Author: walworthbusiness

Talking Crowdfunding at “Access to Capital” Event

On August 27th, our own John James Jacoby was invited to WCEDA’s “Access to Capital” event to share his experience with a recently successful crowdfunding campaign.

John used IndieGogo to raise over $50k for the continued development of BuddyPress and bbPress, two open-source sister projects to the immensely popular WordPress platform. John is the owner of Flox (based out of East Troy) which is a company that develops and manages private social networks for niche communities. He is also the project lead for BuddyPress and bbPress.

Indiegogo, Kickstarter, and GoFundMe are the market leaders, but others continue to emerge. Crowdfunding is a relatively recent development that was legalized in 2012 through the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. The most popular campaigns revolve around startups and social causes. Other funding industries are exploring ways to work with this model.

Downtown

The area of East troy was first settled in 1836, when a man named H. Roberts began construction of a saw mill on the shores of Honey Creek.  The area grew very rapidly and the next four years saw the establishment of a hotel, general store, blacksmith, chapel, school,  post office, doctor, lawyer, and justice of the piece.

East Troy was originally known as Troy after a place called Troy, New York from where many of the settlers originated.  It was decided during 1843 that Troy was too large of an area for one township and the territory of Troy was split by the state legislature.  The Western part was renamed Meacham, after an early settler and the eastern part remained Troy.

This arrangement was deemed unsuitable to the western portion, including Jesse Meacham for which the area was named.  Meacham set out for the capital to reclaim the name of troy.  There is a legend that Jacob Burgit, an early settler and representative of the Easter territory, heard of Meacham’s trip and set out for the capital to argue his own case for keeping the name for Troy for the east.  However,  Burgit arrived too late and the the name of Troy was given to the west, the east was then renamed to East Troy, as it remains today.

This arrangement was deemed unsuitable to the western portion, including Jesse Meacham for which the area was named.  Meacham set out for the capital to reclaim the name of troy.  There is a legend that Jacob Burgit, an early settler and representative of the Easter territory, heard of Meacham’s trip and set out for the capital to argue his own case for keeping the name for Troy for the east.  However,  Burgit arrived too late and the the name of Troy was given to the west, the east was then renamed to East Troy, as it remains today.