmas movies every year, it's a new surge of money. Now the window to make money on those films is basically from November 1 until December, basically to New Year's basically. Correct. Is that Is that a fair statement? Yep. So you've got a two month window to make all your money but that's but but that's every year going forward. So it's a good you know, revenue stream for you as a filmmaker doing Christmas movies moving forward. You know, as part of your portfolio of films. A Christmas movie is good if you're going to go down this genre. The dog saves Christmas is always a good one. Any dog movies are jam packed and our movie wats cat saves Christmas. You know those kind of I mean, I had a friend of mine who came on the show microfiber Pfeiffer who has directed 70 features I think in his career, and he is a strictly haulmark lifetime dude. And he that's that's he just makes it he's like oh, I make Christmas movies I make the baby sailor the babies that have killed you know the wife and you know murder that so he does the lifetime deal but he does these Christmas movies. He says oh yeah the dog safe Christmas. I've got like four or five parts to this one. You know and I got it just it's there's money to be made if done correctly, if done correctly and if you if you if you cast Dean Cain, but Dean has carved himself out a heck of a nice career for him. So

David Willis 39:25
he was pitched to us. I'm sure it's probably bad. for Rs Rs is very much a comedy. It's a I mean, our team you know, my exec producer. He's got you know, four Emmys for the Simpsons and Frasier and, and I wrote for shows, TV shows. So it was so very much a comedy almost called us and wanted to screen a movie for their channel and I'm saying, you guys, this is not for us. One of our characters says crap once. So it's it's not for you. Yeah, and people kiss twice. In the movie instead of just once at the end like you guys do, and, you know, Hallmark pitch but

Alex Ferrari 40:04
so so basically that those are rules and regulations for Hallmark.

David Willis 40:08
Oh yes, it's very they don't kiss till the very end of the movie, the last shot of the movie is the kiss. No one is ever seen in bed. They never talk about sex. They don't joke about it. And there are very few actual jokes. There's a light hearted moments, but they don't want a lot of jokes. They, you know, it's very, very, very precise. There's a whole list of rules for harm, or

Alex Ferrari 40:27
how about life of a lifetime? Because they have their Christmas they have their Christmas run now to Oh, they do? I don't know, I haven't looked. I haven't looked into that. I don't know. I just I just saw that like Lifetime's releasing, like I forgot. I was like, it was like a lot like 40 or 50 new Christmas movies. You know, we're sorry, right now that

David Willis 40:48
we got approached by cable companies like that, who want who want the title, but we're waiting. We're gonna wait, you know, like two years before we put it there. Netflix wanted it. But we'll wait, you know, for like four years for Netflix. But you know, the good reason the good news is, we made a movie that didn't suck and people like it. Quite a show. So and

Alex Ferrari 41:08
you have been able to generate some revenue already with it already. And you're in control of that revenue stream for the most part domestic, domestic domestically, and has foreign done well. I wonder how those movies traveled. Do they travel? Well.

David Willis 41:24
Oddly enough, like France, Germany, England, those are good markets for it. I know. Not sure what other again, we got a late start last year, so you don't know exactly. But yeah, I'm not sure exactly what it's up to. Right now. I don't know what it's exactly doing now for him.

Alex Ferrari 41:41
Yeah, and this is a weird thing. Because as a as an investor, you know, you're like waiting, like, Okay, what am I gonna get my money back? And like, we're not gonna wait till next year, guys. Sorry. Like, you have to wait. Because during the year, I'm assuming there. I mean, there are some this minimal, say, minimal, exactly, minimum. But the investors I was talking to an indie producer has got a lot of credits. And, and he said, You know, that's great. What you did, David, he goes, I don't want to I don't want to deal with 893 investors like you have. And I said you don't want here's what it's like dealing with 193 investors. Compose email, send. That's it. So I was gonna ask you, how do you pay back investors? How do you start sending money back to them?

David Willis 42:20
Well, you have a service that shows what everybody what ratio everybody has, you know, they have, if they put in 10% of the budget, they get 10% of the investors half of returns. So it's very simple. And

Alex Ferrari 42:38
it's a 5050. So it's a 5050 split. So explain that how the money gets paid back. So is it is it a 5050 split 50 goes to the filmmakers. And then 50 goes to the investors first.

David Willis 42:48
But only but the first money is in go to pay back the investors in full of where the producers get anything. The investors get paid back in full plus a 15% bonus, then the producers see they're half

Alex Ferrari 43:01
Oh, so so. So basically, you you make no money until you've recouped at least all the minus

David Willis 43:07
add money until the investors are in the black and make them money. We don't see a dime of that.

Alex Ferrari 43:13
So it's in your best interest to sell, sell, sell.

David Willis 43:17
But you know, that's not unusual in indie film finance, and we wanted to make sure that was on the campaign page. People knew it. It was it was in the contract they signed, they knew that they were our first priority. And at the premiere, we premiered at the valley Film Festival here in Los Angeles in November of last year. And there were about 180 investors there. And he's so many of which was a perk if you invested enough, you got to come to the premiere. And so they so many of them came up to me and shook my hand and thanked me for letting them invest. And it was it sounds like it would be a moment where it would make your ego like big, but it was the opposite. It was so humbling. Alex, it was I was just so humbled that they work together with us to make this movie. I mean, I don't mean, I don't mean to get all spiritual, but it was really intense. It was really just a really wonderful completing of this entire project so that we gave them something that they were really happy to be part of. And for a filmmaker to hear. Thank you for letting me invest.

Alex Ferrari 44:26
That's that's unheard of. It's generally speaking, yeah. It's kind of movie. It's a it's a very feel good movie. So. So are you. So are you going to do this again?

David Willis 44:39
I don't know. I'm getting a lot of calls from producers asking me for advice. These are people who have a campaign that's live or people who are about to launch one are people who did one and it didn't do well and they're calling asking me how do we get to a million how, and I don't have time to be on the phone with all of them all the time. I mean, I'm spending hours on the phone with him. Because, you know, I love filmmakers and filmmaking, but I'm giving a seminar. Yeah. Okay, too, so that they can all get in the same room at the same time. And I can explain it. It's a seven hour seminar, it takes some explaining. So I'm definitely doing that. And then I haven't decided if I'm going to do another one or not. As far as myself goes, I'm because of this movie, we're getting a little attention. And we have three movies ready to go. And if we can get funding from, you know, the usual sources and Netflix and Amazon, whatever, we'll go that route. If If not, or if there are too many conditions attached to the other financing. I would be very happy to go back online because it was a lot of work. It's more more work than Kickstarter, but it was a wonderful experience. You got to I got to connect with 193 people who want to make a movie with me.

Alex Ferrari 45:54
And as an artist, you get to be an artist and you get to you know, no one's going to be over your shoulder going. You need Dean Cain. Yeah, we can't move forward unless Dean Cain and the puppy and not that puppy but the puppy from Santa paws for that's the star puppy. He's huge. He's huge in Germany. So

David Willis 46:20
people are people are probably laughing and laughing too. But that's not far from Why

Alex Ferrari 46:24
am I wrong? Am I wrong? But it's something is something is ridiculous. And you a would be something as ridiculous the Dean Cain part I get, because that makes sense. And I've heard I've heard nothing but good things about the and I'm not trying to pick on Dean here. Pork Dean. Dean, I've heard he's a good sport. He's done. You know, I'm a fan of a fan of his work as Superman and many other things he's done. But, but there wouldn't be a producer some moron in the back of the room going. I know. The puppy in Santa paws three. And that's the dog we're going to use in this one because we can market it saying from the dog from Santa paws three. Yep. And people listening going. Alex Why do you know about Santa paws? Three? Is it because I have children? I have children who are who are young. That's why I've seen every Santa paws Air Bud. The Air Bud guy, whoever came up with those airpad people like those filmic hot water. I mean, the Air Bud everything the Santa put like they've built an empire around a dog and a basketball. Like it's that's the logo of their company. It's like the slick Yeah, yeah. But we will put we will put links to your your, when is it happening by the way this

David Willis 47:47
November 16. Here in Burbank, California, November 16. seven hour all day long in person seminar is not going to be simulcast. It's not a webinar, it's in person, because there's too much q&a, there's too much back and forth, I have to address people's particular. Yeah, campaigns. And the video has to fit them, you know, I'm going to spend at least 90 minutes discussing videos and how that works. Because I've seen good filmmakers put up campaigns, and they're good at what they do. And they're personable, but they're doing so many little things. That if they just changed like four or five little things, they would have raised twice as much money. And so, but there's a strategy, there's a strategy to

Alex Ferrari 48:34
like there's a script, there's points, there's key, there's story points, there's things that you have to hit in those, you know, and the timing and all that kind of stuff to do crowdfunding videos in general, it is something you have to do.

David Willis 48:47
Yeah, and by the way, if you do equity crowdfunding, you can raise any amount from $10,000 to a million. You don't have to raise, you know, a million where they're, the lowest one I saw was somebody who did raise 15,000. But they didn't put much work in the campaign. But a couple of horror movies just raised low six figures, I think 141 470 That's insane. A guy with a quirky comedy called take me to tarzana. He just raised I believe it was 172,000. And with a very simple video, very clear, direct, simple video, and they had some credits, but they didn't have tons of credits. And some of these people were starting these up, they don't have a lot of credits. You don't need it. What you need is for people to connect with you. And believe you're going to do what you say you're going to do. And they'll sense it.

Alex Ferrari 49:44
They'll sense it they'll know it is is right now this is an that's a kind of over sensationalize this, but it is kind of a gold rush right now because there is no competition. That's why the quirky guy with the you know whatever tarzana movie Like if you put that on Kickstarter, he would never raise would probably not raise anything. But because he's raised less, let's say, yeah, just a lot more competition there, you're talking about this blue ocean that is Christine, and there's fish everywhere. And it's so nice. All you got to do is just understand to put out the Lord just right. And you'll be able to catch some fish and help and get some investments. And people just don't know about it. They just don't know or they have a lot of misconceptions about it. I was talking to somebody who was longtime indie filmmaker, and he goes, Oh, you can't do that. That violates the blue sky laws. And I'm like blue sky law. Yeah, exactly. He knows what a blue sky law is blue sky law.

David Willis 50:46
In 1933, Holy Jesus, during the big depression, they passed laws to stop people from investing in stocks. This is the original law came from, you had to be rich, they made the law you got to be rich to invest in these stocks, because people were selling stocks that nobody understood. And when they sold the stocks, they would say, hey, you buy this, and it's blue skies from here on for you. So it was a sales term from the friggin depression. So they made these laws called Blue Sky laws, which means you can't go around telling everybody, it's gonna be all blue skies. Okay. And that's how, that's how it came about. And with blue sky laws, also, what it means is, if you want to offer your investment to the public, now, you just file these couple of forms with equity crowdfunding platform with a blue sky laws, you had to file those forms in every individual state. Okay, or you couldn't, or people that state couldn't buy it, you could buy it. So yeah, it's fascinating, esoteric, boring stuff. So this filmmaker knew about that. But he didn't know. They just got funded because of equity crowdfunding.

Alex Ferrari 52:03
So she basically told me, nothing's changed in the stock market. I mean, it says, basically, nothing has changed. I mean, we speak to a stockbroker, it's all blue skies, isn't it? Just like, I'll just say, you'll be fine. It'll be exactly

David Willis 52:13
the same with real estate people say, you know, oh, Mark is gonna turn you know, it's all it's all the money you can't play when they got a job to

Alex Ferrari 52:19
do. What do you mean $2 million for a house in Burbank is not a really, you know, that's 900 square feet. I don't understand what is that? How is that not a good investment? From 1933? It's,

David Willis 52:31
it is work. It is work? Yeah. But one of the things, and I think you'll get this, Alex, one of the things when I said I'm going to do this is I thought, Okay, what if it falls flat? What if I people aren't responding? People can make comments on the campaign page. In fact, the law is you can't talk about the details of your campaign, except on that one official page, because the law says the SEC says they want everyone to have the exact same information. So you can't go whispered on a Facebook secret group saying, Hey, guys, you know, this you everybody's same information on that page, and people can ask questions, I answered 200 questions for each campaign. Okay,

Alex Ferrari 53:18
but so it's work, it's work. But the benefits are high.

David Willis 53:23
I was afraid I was sick. I was I'm not ashamed to say I was afraid. This is going to be my face out there. And if I didn't raise this money, if I only raised 2050, you know, it was going to be embarrassed by like, okay, I am more afraid of Never making this movie than I am. of having this campaign fail. And I took that I took the leap. You know, I'm not Tony Robbins. I'm not a I'm not one of those types of speakers. But man.

Alex Ferrari 53:52
But to be fair, you did have giants nomen behind you. So that really did help. I mean,

David Willis 53:58
if you are afraid, unlike Kickstarter, if you do what is equity crowdfunding campaigns, you do fail, they take it down.

Alex Ferrari 54:05
Oh, this is set up after Kickstarter stays forever. But equity crowdfunding goes away. I don't know. That's good. Fair enough. Fair enough. failure. I don't like to pitch failure. This is disrupting indie film finance. It's totally cutting. I can't I can't wait to this. I can't wait for this to get out into into my community to my tribe. And it will I promise you start to fester out into the world is that the waves will will go out especially after being on the show because it's it's something that you know, man, it's it's it's another opportunity to not raise just a little money to raise a lot of money. It's a lot of work. But hell, you know, the people who are successful in this business do a lot of work. They do a lot of a lot of this on my hat, a lot of hustle and guess it's not as it's not the way it used to be where you could just make a movie and then just give it over to the distributor. They give you a fat check and You just, you know, go to Sundance and have to go to a couple parties and life is over your life is good. It's, the world has changed so dramatically. And as we're recording this, I'm sure in three weeks, the industry will change again. Like, it's just so rapidly changing. It's not even funny. But I'm gonna ask you a few questions to ask all of my guests if you don't mind. What advice would you give a filmmaker trying to make it into the business today?

David Willis 55:28
Don't be afraid to express your original voice. Your original voice is what people are looking for. Those are the kind of films that stand out. If you're trying to make everybody happy. If you're trying to be bland, nobody's happy. Be your own original voice, especially to writers. If you're a writer, director, write your voice,

Alex Ferrari 55:55
preach, preach, preach, preach. What is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life?

David Willis 56:05
The longest lesson to learn whether in the film business or in life? That's Wow, that's a deep question.

Alex Ferrari 56:18
I know.

David Willis 56:27
Find your tribe find the people to work with that reinforce you, and you reinforce them. It's very easy to get bitter. In the show business, it's very easy. You can see these people everywhere you go, and they get bitter. And I understand they visiting with what they think is a brilliant script. And it's not getting made. Because they don't like to network, they don't like to get out. So no one sees their brilliant script, and they let anger dominate them. It's it, that won't help that's not going to help in any way. Take action and find people who reinforced what you do. And you reinforced them and you guys will you guys will rise up together.

Alex Ferrari 57:18
I've said I've said this 1000 times, everybody, every filmmaker knows an angry and bitter filmmaker. And and if they don't know the angry and bitter filmmaker, they are the angry and bitter filmmaker.Is that? Is that fairly true?

David Willis 57:33
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes when we were on the campaign, some people would post on Facebook. Oh, this is this is bull, this is a

Alex Ferrari 57:41
scam?

David Willis 57:43
And I would answer them, I would make the assumption that we're not a troll. And I would answer them Honestly, I said, please go look at the page, look at our credits. Look at what we've done. Look at look at the pitch for the movie. And then you know, just just look at us and give us a chance. If you have any questions. I'm happy to answer them. The ones I've been used to got is Oh, it's going to be Hollywood accounting. Link to the Wikipedia article on Hollywood accounting. And I'd say yes, we've been to this a long time, we have been victimized by Hollywood accounting. That's why we're doing this.

Alex Ferrari 58:19
Just like Forrest Gump never made a dime. According to, according to the studio, Forrest Gump was still in the red in today's world. Now, what is the biggest fear you had to overcome from making this film or even launching this campaign for that matter?

David Willis 58:40
The biggest fear is fear of failure. And that's what drives it. It's what drives a lot and only my fear of not making the movie was bigger than my fear of failure, which is why I love to head and I'm not shy. It's not my first day on the job. But when you're putting your face out there saying Invest in me. You're you're naked to the world, man. You know, that's that's it. Okay. And if people reject that they're rejecting you. So it's I thought, I like I really really liked this movie. I like this story. We've done table reads with it. Audiences laugh it's connecting. And I have to tell this story. Good. sounds so simple and basic, man, but

Alex Ferrari 59:25
Yeah, that's that's where that's where I got that's where I finally got to a point where I just had to make my movie. I was like, I can't I my fear of whatever I have to break through it. And I think a lot of us as filmmakers have to break through to get next level.

David Willis 59:39
Yeah, I I shadowed a lot of directors and television to some really good directors to well, so I was on a set of a lot of a lot of different shows. And on one show, I was talking with a very famous actress who's really good. And I'm talking about in between I said, so what do you like in a direction If a director is coming on is the director of the week, what is it you'd like us to know about working with you? And she's thought a second. And then this is an incredibly strong actors with a shelf full of Emmys. And she says, David, you got to know that when you say cut, and you walk towards me, in my head, I'm going, I've messed it up. I've screwed it up. They're gonna fire me. That was a horrible take. I can't believe this poor director has to put up with me. And I my mouth dropped up and I go, are you? Oh, I'm so serious. I'm so serious. This is this is someone who has just

Alex Ferrari 1:00:35
Accomplished and if you said her name, everybody would know who it is.

David Willis 1:00:38
Yes. And I was stunned. And she goes, that's what I wish directors knew about me. And she goes, and a lot of us are like that. And I'm like, Okay, got it. And she's not somebody known for, you know, being temperamental or something that very stable gets the work done. So it everybody's got it, man.

Alex Ferrari 1:00:57
All right. we all we all got our own little demons. walking around with us. No question. Now, three of your favorite films of all time?

David Willis 1:01:06
Barry Lyndon

Alex Ferrari 1:01:08
Kubrick fan so I'm a huge Kubrick fan.

David Willis 1:01:12
Oh, yeah, that's it. This is best movie. Crimes and Misdemeanors

Alex Ferrari 1:01:16
Yep! Excellent movie.

David Willis 1:01:17
And Shakespeare and love.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:22
Really Shakespeare. That's it. That's I mean, it's a good film. It's a good film, but it's, it's one of the first times I've heard it on the show. So that's a, but it's a good film. It's a very enjoyable film. And I can understand why it's your favorite film. It makes perfect sense.

David Willis 1:01:35
It's got. It's got a romantic storyline. It's historical. And it also has the meta story where they're making fun of Shakespeare and making fun of showbusiness throughout to me what encapsulates what is so perfect. So just just show Bose Winky wink at showbiz, fun, is when somebody says to the Shakespeare character, says this, he says, The show must, he says, Go on.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:08
It's a great, it's a great line. It's like oh, yeah, that's a smart people.

David Willis 1:02:14
And also the line about Wait, no one knows how it works out. They have so many problems, trying to put the show up and horrible things happen. And they say, nobody knows how but it always works out in the end. And I think showbiz is redemption. You know, so that's why.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:32
very good answer to a very good answer to that. And I would have to tell you my favorite Kubrick eyes Eyes Wide Shut. I love love Eyes Wide Shut. Don't ask me why. I'm fans of all that all of them. But there's something about Eyes Wide Shut for me. I don't know what it is.

David Willis 1:02:48
Boy talk about a filmmaker. Not afraid to be himself, man. Hold like, Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 1:02:54
He's no, he's, he's on a whole other. He was on a whole other plane. And we're not going to get into a Kubrick discussion because this will run another hour. But But yes, he was definitely an original and did what he wanted how he wanted it and they will never be another one like him without question. Now where can people find you and more about your, your seminar and about you?

David Willis 1:03:17
Oh, well, our seminar page is equity crowdfunding masterclass.com. I know that's a mouthful, but that's what it is equity, crowdfunding, masterclass, calm, there's a whole page about me. And there's a page about explaining there's one page just explaining what equity crowdfunding is. And there's another page giving some of the really granular details that we're going to go into in that class. So that if somebody does an equity crowdfunding campaign, instead of raising 40, or 50, they can kick that up to 152 50. Whatever I, I studied it so intently. So. So that's the webpage where you can find out about me, there's also a page dedicated to that site to women, and equity crowdfunding. Because women are often underrepresented in a lot of areas of business, but in this country, women entrepreneurs who own their own companies receive only 4% of all the venture capital that's invested every year. Okay, but they're getting 22% of the equity crowdfunding money. Now. It's still not 50% like it should be. But it's five times better and equity crowdfunding for women than it is for them in venture capital. So we just mentioned those things, you can sign up for a free newsletter, and we're sending up tips.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:38
Nice, very, very cool. Man, thank you so much, again, for being on the show. And dropping some knowledge bombs. This is very, very informative show has been an entertaining show. And I hope it does help some filmmakers out there to actually help get their projects off the ground.

David Willis 1:04:53
Yeah, me too, man, I want to because then it'll become even more normal and people will be more and more people going to go there and invest in more more films.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:00
That'd be great man. Thanks again for being on the show.

David Willis 1:05:03
Okay, thank you Alex.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:03
I want to thank David for coming on and dropping those knowledge bombs on the tribe today. Like I told you guys it is a new way to raise money for independent films and you should really investigate it. And if you want to check out his masterclass, the link will be in the show notes at indiefilmhustle.com/356. And the code to get $100 off. The masterclass is of course, HUSTLE, just type in the word HUSTLE in the checkout, and you will get $100 off. So next week, I've got some really cool episodes coming guys, it's some really ones of men emotional episode. Another one is a really informative episode about where the world is, the independent film world is going where it is right now, all sorts of crazy stuff going on and got some other cool surprises coming up in the near future. Again, if you have not gone and checked out the rise of the film intrapreneur please check out my new book at www.filmbizbook.com. It is I mean, it's getting close to being number one again, it keeps fluctuating between one and 20. And a lot of people are buying it. And I'm really, really excited about it. And to answer the question, yes, we will have a paperback version. And I will have an audio book version. At the same time because I am recording the audiobook version. As we speak after I'm done with this, I will be going back to my book, I'm almost done with the audiobook version. So unlike shooting for the mob, I will actually have an audio book version ready on release day as well. And you'll be able to get that audio book version for free. If you sign up for Audible, you get a for 30 days, you get a free book. And when you sign up for Audible, and I'll send you all that information, don't worry, you'll know all about it. But you can buy that you can get the book for free and listen to it for free. And I'll give you more information about that as we come get closer and closer to the release date. And as of right now it's November 7, but it's might be a little bit later we just got to wait for you know manufacturing and getting it out of the factory and all that kind of good stuff. So it might take a little bit longer, but not my much. So thank you guys for your patience. I know this book is going to be an insane explosion in independent film space. So I'm really really excited to share this with you guys. So have a good weekend. And as always keep that also going keep that dream alive. And I'll talk to you soon.

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