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I often find myself really appreciating a particular company. I want to support them just to make sure they continue, and keep getting better. A small part of me would also like to be able to suggest improvements that I think would be nice.

If the company is private, you couldn’t just buy stock in it.

What is a normal thing to do? Do you email them offering private investment?

Is it common for them to do anything in exchange, like letting you email a manager from time to time to ask if a certain goal is being worked on or why it may have been rejected? Big companies have shareholders that can actually vote on decisions, I think. Is there something like that for private companies? An informal agreement like “I’ll give you money if you try to do a couple things I’d like, thanks”?

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    Be a customer. Tell your friends.
    – Grade 'Eh' Bacon
    Commented Dec 9, 2022 at 14:16
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    You're welcome to email them for investment, but they'll probably ghost you unless you have like $1M+ AND they actually need it at this particular moment.
    – Stack Exchange Supports Israel
    Commented Dec 9, 2022 at 18:15
  • If the company is public, you can buy stock from some other stockholder. There is no financial benefit to the company when you do that. It's only when the company issues new stock (either as an initial public offering (IPO) or a later addition to capital) that money you pay for stock goes to the company.
    – Pete Becker
    Commented Dec 10, 2022 at 15:14
  • A company can issue securities, exempt from registration, under SEC rule 504 and others. I suppose that an LLC could add a new member just by re-writing the operating agreement.
    – S Spring
    Commented Dec 13, 2022 at 7:53

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You can let them know that you are ready to invest and ask to let you know in case of public offering or crowdfunding. They would not rather sell you equity just to have you in as the process might be costly, time consuming, complicated.

You might be a good client, being brand evangelist and giving them feedback which they would appreciate if they are good company.

And last but not least. Check out their ownership. Sometimes you can invest in a company that is private by investing in company's owner, which might be traded on an exchange. That is the way to have an interest in company indirectly.

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  • If your goal is to "own a piece of the action", that third paragraph is the way to go. Unless you have a huge amount of money to offer AND they need money right now they're going to ignore offers to invest, I think it's unlikely that they're going to make an effort to alert you personally about crowdfunding efforts though they might send a broadcast to past customers. Are you on their mailing list(s)?
    – keshlam
    Commented Dec 10, 2022 at 1:11
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Be a good customer. Buy from them. Offer them active and helpful feedback. Be patient with their support and development staff. Contribute to customer peer support. Write about your good experience with the company, about how useful their products are to you, about interesting things you're using the product for, about neat features that other users may not have discovered. Consider being an "early adopter" of their newest products.

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