A couple of months ago, I found out about KickStarter, a web site that matches entrepreneurs with regular people to help fund their businesses. In exchange for a small financial pledge, those who contribute to a new business idea are rewarded by the entrepreneur with some kind of swag (usually whatever the new business intends to sell). The catch is that the entrepreneur has a limited amount of time to raise their pre-established funding goal. If they don't raise enough, they don't get anything for their business.