The content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal business, tax,

or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security and is not directed

at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund. For more details, please see A16Z.com

slash disclosures.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the A6 and Z podcast. I'm Sonal and I'm here today with

James Bischara. He is the CEO and co-founder of Tilt, which is easiest way to collect, fundraise and

sell with your community. We also have A6 and Z partner, Jeff Jordan, who covers all kinds of

things, including marketplaces. Hey there, it's great to be here. There's a lot of discussion in the news lately about crowdfunding.

I've read everything from a report about Kickstarter.

Someone did a study about how much economic benefits came out of, like, individual

makers, down to a community crowdfunding a beach that they then gave back to the city publicly,

which I think is super, super interesting. So I think the question here is beyond crowdfunding.

What is the broader theme that we're talking about? How is this sort of changing our economy?

It's a confluence of a few things. It might have a generic term like crowdfunding slapped on it. But when you look

beneath the surface, kind of like social networking, it sounds like a catch-all term, but you really

look beneath the surface on what's happening, the ability for social networking, you can connect

with people around the world instantaneously. I think what is really interesting about crowdfunding or this notion of

pre-commerce and pre-orders is you get to tap into demand before you put an ounce of work into

production or for that beach example, you get to discover the demand for something you feel like

the community might want, but you don't really know. And 20 years ago,

you just have to make up your mind. You know what? I'm going to put all my social capital into this.

And I hope people want this. Financial capital to you. And I hope that this is just what people want.

...