{"id":14975,"date":"2021-11-16T08:51:57","date_gmt":"2021-11-16T08:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/startgreen.nl\/how-do-you-create-and-maintain-a-state-of-the-art-crowdfunding-platform\/"},"modified":"2021-11-16T08:51:57","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T08:51:57","slug":"how-do-you-create-and-maintain-a-state-of-the-art-crowdfunding-platform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/startgreen.nl\/en\/how-do-you-create-and-maintain-a-state-of-the-art-crowdfunding-platform\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you create and maintain a state-of-the-art crowdfunding platform?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Expert blog – November 16, 2021<\/span><\/p>\n

StartGreen makes an impact with a team of over forty experts. These are not just specialists in venture capital and impact investing. Maartje Asscheman, for example, works with her team of developers to ensure that investors can make an investment in an intuitive and reliable way via Oneplanetcrowd<\/a>. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Intuitive flow
\n<\/span><\/strong>It is my job to ensure that we deploy our development capacity in such a way that we move the platform in the right direction. I monitor the course and determine which future improvements we are going to build now<\/em> and which later. I do this together with three developers, but also with people within the StartGreen organization. <\/p>\n

As a spider in the web, I coordinate with my colleagues and am indirectly in contact with our investors and entrepreneurs. I know what is going on in the various corners of the organization, at both operational and strategic levels, and align the platform’s functionality accordingly. For investors, this means an intuitive flow from registration to investment and portfolio management. For entrepreneurs, we check whether the financing agreements align with the possibilities on our platform, for example, with a specific repayment schedule or an entirely new financial product. <\/p>\n

Good returns
\n<\/span><\/strong>Oneplanetcrowd has been in existence for over 9 years now. Sustainable and social entrepreneurs can raise financing with us for their startup or growing business. Our crowd<\/em> of investors consists of approximately 26,000 investors and 35,000 interested parties registered with us. At the start, we offered not only loans but also donations and pre-sales. An investor would then be the first to receive the product or receive another consideration. We now offer – as one of the first platforms – convertible loans as well. We only offer forms of financing with a good balance between return and risk. So far, we have already provided more than 150 loans with a total value of 70 million euros. <\/p>\n

Unique service level
\n<\/span><\/strong>We believe it is important for an investment to make an impact, also in the long term. We are involved throughout the entire term of the loan. Unlike other crowdfunding platforms, we manage the loans ourselves and handle the payment process for repayments and interest. We ask entrepreneurs to provide an update every six months on their business and the impact they are making with the investment. Through the platform, investors stay informed about the loan via semi-annual business updates and other loan details in the profile. <\/p>\n

Due to our involvement in the entire process, we can identify early on whether the entrepreneur is able to adhere to the agreements. We represent the crowd and stand up for the interests of the investors. Should an entrepreneur be unable to meet their payment obligations, we enter into consultations and adjust the loan if necessary. We reach an agreement with the entrepreneur and offer investors the choice to take a different course. This also all happens via the platform. <\/p>\n

Unique products<\/span><\/strong>
\nOneplanetcrowd offers various types of financing products: loans, convertible loans \u2013 where the loan can be converted into shares, shares, and recently, bond loans. Each product requires its own way of working and processing. A team of three developers and a product owner works on the development and maintenance of these products. You might wonder if that is really necessary: the platform works, doesn’t it? Is it not finished? But the company does not stand still: processes are improved and new products are developed. We want to be able to move with the organization. <\/p>\n

Finding a balance<\/span><\/strong>
\nIt is always a challenge to maintain an intuitive and user-friendly platform for our investors while taking into account the strategic wishes of the organization and the laws and regulations imposed on us as a financial service provider. A good example is the MiFID II license. We worked hard last year to obtain it because it enables us to provide larger financing with bond loans. However, this means we must comply with more regulations, for which we must conduct investor tests and verify the identity of our investors. This makes the start on our platform less user-friendly, but it increases the financing options. It is my role as product owner to find a balance between wishes and requirements. <\/p>\n

State-of-the-art platform<\/span><\/strong>
\nIn addition to the choices for functionality and user-friendliness, we must take the maintenance of the platform into account. We place great value on a secure and reliable platform. That is why we work with a dedicated team, use up-to-date technologies for our code frameworks<\/em> and infrastructure, and apply an agile<\/em> way of working in our development process. We work according to best practices<\/em> seen at large tech companies, such as Booking.com and Google. <\/p>\n

A secure platform is the starting point for every design. With every functionality we develop, we ensure that the risk of a data leak is minimal. Every so often, we have technical analyses performed to check the infrastructure and security. Earlier this year, we worked with a team of students from the Cyber Security program. They were unable to infiltrate our platform using known hacking methods. That strengthens my confidence that we have a state-of-the-art platform. <\/p>\n

Socially relevant<\/span><\/strong>
\nI have now been working for Oneplanetcrowd for over 3.5 years and still enjoy it very much. I find it important that what I work on contributes to a more sustainable and social society. That is why I consciously chose a ‘green’ company. Before this, I already worked in IT, but I missed the social and sustainable relevance. At Oneplanetcrowd, I can both utilize my IT skills and contribute to a better world. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Expert blog – November 16, 2021 StartGreen makes an impact with a team of over forty experts. These are not just specialists in venture capital and impact investing. Maartje Asscheman, for example, works with her team of developers to ensure that investors can make an investment in an intuitive and reliable way via Oneplanetcrowd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":14976,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,136,121,179,129],"tags":[174,175,130,131,188],"class_list":["post-14975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-impact-financing","category-news","category-oneplanetcrowd","category-startgreen-capital","tag-blog","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-financing","tag-impact","tag-oneplanetcrowd"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/startgreen.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/startgreen.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/startgreen.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startgreen.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startgreen.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/startgreen.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startgreen.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/startgreen.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startgreen.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startgreen.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}