Having raised money for a few companies I know it can be a serious distraction. Helpful investors can be a priceless asset but the process of finding them and working out the deal means time away from selling your product.

Can the web make the process more efficient? I just saw this post on Techcrunch about a new company, Sprowtt, leveraging the web to raise hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars  and have been following Prosper for some time now. I am curious to hear from natural product companies about their fundraising experience, we at Abe’s Market hope at some point to be helpful in the process. The idea is to use our collective experience as a community to help the individual seller.

We are also curious to hear from our sellers who are building their brands without outside capital. Who doesn’t love the “worked from our garage, mortgaged the house, ate PB&J for 9 months” story that ends in a hot product…