Twould be nice if you punctuated it properly though.
I'd like to believe that there are many people have a couple thousands dollars that they'd be willing to invest in a startup that seems promising. In the next year, I will theoretically be able to invest in startups via Wefunder...and I am in college with just one startup under my belt. I like to think I understand startups well but given my age and experience, I bet there are people who understand them far better than I do...and far less as well.
Given your age and experience you have NOHTING to loose. Experiment. Fail. Learn. Succeed.
One of my all-time favorite sayings is by Mark Twain: "A man holding a cat by the tail learns something he can learn no other way".
If you think you understand startups enough to risk $1,000, by all means, do it! You will learn something regardless of the outcome. And, frankly, at your age, if you are intelligent about it there are virtually no negatives.
I was only responding to the seemingly-odd assumption that only the "next ring" of investors is what Wefunder is going for--at least that's what I got from pg's response to why he/YC funded Wefunder. To me, there is no way to keep it to only this "next ring" and it doesn't seem that Wefunder is trying to do this. They are trying to appeal to those who are even several "rings" away.
Regarding funding for your venture/s. Forget it. Don't do it. At least not at first. Save money and bootstrap one or a couple of ideas yourself. You will earn you honorary MBA that way. You have to be smart about business before venturing out into a larger domain (unless you have good mentors who can guide you).
Companies like Facebook --where the founders had absolutely zero business experience and zero idea of where the thing was going or how it was going to make money-- are exceptions to the rule. Most businesses require a reasonable grip of business management and the identification of a good business model from the very start. And even with that failure is far more likely than success. So, have fun with it and don't risk too much on each experiment. Once you find something that gains traction take a huge leap and go for it.
On Kickstarter, millions of people invest in products, not for a return but because they want the product to exist.
I would very willingly toss my money down the blackhole of seed markets, because it is a "fair shot." Other markets are not.
The stock market and index funds are driven by volume (i.e. rich people) fear, our economy, or stupid politicians.
I would gladly fund a product to see it exist, and all the better if I have a shot at making a return on something I believe in. People don't invest in the stock market because they believe in the company, they do it because they have a gut-feeling it might move up that day.
In '96 or '97, I predicted that Valve was going to be very successful, just based on a very early preview I saw of Half-Life - I was just a teenager at that time. I have made many similar calls (honest to god) across many companies including NVidia, Intel, Google -- because I believed in them before any of them went public (for the record, there is not a single public company that I believe in). What I wouldn't give to be able to invest my money where I believed it would do good.
And the next Webvan, Pets.com, Kozmo, Flooz, eToys, Boo, etc etc etc, saying nothing of the huge number of failures we don't even know about.
That said - this is certainly an asset class one could beat the S&P500 with, as long as you aren't just throwing darts and are actually investing in companies you know a lot about and understand.
This made me chuckle.
The "traditional" investment vehicles of US stocks, real estate and bonds are anything but "safe" these days.
If you don't want to risk short or medium term fluctuations and black swans, the ultimate traditional and safe investment is a savings account. If you're the type that thinks fiat currency is only worth it's weight in toilet paper, then buy gold.
For any of these investments you'll have more left at retirement than if you put 100% of your capital into startups that ended up going out of business.
These aren't "ordinary" people? This model's only barrier to entry is the $1k it takes to get in (AFAICT) its not limited to "well-informed SF employees".
I invest around $10K once a year in a startup, usually with a friend who I believe strongly in. One of them so far was a disaster, and oddly enough he was the highest profile of these investments. One was quite lucrative. Another is looking to be a great return, having recently raised at more than 10x.
I don't think investing 5% of your income and/or capital in startups is a bad idea if you have reason to believe someone will be successful.
The key is to consider the money lost once you invest it. Don't expect anything back.