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Jan 21 2021

InsurTech NY Teams Up With the Bermuda Business Development Agency for InsurTech Early Stage Competition 2021

InsurTech NY, a global InsurTech hub, announced on Thursday it has joined forces with the Bermuda Business Development Agency (BDA), Bermuda’s independent economic development public-private partnership, to launch the 2021 InsurTech Early-Stage Competition. According to the duo, this competition attracts up to 100 promising startups from around the world with an opportunity to showcase their business and market potential to early-stage investors and insurance leaders.

“Adding to the existing prize pool of $200,000, the BDA will award the winning team with a four-night stay in Bermuda, a business concierge service to connect startup founders to professional advisors, and pay the fees associated with participating in the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) regulatory sandbox or innovation hub. The winning team’s proposal will be subject to the BMA’s formal application review, and once approved, will benefit from the Regulator’s extensive guidance.”

Susan Pateras, a BDA board member and an insurance industry expert with more than two decades of experience, will join the list of investor and insurance carrier judges. Judges comprise angel investors, venture capitalists, and insurance carriers including New York Angels, Park City Angels, Anthemis, Six Thirty, Sure Ventures, Luge Capital, Transverse, Nationwide, GreenlightRe, and Grange Insurance. While sharing more details about the competition, David Gritz, co-founder of InsurTech NY. stated:

“Finding an initial regulatory sandbox and access to reinsurance partners is one of the biggest challenges for new digital MGAs. The Bermuda market represents an exceptional opportunity for new InsurTechs and our partnership with the Bermuda Business Development Agency is one example of how we strive to be an international gateway for InsurTechs to find global opportunities for growth.”

Jasmine DeSilva, the BDA’s Business Development Manager responsible for Risk and Insurance Solutions, added:

“The InsurTech Competition will connect some of the brightest InsurTech founders to Bermuda’s world-leading and innovative insurance and reinsurance market. We encourage those looking to accelerate innovation in the industry to apply and look forward to welcoming the winning team to Bermuda, the world’s risk capital with over $100 billion in reinsurance premium, access to specialty market carriers, and a friendly regulatory environment for quality startups.”

Early-stage companies eligible for the competition are InsurTechs that generated less than $250,000 in annual revenue in 2020. The top 10 finalists will be invited to present at the InsurTech Spring Conference and will be announced in early March 2021. The deadline for submissions is January 29th.

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Written by bizbuildermike · Categorized: Crowdfunding · Tagged: 2020, 2021, angel investors, bermuda, bermude business development agency, business, Co-founder, digital, Economic Development, Environment, Fees, founders, Global, innovation, insurance, insurtech, insurtech competition, insurtech ny, international, investor, market, more, New York, partnership, revenue, risk, startup, startups, Teams, venture capitalists, world

Jan 15 2021

UK based Property Finance Platform LendInvest Claims it’s Well-Prepared to Deal with New COVID-19 Lockdown Measures

UK-based LendInvest, a property finance platform, has reportedly told its investors that it’s well-prepared to deal with new lockdown measures. This, after making upgrades to its business processes, risk mitigation efforts and various financial metrics during the lockdown enforced in March of last year.

The digital lending platform confirmed that it had to face challenges during the first lockdown, which was when construction and property viewings had to temporarily stop. But during the current lockdown period, property viewings may continue and home moves are also going as planned.

Jono Gomez, Treasurer at LendInvest, has noted that companies are beginning to adapt to changes after the initial lockdown. Gomez revealed that the lender learned more about the COVID-19 pandemic, which has helped with opening up construction sites. Valuers have also been able to carry out socially-distanced visits, and third-party services figured out how to conduct operations remotely.

Gomez added that LendInvest has spent this time carefully going over its business processes, building in more resilience and buffers, and changing up its financial risk metrics to support greater limits and also make plans for the worst possible scenarios in the foreseeable future.

Gomez further noted that the lending platform has been able to adapt and held significantly more funds or assets just in case its investors experienced their own challenges and asked for approval for alternative types of valuation methods with its funders.

Gomez noted:

“None were required, and none have been utilized, but should something of the scale of the March lockdown happen again, we are better placed to pivot more nimbly to keep supporting our customers.”

Gomez also mentioned that the lending platform would be able to keep operating throughout the Coronavirus pandemic with a full set of valued loans to progress which will help the company face the current challenges.

Gomez added:

“March was a month riddled with uncertainty, and the team’s quick reaction to the scenario and the work carried out to put both internal and external stakeholders at ease is easily the success story of 2020. Resiliency planning, scenario analysis, credit risk and liquidity management pivoting, were done with incredible rigor, diligence and speed, to give [the] executive committee and the board confidence that the business could weather the storm.”

Christian Faes, Founder of LendInvest and creator of the lobbying group Fintech Founders, recently noted that the Fintech sector is “losing out to big banks” in receiving attention from the government.”

Faes said:

“Now, more than ever, the Fintech sector is facing real challenges and the voice of founders needs to be heard loud and clear.”

Last month, LendInvest launched a new Cloud-based application for short-term lending products. The new application is designed to streamline and automate the loan origination process. The application utilizes Salesforce to enable a centralized hub for customer information, a log for all interactions with LendInvest while automating the workflow.

As reported in November 2020, LendInvest was recognized as the BTL [Buy to Let] Lender of the Year at the 2020 National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers (NACFB) awards for the second year in a row.

Source

Written by bizbuildermike · Categorized: Crowdfunding · Tagged: 2020, analysis, business, commercial, company, construction, coronavirus, covid-19, creator, digital, digital lending, diligence, Europe, finance, fintech, founder, founders, Future, Global, going, government, information, lending, lendinvest, lobbying, more, pandemic, Products, Real Estate, risk, said, Salesforce, story, uk, united-kingdom, Valuation, work

Jan 12 2021

Lending Data Fintech dv01 Acquires Pragmic Technologies, Closes $6 Million Series B

dv01 has acquired Pragmic Technologies, according to a note from the company. The acquisition follows a $6 million series B3 financing round led by Pivot Investment Partners and joined by new strategic investor, AGNC Ventures, LLC, an affiliate of AGNC Investment Corp. (Nasdaq: AGNC), a residential mortgage REIT with over $97 billion in assets.  dv01’s total financing to date stands at $34 million, with past investors including Quantum Strategic Partners Ltd., Jefferies Financial Group Inc., OCA Ventures, Illuminate Financial Management, Ribbit Capital, and Regions Financial Corp.

dvo1 explains that Pragmic’s algorithms will provide investors with intra-month performance insights on agency MBS (mortgage backed securities), helping investors better optimize their portfolio management and hedging processes in a market that trades $65 trillion a year. dv01 will also be able to combine its understanding of loan-level data within securitizations with proprietary analytics to provide ESG ratings for structured products.

dv01 is a top Fintech providing deep data on the online lending sector. Pragmic Technologies is an early-stage company that is “reimagining” data infrastructure of the agency MBS market.

Charlie Oshman and Memo Sanchez, Pragmic Technologies’ founders and co-founders of commercial real estate data analytics company Reonomy, will join dv01.

“Unlocking real-time performance data in agency MBS will be a massive paradigm shift for a market that trades $65 trillion a year,” said dv01 Founder and CEO Perry Rahbar. “With this acquisition, we are at the forefront of building a proprietary data infrastructure that will significantly enhance our offerings across all structured products, in addition to agency MBS.”

dvo1 notes that the market for data-driven ESG investments has surpassed $40 trillion. With the addition of Pragmic Technologies, dv01 will be in a better position to combine its understanding of loan-level data within securitizations, with external data sources and proprietary analytics to work with partners to provide the first true ESG ratings for structured products.

Oshman called dv01 the ideal partner to “revolutionize the agency market.”

“With our combined resources, we will provide unmatched market transparency and quickly develop a dominant agency MBS business line to complement dv01’s non-QM, consumer unsecured and student loan coverage.”

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Written by bizbuildermike · Categorized: Crowdfunding · Tagged: acquisition, algorithms, Billion in Assets, business, ceo, charlie oshman, commercial, company, data, dv01, fintech, founder, founders, Infrastructure, investment, Investments, investor, lending, LINE, market, memo sanchez, mortgage, note, Offerings, online lending, perry rahbar, portfolio, pragmic technologies, Products, Real Estate, reit, said, securities, series b, student, work

Dec 27 2020

SEC vs. Ripple: A predictable but undesirable development

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has not been kind to crypto in the past year. In March 2020, in the SEC v. Telegram case, the Commission won a worldwide injunction against the proposed issuance of Grams by Telegram, undoing years of innovative work even in the absence of any allegations of fraud. Then, on the last day of September 2020, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein dashed the hopes of Kik Interactive by ruling in favor of the SEC’s motion for summary judgment in SEC v. Kik Interactive, halting the sale of Kin crypto tokens. Both of these actions were filed in the Southern District of New York. On Dec. 22, 2020, the SEC decided that it was time to initiate another high-profile action, filing in the same district against Ripple Labs and its initial and current CEOs, Christian Larsen and Bradly Garlinghouse, respectively, for raising more than $1.38 billion through the sale of XRP since 2013.

The initial fallout from this action has been swift and severe: 24 hours after the lawsuit was filed, the price of XRP was down almost 25%. This still left XRP ranked fourth on CoinMarketCap, with a total market capitalization of over $10.5 billion.

The complaint

In its complaint, the Commission paints a straightforward pattern of sales of XRP that were never registered with the SEC or made pursuant to any exemption from registration. From the perspective of the Commission, this amounts to a sustained practice of illegal sales of unregistered, non-exempt securities under Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933.

For readers not familiar with legal procedure, it might seem unusual for the case to be brought in a New York federal court, especially since Ripple is headquartered in California, and both named individuals reside there. However, Ripple has an office in the Southern District of that state, some statements were made by Garlinghouse while he was present in New York, and significant sales of XRP were made to New York residents. In legal parlance, this would make venues in the Southern District of New York appropriate.

In addition, it might be surprising to some that both Larsen and Garlinghouse were named personally in an action that seeks primarily to recover for XRP allegedly sold illegally by Ripple, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, XRP II LLC. They are named both because they individually also sold significant volumes of XRP — 1.7 billion by Larsen and 321 million by Garlinghouse — and because the SEC contends they “aided and abetted” Ripple in its sales.

Aiding and abetting is a cause of action that depends on a primary violation by a third party, in which the aider and abettor voluntarily and knowingly participates with the goal of assisting in the venture’s success. In this case, Ripple would be the primary violator, and both Larsen and Garlinghouse are alleged to have substantially participated in the pattern of Ripple’s XRP sales, with the goal of allowing the company to raise funds without registering XRP under the federal securities laws or complying with any available exemption from registration.

The bulk of the complaint provides an overview of digital assets, details the SEC’s version of the history of Ripple and its marketing efforts with regard to XRP, illustrates how in the opinion of the Commission, XRP satisfies the elements of the Howey investment contract test under the federal securities laws, and seeks to demonstrate how Larsen and Garlinghouse participated in the on-going sales efforts.

In addition to disgorgement of all “ill-gotten gains,” the requested order would permanently ban the named defendants from ever selling unregistered XRP or participating in any way in the sale of unregistered, non-exempt securities. It would also prohibit them from participating in the offering of any digital asset securities, and it seeks unspecified civil monetary penalties.

A brief history of Ripple and XRP

The idea behind the current XRP dates back to late 2011 or early 2012, before the company changed its name to Ripple. The XRP Ledger, or software code, operates as a peer-to-peer database, spread across a network of computers that records data about transactions, among other things. In order to achieve consensus, each server on the network evaluates proposed transactions from a subset of nodes it trusts not to defraud it. Those trusted nodes are known as the server’s unique node list, or UNL. Although each server defines its own trusted nodes, the XRP Ledger requires a high degree of overlap between the trusted nodes chosen by each server. To facilitate this overlap, Ripple publishes a proposed UNL.

Upon the completion of the XRP Ledger in December 2012, and as its code was being deployed to the servers that would run it, a fixed supply of 100 billion XRP was set and created at little cost. Of those XRP, 80 billion were transferred to Ripple and the remaining 20 billion XRP went to a group of founders, including Larsen. At this point in time, Ripple and its founders controlled 100% of XRP.

Note that these choices represent a compromise between the fully decentralized, peer-to-peer network that was envisioned when Bitcoin (BTC) was first announced and a fully centralized network with a single trusted intermediary such as a conventional financial institution. In addition, Bitcoin was never designed or intended to be held or controlled by a single entity. In contrast, all XRP was originally issued to the company that created it and that company’s founders. This hybrid approach to a blockchain-based digital asset and more conventional assets created and controlled by a single entity led some crypto enthusiasts to complain that XRP was not a “true” cryptocurrency at all.

According to the SEC’s complaint, from 2013 through 2014, Ripple and Larsen made efforts to create a market for XRP by having Ripple distribute approximately 12.5 billion XRP through bounty programs that paid programmers compensation for reporting problems in the XRP Ledger’s code. As part of these calculated steps, Ripple distributed small amounts of XRP — typically between 100 and 1,000 XRP per transaction — to anonymous developers and others to establish a trading market for XRP.

Ripple then began more systematic efforts to increase speculative demand and trading volume for XRP. Starting in at least 2015, Ripple decided that it would seek to make XRP a “universal [digital] asset” for banks and other financial institutions to effect money transfers. According to the SEC, this meant that Ripple needed to create an active, liquid XRP secondary trading market. It, therefore, expanded its efforts to develop a use for XRP while increasing sales of XRP into the market.

At about this time, Ripple Labs, and its subsidiary, XRP II LLC, came under investigation by the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, acting pursuant to its mandates in the Bank Secrecy Act, or BSA. Acting in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, the two companies were charged with failing to comply with various BSA requirements, including failure to register with FinCEN and failure to implement and maintain proper Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer protocols. According to FinCEN, Ripple’s failure to comply with these FinCEN requirements was facilitating the use of XRP by money launderers and terrorists.

This action did not proceed to trial, with Ripple Labs settling the charges by agreeing to pay a $700,000 fine and further agreeing to take immediate remedial steps to bring the companies into compliance with BSA requirements. The settlement was announced by FinCEN on May 5, 2015. The major contention of FinCEN throughout its investigation was that XRP was a digital currency. Ripple acceded to this position and has since worked to comply with BSA requirements.

At the same time, as noted in the SEC’s complaint, from 2014 through the third quarter of 2020, the company sold at least 8.8 billion XRP in the market and institutional sales, raising approximately $1.38 billion to fund its operations. In addition, the complaint asserts that from 2015 through at least March 2020, while Larsen was an affiliate of Ripple as its CEO and later chairman of the board, Larsen and his wife sold over 1.7 billion XRP to public investors in the market. Larsen and his wife netted at least $450 million from those sales. From April 2017 through December 2019, while an affiliate of Ripple as CEO, Garlinghouse sold over 321 million XRP he had received from Ripple to public investors in the market, generating approximately $150 million from those sales.

XRP is not like Bitcoin or Ether

The preceding description paints a picture of a digital asset that is widely held by persons scattered around the globe. In the case of both Bitcoin and Ether (ETH), this kind of decentralization was apparently enough to convince the SEC that those two digital assets should not be regulated as securities. As Director Bill Hinman of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance explained in June of 2018:

“If the network on which the token or coin is to function is sufficiently decentralized — where purchasers would no longer reasonably expect a person or group to carry out essential managerial or entrepreneurial efforts — the assets may not represent an investment contract. Moreover, when the efforts of the third party are no longer a key factor for determining the enterprise’s success, material information asymmetries recede. As a network becomes truly decentralized, the ability to identify an issuer or promoter to make the requisite disclosures becomes difficult, and less meaningful. […] The network on which Bitcoin functions is operational and appears to have been decentralized for some time, perhaps from inception. Applying the disclosure regime of the federal securities laws to the offer and resale of Bitcoin would seem to add little value.”

This kind of analysis does not really work for XRP, most of which continues to be owned by the company that created it, where the company continues to have significant influence over which nodes will serve as trusted validators for transactions, and where the company continues to play a significant role in the profitability and viability of the asset. Part of that role will now, of course, involve responding to this latest SEC initiative.

The court’s probable reaction

Unfortunately for Ripple and its former and current CEOs, the SEC has a strong case that XRP fits within the Howey investment contract test. Derived from the 1946 Supreme Court decision in SEC v. W. J. Howey, this test holds that you have bought a security if you: (1) make an investment (2) of money or something else of value, (3) in a common enterprise, (4) with the expectation of profits, (5) from the essential managerial efforts of others. Most of the purchasers of XRP, or certainly a very large number of them, would appear to fit within each of these categories.

Ripple raised more than $1.38 billion from the sale of XRP, so it is abundantly clear that purchasers were paying something of value. Moreover, as there was no effort to limit purchasers to the amount of XRP that they might reasonably “use” for anything other than investment purposes, that element appears likely to be present as well. The fact that the fortunes of all the investors rise and fall together along with the value of XRP in the marketplace should satisfy the commonality requirement.

The complaint highlights a number of things that Ripple has done to promote profitability, including statements that it has made, all of which suggest that a reason for purchasing XRP is the potential for appreciation. The limited functionality of XRP in comparison to its trading supply is another reason to believe that most purchasers were buying for investment, seeking to make a profit.

Finally, the significant on-going involvement and role of the company, especially given its huge continuing ownership interest in XRP, means that there is a strong case to be made that the profitability of XRP is highly dependent on the efforts of Ripple. All of this points to the reality that, under the Howey Test, XRP is likely to be a security.

Ripple’s response to the SEC’s action

Ripple’s response to the SEC’s enforcement action came even before the SEC’s complaint was officially filed. On Dec. 21, Garlinghouse tweeted out a condemnation of the SEC’s planned action, criticizing the agency for picking favorites and trying to “limit US innovation in the crypto industry to BTC and ETH.” Soon after, Ripple’s general counsel, Stuart Alderoty, gave a strong indication of how the company was likely to respond in the pending matter by pointing out the 2015 FinCEN issue, which he claimed was a government determination that XRP was a digital currency rather than a security under the Howey Test.

Unfortunately, classification as a digital currency does not necessarily preclude regulation as a security. As another New York district court decided in the 2018 case of CFTC v. McDonnell, in the context of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s authority to regulate digital assets, “Federal agencies may have concurrent or overlapping jurisdiction over a particular issue or area.”

Thus, even though FinCEN regulates crypto as a digital asset, the CFTC may treat it as a commodity; the SEC may regulate it as a security; and the Internal Revenue Service may tax it as property. All at the same time.

Conclusion

This comment should not be taken as approval of the SEC’s current approach and relative hostility to crypto offerings. As the SEC’s complaint notes, the XRP sales that are now being questioned took place over many years. The initial sales date back to 2013, which had happened considerably before the SEC first publicly announced its position that digital assets should be regulated as securities if they fit within the Howey investment contract analysis, which did not come until 2017 with The DAO Report. Moreover, since 2015, Ripple has been proceeding in accordance with the settlement reached with FinCEN. Since that time, Ripple has worked to bring its operations into compliance with BSA requirements, operating as if XRP is a currency rather than a security.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Carol Goforth is a university professor and the Clayton N. little professor of law at the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville) School of Law.

The opinions expressed are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University or its affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.

SEC vs. Ripple: A predictable but undesirable development

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Written by bizbuildermike · Categorized: cryptocurrency · Tagged: 2017, AML, analysis, article, ban, Banks, bitcoin, btc, California, ceo, CEOs, cftc, Christian Larsen, Commodity Futures, company, compensation, Computers, Court, crypto, cryptocurrencies, Currency, dao, data, decentralization, decentralized, digital, digital asset, digital assets, digital currency, element, enforcement, Enterprise, ETH, ether, exchange, finance, FinCEN, founders, fraud, fund, gains, government, highlights, html, information, innovation, Internal Revenue Service, investment, irs, Kik, KYC, Law, lawsuit, Ledger, legal, market, market capitalization, marketing, money, more, New York, Offerings, opinion, opinions, other, perspective, Regulation, revenue, ripple, ripple labs, risk, SEC, securities, Securities and Exchange Commission, security, Software, Space, Telegram, token, tokens, trading, transaction, transfers, u.s., United States, us, work, xrp

Dec 11 2020

A Day in the Life of Charlene Wang, Author of Model Breakers and Founder of LivingOS

Running your own business is no easy feat. It takes a healthy dose of passion, discipline, and commitment. Ever wonder what a day in the life of a small business owner and founder is like? We’re here to give you a glimpse!

This week, we’re talking with Charlene Wang, the author of Model Breakers, a book that aims to help readers break up with the model minority stereotype and change the immigrant narrative at large. She’s running an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds to publish her book. Charlene is also the founder of LivingOS, an online community dedicated to helping high achievers get more out of life.

Read on to learn about a typical day for Charlene, and then scroll down for a brief Q&A to get to know her better and get inspired!

6:30 A.M. I start the day with the most important things: exercise, meditation, oolong tea. When I’m mindful of my body, I take a cold shower and exercise for 15 minutes. Other days, I dive right into my first 15 minute meditation and reward myself with a hot cup of Dong Ding Oolong tea.

7 A.M. Deep writing time. I like to write down all my dreams and meditative thoughts before they go away. This is when most of the Model Breakers stories are done. 

8 A.M. I write down how I want this day to unfold, hour by hour, in the past tense (as if it has already happened). I first fill out the most important thing, so that everything, including rest and play, has a time slot in my calendar. Then I will walk through my day with my fiancé over breakfast, and get some quality time as the day unfolds. 

9 A.M. I begin to tackle the most brain-intensive task at work. Sometimes it’s making a presentation for an upcoming product review, or writing a strategy document for the next big bets. This is often the time where I get the most output done during the day. 

10 A.M. In meetings. Catching up on emails in between. 

Charlene’s book Model Breakers takes aim at the “model minority” stereotype.

11 A.M. Still in back-to-back meetings. I try to take a five minute bio break in between. 

12 P.M. I like to learn something, be it news or skills, while having lunch. My default platforms are Masterclass and Mindvalley. 

1 P.M. Team meetings at my standing desk. 

2 P.M. 1:1s. This is my favorite type of meeting because I get to build deep relationships with people I care about. 

3 P.M. More 1:1s. I try to convert a few of them into walking 1:1s to break away from my desk. I also take my second 15-minute meditation of the day. 

4 P.M. Wind down my day job, follow up on quick tasks and send out the last batch of emails.  

Charlene on a typical work day.

5 P.M. Coaching time. I specialize in helping high achievers find clarity out of life. My clients include founders, tech execs, product managers, and college students. We are kicking off the LivingOS Fellowship very soon!

6 P.M. Dinner might be chicken legs and jasmine rice. As I take the final sip of my oolong tea, sitting in the family room with the last bit of light coming in, I ask my fiancé, Chris, “What should I write about tonight?” I like to bounce ideas off of Chris and he always responds with the same question, “What’s on your mind?” Talking my ideas out loud helps clarify my focus. 

7 P.M. After Chris walks away, I open my laptop to check out my recent drafts on Substack. I ensure that there are at least 30 working drafts at all times. My intuition begets my energy for the next two to three hours. 

8 P.M. I put on my favorite Spotify jam and began to write my daily newsletter. I alternate between fleshing out the most recent draft and transcribing my rambling thoughts. Then I wrap up this 50-minute writing session with a cup of oolong tea.

9 P.M. I like to write from the couch because the change of environment gives me a creative boost. When I get stuck, I wander around my second brain to get new inspirations. When I finally finish the draft, I will share the piece with my fiancé, read the piece out loud, and review everything with Grammarly one last time. I stop writing before I am finished so that I can keep my interest and momentum going.

10 P.M. After I send out my Daily Newsletter, I write down 2-3 sentences to capture the most memorable moment of the day. Then I debrief on what worked or didn’t work with Chris. This immediate feedback loop helps me reflect on what I want to keep for the next day. 

11 P.M. Winding down. I take a shower and roll into my bed.

“I hope to instill in [readers] the same sort of passion and excitement that I have for the pain and pride of being Chinese in America,” says Charlene.

Now that you’ve gotten a glimpse of what her day is like, get more inspiration in our exclusive Q&A with Charlene Wang below!

INDIEGOGO: How did you become a writer? Was it something you always intended for yourself? 

CHARLENE WANG: I’ve always wanted to improve my writing skills. During my first college writing class, I had to spend many hours at the writing center and bugged my friends to proofread my essays. Given how much I struggle with writing, it still feels like a dream that I wrote 200 articles in 200 days and am now publishing Model Breakers!

INDIEGOGO: What makes your Indiegogo project unique? 

CHARLENE: Model Breakers is about the struggle we all experience: the struggle to be fully ourselves.

The most important stories are often left untold in the cultural dialogue. This is certainly the case for Chinese Americans. The insidious model minority stereotype rampant in America has affected the lives of every Chinese person living in the US, who feel vulnerable or invisible. 

With this book, I hope to shatter the model minority stereotype, show why our individual stories and histories matter, and start a movement for our generation. 

INDIEGOGO: What’s your biggest piece of advice for women who want to start their own business?

CHARLENE: Train yourself to listen to your intuition. No matter what the world says, we know ourselves best. If you feel called to start your own business, just do it. 

INDIEGOGO: What tools (gadgets, apps, books, podcasts) would you recommend to anyone starting their own business, crowdfunding campaign, or project? 

CHARLENE: I love to optimize my life with productivity apps. I put all my notes in my digital brain Notion, design new creatives in Canva, and put all tasks in Todoist. I also ensure that my Calendar reflects the life I want to live. 

INDIEGOGO: What’s your favorite Indiegogo campaign, or a campaign you’ve recently supported?

CHARLENE: BladeX, a slim, on-the-go monitor. 

Want to support Model Breakers? Check out the Indiegogo campaign, find Charlene on Instagram and Facebook, and sign up for the LivingOS newsletter. And don’t forget to check out her Instagram Live with Indiegogo!

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Written by bizbuildermike · Categorized: Crowdfunding · Tagged: a day in the life, AIM, Apps, author, Behind The Scenes, books, business, canva, Community, Crowdfunding, Design, energy, Environment, Facebook, Family, founder, founders, gadgets, Go, ideas, IGG, instagram, Model, news, other, platforms, product, productivity, reward, small-business, Spotify, Strategy, Success Stories, supported, tech, us, work, world, youtube

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