It started with an egg.
Ayan Mitra is a man who loves his eggs. He had a good career designing and delivering technology solutions for big companies. He moved from office to bigger office, taking on more responsibility, earning more and more money. But it didn’t make him happy.
It was time to do something he loved. So Ayan decided to open a restaurant. Not just any restaurant, but a restaurant that celebrated the egg. Why not? It’s the kind of thing people do. What he didn’t realise was that his egg idea would hatch into something even bigger.
Ayan talked to lots of people about his egg restaurant idea, and they listened. Soon, he’d gathered 5,000 people who loved the idea enough to say that they’d go to his egg restaurant. 5,000 egg fanatics make a pretty big crowd. If they each put in £100, Ayan thought, he’d have his restaurant – they all would.
Ayan realised he was onto something. What if there was a way to harness the enthusiasm, goodwill, generosity and desire of a crowd? If there was a place where people with ideas could meet people who wanted to help those ideas roll into reality, then there’d be no need to bother going to the banks or traditional investors.
Ayan loved eggs, but here was a bigger idea. An idea that could lead to the birth of thousands of other ideas.
The idea of CrowdBnk.
Ayan started CrowdBnk to prove that there’s another way to get ideas off the ground. To prove that business can be personal, and that people will put their hand in their pocket for something they believe in. Ask the bank for £10,000 and they may say no. Ask 1,000 people for a tenner and you might find you’re in business.
