How to Hack Wefunder's Latest Feature

Let’s hack Wefunder.

Wefunder's new feature seems unglamorous on the surface level.

But dig a little deeper and you can unlock far better deals than the average investor. Today's newsletter reveals how you can get better deals by hijacking this feature.

But first, some links from around the web:

• 🆕 CES, a major tech conference where many product releases are dropped starts today. Live updates here (LINK)

• 💸 It just got easier and cheaper to raise a community round (LINK)

• 🔥 After 5 years, crowdfunded startups are 3x more likely to still be around (LINK)

• 🛑 Carta discontinues secondary trading product due to a potential conflict of interest (LINK)

HOW TO HACK WEFUNDER

Wefunder Rolls Out Real-Time Investments

On Wefunder's Explore page, they inserted a button titled 'Real-time Investments'. Clicking on this button brings up a live feed of every investment that's happening on the platform.

It's meant to show the liveliness of the platform…but we're going to hack the feed for our own use.

Some of the investments showing up on this feed aren't meant to be public. 

In fact, they're meant to be hidden.

That’s because not every investment on Wefunder's platform is public-facing. Some live on the platform, but are only accessible if you have the link.

The reason comes down to one (two?) things: friends and family

You see, many startups will initially open their fundraising rounds to their inner circle. Often, their friends and family are offered sweetened deal terms before the general public even has the chance to invest.

Real-time investments is your way to sneak into these favorable deal-terms.

For example, American Quatervois (AQ) is now raising on Wefunder with special terms for ‘early bird investors’.

Right now, investors are set to receive a 3x payback on their investment, up from their standard deal terms of 2x.

AQ is completely hidden from view (at the time of me writing this) if you poke around Wefunder’s explore page.

But, if you head over to Wefunder’s real-time investment feed, you can see that someone made an investment in the company 8 hours ago.

These are friends and family members of AQ.

But you too could have found this early-bird deal if you checked the Real-time Investment tab.

Because regardless of whether the company is hidden, all investments on Wefunder show up in this tab.

Once you see a hidden startup with a sweetened valuation, you can click on them to take you to their raise page.

That’s it, you’re in.

And the difference can be quite large - AQ is offering 50% better terms to its friends and family (I’m not endorsing this deal btw, just using it for demonstration purposes).

Welcome to the inner circle.