"For startups, having large numbers of investors is bad,"
Who says that it has to be large numbers. In kickstarter they are $1 pledges and $1000, $5000 pledges.
You could have thousands of people around the world hear your pitch and decide investing on you.
"and having inexperienced investors is bad"
Who says that they have to be inexperienced. Do you really believe that the people in Bay Area is the smartest and only experienced people in the world?. Maybe they are the smartest and more experienced in USA, but the world is bigger than USA.
Who says that startups could not decide who they let invest on them?. (investors also pitching their selves). And pick experienced ones?.
Crowfunding is not only about large numbers of people, but also about removing frontiers.
Even if they are inexperienced, Paul, Did you were born knowing it all? People could learn like you did.
"Experienced Investor" often has quite specific meanings - namely that the investor fully understands all the risks involved in an investment.
This generally goes beyond just knowing that there's a risk involved but also understanding the risk profile and where the risk comes from and any liabilities and responsibilities that might come with the investment and being able to afford the downside risk involved as well (for example, if you buy a cross currency interest rate swap you might find that extreme FX moves blow the position out of the water and leave you on the hook for far larger payments than anticipated).
Experienced in this sense doesn't really mean that you've done it before, it means something far closer to "can read and understand the whole prospectus and afford to lose the money".
Who says that it has to be large numbers. In kickstarter they are $1 pledges and $1000, $5000 pledges.
You could have thousands of people around the world hear your pitch and decide investing on you.
"and having inexperienced investors is bad"
Who says that they have to be inexperienced. Do you really believe that the people in Bay Area is the smartest and only experienced people in the world?. Maybe they are the smartest and more experienced in USA, but the world is bigger than USA.
Who says that startups could not decide who they let invest on them?. (investors also pitching their selves). And pick experienced ones?.
Crowfunding is not only about large numbers of people, but also about removing frontiers.
Even if they are inexperienced, Paul, Did you were born knowing it all? People could learn like you did.