In my mind, it's the whole requirement of being an "accredited investor" that is the real hurdle. I ran into this a few years ago when a friend of mine opened a

In my mind, it's the whole requirement of being an "accredited investor" that is the real hurdle. I ran into this a few years ago when a friend of mine opened a brewery. He was taking investments, but since it was a private company you had to be an accredited investor (which I wasn't). In the end I ended up being able to give him some money for potential returns but we had to jump through some legal loopholes.