This is an interview excerpt with José Zurstrassen, the #EUCrowdShow Ambassador, and MyMicroInvest Chairman, prepared for the #EUCrowdShow.
How can MyMicroInvest contribute to a Pan-European Economy? What risks should investors consider?
Say people are looking for an alternative for their money, they can invest in the stock exchange, or they can invest in products offered by a bank, or they can invest in real estate.
Frankly we are offering a new alternative, basically if people invest their money in young companies, not listed on the stock exchange, not part of the traditional banking system, it’s a new opportunity.
On MyMicroInvest people have the opportunity to use their money to grow young companies, to ensure people have jobs. Most of us know that it's the SMEs and small companies that create the most jobs all around the world. It's not the large companies.
So we want to help younger companies to grow in the Pan-European economy. We want to help facilitate creation of a lot of jobs, and, to encourage positive usage of the savings that people are willing to invest.
Now it's really important for everyone to realize that the investments that we do are extremely risky and so the best way to invest and to help young entrepreneurs grow is actually to diversify. If you want to invest, let's say 2000 Euro in a young company, you'd be better off investing 100 Euro 20 times, in 20 different companies, rather than to invest 2000 Euro one time in one company. You need diversification to manage your risk. And so yes the idea is that is you invest into 20 companies, a small amount each time. And, at the end of the day 1, 2, or 3 of these companies will do really well and will give you a much better yield than what you would get if you keep your money in the bank with the interest rates of today.
The drawback of this, is that it means your money is immobilized for a few years and so it's only a small portion of the savings that you can afford, not to over stretch your budget. We want people to invest wisely knowing all of the risks (and of course opportunities). But transparency is important, and that’s what I personally think about our investors. We want everyone to have all of the appropriate information to make the best decisions.