Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | November 7, 2016 | Worcester Business Journal 19 Friday, Nov. 11 Pancake Breakfast 8am Parade 11am Saturday, Nov. 12 5k Road Race and Walk 9am Freedom Song Festival Veterans Day Weekend with Veterans Inc. All events taking place at 69 Grove Street Worcester, MA For more information www.veteransinc.org (508) 791-1213 x123 events@veteransinc.org Eagle Cleaning Corporation 997 Millbury Street, Suite A Worcester, MA 01607 Toll Free: (866) 45.EAGLE Office: (508) 799-0700 Fax: (508) 799-0072 • Nightly Janitorial Service • Day Porter Service • Carpet Shampooing • Window Washing • Stripping and Refinishing Floors • Restroom Sanitation • Post Construction Cleaning • 24 Hour Emergency Service "We provide Superior Cleaning and Restoration for Commercial, Industrial and Institutional accounts. Our corporate office is located in Worcester, MA and we service accounts throughout Massachusetts. At Eagle, we continue to be one of the fastest growing companies in our industry. This is a direct result of our innovation, commitment and dedication to excellence in every building we maintain." — Jeff Johnson, President & CEO COMMERCIAL • INDUSTRIAL • INSTITUTIONAL Services Include: N ick Bold is a warrior in the 21st century gig economy. His day job is at Quinsigamond Community College, where he builds and maintains labs for the students. On the side, he's executive director of Technocopia, a nonprofit collective of tech and artisan endeavors sharing a makerspace. His real love is robotics. He and some colleagues worked on robotics in the Technocopia space and had an epiphany. Their inventions had less market value than the software design tools they'd developed. So now they're in the software business and contemplating how to get investors interested. Bold is a crowdfunding veteran. When Technocopia needed more space, he launched a campaign on Indiegogo.com and raised more than $16,000. In hindsight, he said, the goal needed to be a bit higher but they raised enough to move into 11,500 square feet in the Printers Building on Portland Street in Worcester. Another crowdfunding campaign – an effort to raise money for the robot- ics venture – was a failure, Bold said. He said he learned a lot about the "Wow" factor and the need for a catchy video to drive a successful campaign. But now he's on the fence about whether crowdfunding is a viable option to raise the kind of investment he needs to take the software busi- ness to the next, potentially lucrative level. While he watches developments in the crowdfunding equity space, he's bidding on a contract to build out engineering labs at WPI. He'd also like to rev up the educational component of Technocopia. STEM classes for kids are good, he said, but there's a need for workforce development courses that his team can provide. He's hoping he can connect the dots and partner with the state's workforce development program. Technocopia founder sees 'Wow' factor as crowdfunding necessity BY NORMAN BELL Special to the Worcester Business Journal president at San Francisco-based Union Bank, she noticed one consistent strate- gy of wealthy people – they owned commercial real estate. Her "aha" moment was that she could use crowd- funding to democratize commercial real estate investment and put small investors into the lucrative field. That's the kind of strategic thinking that has finance pros excited again about crowdfunding. A cluster of booths and tables at the Las Vegas convention showed the development of the crowdfunding infrastructure. Fewer than 20 firms have registered so far to guide firms through the legal labyrinth of Title III. There are market- ing and PR specialists, video produc- tion companies and financial offering strategists. A lot of people are staking out ground as they prepare for the seismic shift that crowdfunding may actually become as it emerges from four years in regulatory limbo. What remains to be seen is when the effects will be felt on Main Street. Nick Bold (left), founder of Technocopia, shows crowdfunding contributor Shaun Connolly the technology available at the makerspace's Printers Building facilities, which were paid for using an Indiegogo.com campaign. W W P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y

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