vansig wrote: how does one become an accredited investor? what’s the process?

Here’s an outline of the requirements: http://www.sec.gov/answers/accred.htm

It looks to me like you get a net worth of $1M, or 2 yrs’ income of >$200k with reasonable expectations of continuing to make at least that much.

In order to do that you probably own a business, so the business options are probably the most realistic for today. These rules were drawn up in 1933 to keep the rif-raff out.