got a great idea like an aquarium for jellyfish? we'll tell you how to get funding to kick start your company. the ceo of clif bar takes a road less traveled. energizing your small business. that's all coming up next on yourp. "your business." >> small businesses are revitalizing the economy. american express open is here to help. that's why we are proud to present "your business" on msnbc.

hi, there everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg. welcome to "your business" where we give tips and advice to help your business grow. if it's been a challenge, take a closer look at the emerging world of crowd funding. part social media, part funding. there are sites popping up to for entrepreneurs to get money for their venture. two we met ran fruitful campaigns on kickstarter. here are the secrets to their success. >> my original goal was to raise $3,000. we ended up raising $163,000. >> 5,264 people ended up

pledging for the project. it came out to a total of $364,600. >> they call it crowd funding. for anyone who had trouble finding the money to see the new business or fund a product idea, it's at the leading edge of nontraditional funding for entrepreneurs. >> basically, these people are giving us maybe 100 bucks a piece. it really is more like a donation. >> there are tons of websites out there and they all work a little dichbtly. the basic premise is to get financial support by pooling money from a community of people who want to support it. >> what's great about kick starter is you get all the cash up front. it's basically a preorder. customers are like yes, i want this, here's the cash. >> sites like kickstarter work

on a model donation in exchange for a reward. usually, the product promise is discounted and the delivery date depends on how quickly they can get the product made after they get the funding. >> my name is alex. i want anyone to be able to have their own pet jellyfish. >> his donors were promised a desktop jellyfish. >> they can tell people we helped get this company off the ground. i have one of the first desktop jellyfish tanks. i think that cool aspect helps motivate people to donate. >> attach it to the felt you own. the camera is accessible via a quick-release button. peter's donors are getting a

clip. after that, it will retail for $80. >> i achieved $32,000 in pledges in one day alone and kept ongoing from there. it was an amazing experience, truly amazing to push refresh and see another person in scotland pledged for the clip. >> both based in san francisco, they have become a legend from crowd funding circles having launched two of the most successful campaigns. how did they do it? we asked them to show us. the first step is getting through the application process. >> our application got rejected initially. we had to reapply and talk to them and tweak a few things. definitely put a lot of thought into the application process. they want cool projects, genuine people, stuff that's going to work. they look for all those things

in their applications. >> after a few adjustments, alex was ready to start on the most important part, the video. >> a good video is really important. we went to a studio with good lighting. we hired someone with good camera equipment. we did several takes and made sure we had a video that looked really good. >> it's the entrepreneur's personal story. for alex, when he was laid off as a lab tech, he seized the opportunity to start his unusual business. >> jellyfish can't go in a regular fish tank because they get sucked into the filtration case. i couldn't find jellyfish anywhere or tanks, so i had to make my own. >> finally, last april, i quit my job as an engineer and decided to create the solution myself. >> it's an all or nothing

funding site. they must reach their goal or no money changes hands. they set a modest funding goal that you can meet and hopefully succeed. another element is the reward. >> people wanted tangible rewards. so, we had five or six different levels that you could donate and get a certain reward. even if it was a small one, you got a t-shirt or a thank you on our website. it was something tangible people could point to. >> once you get funding, staying in contact is essential. >> one of the most important things you do is manage expectations. the backers are absolutely want to be your advocate. it's not like a normal purchase. they are like disciples in a way. they believe in what you are doing. yes, they are getting a product and they are amped about that. they want to be a part of the

process. it's key to have open and honest communication. if there's a problem, let people know. >> what's the bottom line on attracting contributors? >> they want to see small, hard working smart americans with a cool idea but don't have the cash to do it. they want to help them do that. >> kick starter is one of the innovative ways to get money. scott gerber is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and owner of sizzleit.com. david s. rose the first panelest to appear on "your business" is back with us. the chairman and ceo of gust, a platform for early stage investing. great to see both of you guys. >> pleasure. >> this is such an interesting topic. you were saying on the break,

it's a game changer. in what way? >> especially young people who are not able to see the vcs or angels to give them several million dollars. in many cases in the donation world you can get tons of different people putting in a smaller amount of money. crowd funding as a way of raising capital, it could a game changer for young people. >> it was interesting. i did a story on the lending club where you get a loan from a bunch of people. the guy said, it's different. when you go to a bank you need one person to approve your whole loan. a place like this, you need a lot of people to approve a small part of it. that's easier to get in some cases. >> it's motivation. it's a way of commerce and patronage. it's very, very different from investment and equity. i think crowd funding is wonderful. i have funded half a dozen kick starter projects and had fun

doing it. it's a very dichbt thing from angel investing. >> what made you fund it? was it people you knew or searching the site? >> things i had heard through other channels. my hobby is letter press printing. somebody had a project to create an ipad version of letter press printing. it sounds like an oxy moran. i thought it was cool. the product was developed. it's a knock-out product. it was a top grossing ipad app. they have a mac version as well. >> this is so neat. you have instant customers. you are getting money. you are getting prepaid for your product. >> with our organization, we are going to put our first book we ever produced on indy go go to watch our book.

we are such a massive networking community. everything we have can push the network further. >> it's the cause. it's people doing something because they want to see you succeed. if you invest in the stock market, you like to have your company succeed because you want to make a lot of money. you can support your $50 or $100 contribution. >> you jellyfish. >> why the video and your story is so important. all right. i think this is an exciting, exciting field. surely, we are going to hear more about this in the upcoming months and years. thanks, guys. in 1992, cycling enthusiast gary erickson made a better tasting energy bar. the results were clif bar named after his father cliffford. it's one of the leading energy bar companies.

we talked to him about staying in control and taking the road less traveled. ♪ >> having a diverse set of skills, i feel fortunate through all the years, not just business. you go to business school and learn about numbers and marketing and so on. i had a short term industrial engineering degree. i think also being in the world of cycling and climbing where most people are eating energy bars at the time. now, it's broadened. it gave me an insight into the people that would eventually consume our products. having this diverse background paid off. i don't believe in 50/50 partnerships. i don't see the advantage of it. i think i used to. the problem is, neither the 50% partner has control. you have control and you don't

have control at the same time. so, it becomes a consensus organization. i think the person that has the vision for the company needs to have control. 80% owners of the company. just recently converted 20% to the employees. it gives us what we desire on the control side and the vision side. you know, people feel like now they have a piece of it. they have a piece in the growth of this company. and all the great things we do. really, that's the bottom line. they feel they are going to get some kind of retirement out of this, which they didn't have before. i just came back from riding over in sla vain ya and austria. on the map, we looked for the white roads, they are less traveled. the yellow roads are intermediate and the white roads

go through the beautiful villages. that metaphor i brought in years ago. we are not the traditional red road company going from point a to point b all about profit and quick growth at any expense. we have destinations. it's the roads we choose. so, that's why we have a community service program. it's why we spend money on organic. we want to travel that road. if it was about getting from point a to point b, we wouldn't have these benefits and back to growing them as fast as possible. >> still to come, sexual harassment claims are serious business. what should you do if a holiday party gets out of hand? tips on how to make sure your workplace is a safe place. we'll answer your small business questions and how to make your company mobile. shazi: seven years ago, i had this idea.

to make baby food the way moms would. happybaby strives to make the best organic baby food. in a business like ours, personal connections are so important. we use our american express open gold card to further those connections. last year we took dozens of trips using membership rewards points to meet with farmers that grow our sweet potatoes and merchants that sell our product. vo: get the card built for business spending. call 1-800-now-open to find out how the gold card can serve your business. it's that time of year when

co-workers get together at holiday parties. regardless of how large or small your company is, how inappropriate actions could affect your employees. here are guidelines on how to handle sexual harassment. she's founder of a group dedicated to professionalism in the workplace. great to see you, kim. >> nice to be with you, j.j. >> i'm the owner of a small business, i have a group of three people, 25 years old, they work for me, they are great, great friends. in their personal life, it's fine to joke and say inappropriate things. do i have to sit down and say that's fine, but the minute you step in this door, you have to st stop? >> it's a good idea to have conversations with your group. that's when you mention that. the perfect thing to do is pull people in. say this is what we do at our

business. if people get together and start dating, i would have a love contract where it can't come back where someone has done something inappropriate. having the conversation with people is really, it's important. it makes people feel uncomfortable. it's a good idea. >> for somebody who hasn't done this and they are about to have a holiday party, there's going to be drinking and everyone is going to get boisterous, should they have a conversation ahead of time or is that awkward? >> no, pull them in, say we are having our holiday party. this is what would happen, this is what's happened at other companies, i don't want it happening here. this is appropriate behavior. we are going to have a great time. even though it's social, a work event is a work event. it's important to remind everyone that especially people

who are in their 20st who really haven't had a position, if they haven't been in a corporate environment don't know what is appropriate. >> that's a great idea. it's a great way to say somewhat casually but getting the message across sternly. finally, you talk about social media, what's okay to post and what's not okay to post. >> yeah, social media, the main thing, i think, in business is you have two pages like on facebook, you have a work and a social. people are -- people don't always realize everything they post is number one out there for everyone. number two, if you put a fun joke or say something an innuendo to a co-worker posted on anything, on twitter, facebook, youtube, that could really turn around and multiple comments like that could turn into sexual harassment. it's best to keep things very clear. one is social.

one is work. for the small business owner, they really don't want that line crossed, ultimately because it could come back and hurt their business. >> kim zoller, thank you for your advice. >> thanks so much for having me. new small business apps are released all the time. which are actually the most helpful? here are five apps on-the-go sales people should check out. five, go to meeting is an app that lets you web conference from your smartphone. four, cam card lite saves information internally or in your contacts. three, square will mail you a free card reader that plugs into your phone and accepts credit cards. you can accept visa, mastercard and diskor for a fee.

two, use apples keynote app. the app is available for $9.99. number one, docscan lets you scan and send multipage documents. or just e-mail them as pdfs and zip files. it's time to answer some of your business questions. scott and david are with us once again. the first question from brian. i produce, maintain and update my own website. most major websites have a mobile version. should i do that? if sho, how do you get it started. love that question, because your immediate answer is yes, of course. >> that is the answer, the the immediate answer is yes, of course. we are heading to a world of mobile, social, local. if you are not accessible from a

mobile device, you are cutting off a large number of people who might be using your products and services. >> you need to be where your customers are. it's so inexpensive to become a mobile website and create one. there are service tools to do a monthly fee for a website that's done for you. >> do you know what kind of fees they are? >> sometimes $50 a month. but there's very inexpensive services that can appify your business as well. look at the cheap tools. don't invest in a big infrastructure. >> i guess that's my point, before you invest so much into it, figure out your priorities. >> it's not that big of an investment. he's got some programming skills. there are plenty of tools available, many of them free to code a mobile site as easily as

a desktop site. >> the online search engines made it easy for disgruntled employees to destroy your online image. do you know how to get rid of negative reviews in they offer a lot of solutions like deleting them, but can you do that? >> no. >> no. >> you can't. anyone that says they can delete bad things for you is lying. >> there are ways to combat those folks. the first is getting your side of the story out there. activate your brain ambassadors. have them come to your defense and talk about the things you have done positively or explain the other side of the story. the web is a two-sided conversation. >> make sure a lot of people visit those pages with positive reviews. >> that's trickier. the two essential things here, you have to engage. if somebody is on a forum saying bad things about you, being

transparent and engaging saying here is the other side of the story is good. two, getting good things about you out there. the the search engines will put everything at your fingertips. >> sometimes, is it better to not engage? here's one disgruntled employee who said one bad thing about you. if you engage in the conversation, couldn't it escalate and backfire on you? >> have other people say things for you. it's taking you down to a level. it's not smart. if you show how much of a base you have, you are going to get rid of the negative feelings because they are not as relevant. >> people are good at reading tone. it's not a battle. you are not going to fight it out. if you are calm and collected and say here is the other side of the story, don't engage in name calling, people see that. that does well for building your

brand. >> don't answer when you are emotion emotional. i have been in business for 15 to 20 years specializing in fire ant control. i franchised the business. i wish to control the selection of my franchisee's. is there a business developer that might help me reach these goals and keep control? >> absolutely. a franchise broker takes a piece of the action but it seems to me, the questioner has two needs. one of them is for an adviser, a consultant and help figure out where they should go. it's a fee basis. then the other question is how do you get people slowly to come on to your platform? then you can outsource the sales, not to a broker. outsource sales people who take a little bit of the first payment, not a part of the long term revenue. >> if he wants to grow slowly,

couldn't he go to trade shows? >> sure. i have a lot of friends that own franchises. there are things like press, ways of getting yourself out there. if you are back in the mom and pop setting. it's not about getting someone else to do the work for you. it's thinking strategically. where you see the vision of the company and growing in accordance to that. >> in franchising, like many other businesses, a lot of people would love to take your money. be careful and slow. >> let's go to the last e-mail from edward. he says over the past seven years we developed a unique feature rich stable online payment. recently, we have been contacted by two companies seeking to license and sell our product under their brands. assuming our software can support these new markets, what

licensing models do you suggest? what i like is he set out to do one business and he's finding there's another business. >> we are going through that now with one of my companies at sizzleit.com. over the years we spent a ton of money. this year, it's a software as a service and developing it. people are wanting to buy it. we are doing it based on a straight up, revenue share agreement or a seat arrangement. taking a piece off the top. we are not starting equity. you use our product, here is how many people are using it. take money off the top. white label it so it's not competitor. >> website hosting or e-mail hosting is white labeled. white labeling is a great model. think about the other party as a sales channel for you. so, how much the revenue split goes to them and how much goes to you is dependent on other

factors. is it white labeled or co-branded? if you are doing all of the support and the end customer is calling you and getting all the money, that doesn't work. typically, the deals are between 20% and 50% of what the other person, the white label, not the seller but the second person gets. you could retain 50% to 80% depending on how much work you do. >> great advice. thank you for everything. if you have a question for our experts, go to our website. openforum.com/yourbusiness. again, the website is openforum.com/yourbusiness or e-mail your questions and comments. the address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. scott and david had helpful advice about how to improve your business. let's get great ideas from small

business owners like you. >> it really helps to cultivate your network. the more you can cultivate your personal network, the more success you can have in crowd funding and growing your business in general. >> what i have done is tried to keep the expenses to an absolute minimum and i would advise people to learn how to operate all of the office machines, learn how to do some basic bookkeeping on a computer. >> the one piece of advice that i love to give entrepreneurs is the biggest hurdle is there's so much trepidation to entering the marketplace. people love to get caught up in it. create a product and get it out into the marketplace. it's really where you are going to get the best feedback. see if your product will survive

or not. get out there with your product and see what happens. as a small business owner, you are making critical decisions every day. to help you make better choices, check out our website of the week. this is a free tool to help you create products and size up your competition. size up will show you where the greatest competition is located and compare your performance. they include information on the best places to advertise and offer suggestions for ways to save money. to learn more, click on our website, openforum.com/yourbusiness. you will find everything on today's show and more information to help your business grow. don't forget to become a fan on facebook or follow us on twitter. next week, a professional dancer goes from artist to small

business owner. >> being on broadway myself and being a rocket, i feel like i have something special to offer them. i wanted to be able to do that in a way that i wanted to. that means i had to start my own business. >> how she grew her business by leaps and bounds and found ways of expanding her revenue base. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg. remember, we make your business our business. sam: i'm sam chernin. owner of sammy's fish box. i opened the first sammy's back in 1966. my employees are like family. and, i want people that work for me to feel that they're sharing in my success. we purchase as much as we can on the american express open gold card. so we can accumulate as many points as possible. i pass on these points to my employees to go on trips with their families.