StartEngine Loses

The company's owners fucked you through some combination of issuing more shares or mismanagement, and that sucks, but that's how it goes sometimes with investing. Even big companies suffer from shitty management and investors lose money, but it's massively more common with startups, and even MORE common with Reg CF startups. Reg CF startups are tiny companies, which means more potential profit if they go big, but greater risk of failure or share dilution due to the increased probability they will go under or dilute the share pool.

90% of startups fail. But the 10% that succeed can yield huge returns, sometimes 100x or more. So if you invest in ten startups and nine fail, that one will still give you an overall 10x return. If you only bought shares in one tiny company, you would have been incredibly lucky for that company to go big.

Risk vs reward is just part of the game. Greater reward = greater risk, always, everywhere.

My advice is to learn from this experience. The first lesson should be to understand your risk tolerance and formulate a strategy based on that. If you want low risk, invest in companies which are already established, i.e. buy stocks on the stock market - or better yet, buy VSTAX in an IRA and sit on it. If your risk tolerance is still high enough to invest in startups after this, consider only purchasing shares in Reg A+ offerings, as they are larger and more established. Also, only invest in companies with strong management teams. This is super, super important when investing in startups. Always, always examine the company's management on LinkedIn before buying. The best idea in the world won't net the shareholders a profit if management executes poorly.

/r/StartEngineTrading Thread