Jonathan Moyal

Bio:

Founded LuckyAnt.com to bring crowdfunding to local businesses. I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the Huntsman Program and decided that the world of investment banking wasn't for me. Entrepreneurship on the other hand was. It took me 6 months of work to come up with the concept that made sense, 6 months to bring it to life and now 6 months later Lucky Ant is pretty much my whole life.

• Title: founder of Lucky Ant
• Age: 23
• Location: LES
• Contact: @jonathanmoyal

I noticed that you're also the Founder of One-Song. Have you been splitting your time between Lucky Ant and One-Song? Do you have any expansion plans for One-Song? Changing the music world and reinventing crowdfunding seems like two entirely different spheres. How did you jump from One-Song to Lucky Ant?

I co-founded One-Song in 2009. I've been pretty hands off One-Song for the last year and a half. My co-founder is the one who takes care of it these days. We now consider One-Song to be much more of a pet project than a business and what we do with One-Song is more out of love for the music than anything else. Though we have actually been toying around with some ways to include crowdfunding solutions into the One-Song platform - so stay tuned.

Crowdfunding and Music may seem different, but in reality the theme is very similar. With One-Song we were helping independent musicians bypass the complicated process of getting a record deal by letting them sell directly to their fans. With Lucky Ant, I'm working on how to let businesses access capital from their communities rather than going through banks or maxing out their credit cards. Both attempt to replace a large middleman that has traditionally kept businesses or musicians from their fans. Both are also an attempt to give the "little guy" his fair shot - something I can definitely relate to as a startup founder.

As someone who specializes in helping local businesses, what are some of your favorites?

I love the Dessert Truck on Clinton street. Jerome (head chef) is an amazing guy and those desserts are deadly. I'm so glad it isn't too close to my office because otherwise I'd be there all the time. I'm a big fan of Mamoun's Falafel in the East Village, a new restaurant called Jack's Wife Freda on Lafayette, and my personal favorite date spot Grotto on Forsyth street. Also, there's a bakery on the Upper East Side called Glaser's Bake Shop (E.88th) that has been around for more than 100 years. Those are hands down the best donuts in New York City. Clearly I have a thing for food.

Lucky Ant is unique in that it uses already existing clientele to crowdfund at a local level. How successful have the campaigns been on Lucky Ant? Have you found local business owners to be excited about working with Lucky Ant?

So far we've done many successful campaigns. We've raised a total of over $60,000 on a local level in our first few months. It's been a great experience working with small businesses. They are so in love with what they do and with their customers, so when we come along and offer them an opportunity to crowd-fund they love it. We do our best to help get the word out, but the businesses that do the best with Lucky Ant are the ones who take on the project as their own and we've seen that time and time again.