b'1. What is Syndication?from reading books, joining industry organizations, past job experience or teaming up with an experienced partner. It is these skills on which the investors rely when they invest in your syndicate. If you dont have these skills, you owe it to your investors to get them before you try to use their funds. Your first syndicate is not the time to make $100,000 mistakes with investors funds or you wont be long in this business. Part of the investors due diligence will include reviewing your back-ground and experience to ensure they are comfortable relying on you to make investment decisions on their behalf.For a small business startup, investors will rely on the business owners vision, knowledge and experience with its chosen opportunity, and the progress they have made toward executing that vision. Rarely will you get funding just for an idea; you must have put together a team and show that you have the ability to execute your vision before someone will be willing to invest in your company. You incur several legal obligations for using investor funds, which you need to clearly understand before doing it. Failure to follow them may result in legal consequences ranging from civil litigation initiated by se-curities regulators or investors, or possibly criminal prosecution and in-carceration. People do go to jail for securities violations.Fiduciary DutiesThe first thing you need to understand is that you have a fiduciary duty to treat an investors money with more care than you would your own. Your first responsibility is to protect their investment and their profit over and above your own personal needs. Every time you make a decision re-garding the investment you have to consider the investors interests and investment goals before considering your own. Risks of Using Investor FundsWhat are the risks of using private investor funds? First and foremost is the risk that your investment strategy wont pay off and youll lose the in-vestors money. If handled badly or if you break the law, this event may cost your reputation and your chosen career, if that career depends on the use of private investor funds. You wont necessarily be out of business if you lose investor money just because a deal goes bad. 5'