It's CROWDED in Here!

So as I mentioned in my last blog, I want to take us on a journey that I think many business owners may find themselves venturing, crowdfunding.   Crowdfunding is basically looking for people to invest in your business, project or venture.  It a way to secure capital from people that are solely interested in what you are doing.   These folks are your investors.  They believe in your project so much so that they wish to help you build upon it and achieve the goals have set in regards.  As would a traditional investor, they would like to know of course that their investment will pay off of course and they want to know how and when.  They are certainly putting more at stake as opposed to a traditional investor who knows your financial status, your ability to repay back funds invested and even if not they know how to find you and your assets!

Crowdfunding is a form of fundraising…in that there is a project or business idea and multiple people that are interested in it and they decided to invest in the project.  So it is literally a method of fundraising however you can best believe your investor are looking for tangible and measureable and personal returns.

Now there some sites that lend to crowdfunding for all type of projects.  Fundraising for various goals that do not necessarily have to pertain to business.  Gofundme.com is specifically for this type of fundraising.  There are a number of projects found on here from business owners to individuals.  People of raising funds for a cause, for personal. I mentioned the more popular ones last blog and for sake of this project we will engage in a couple.

Here are some interesting facts and numbers about the global effect of crowdfunding from the eFundingreport:

·         More than $57,000 is pledged to a crowdfunding campaign somewhere in the world every hour of every day.

·         The five most popular categories of successful crowdfunding campaigns are gaming, technology, design, film and music.

·         Rewards-based campaigns on Kickstarter successfully fund 42.8 percent of the time. On Indiegogo, the success rate is 14.4 percent.

·         The average number of backers of a successful Kickstarter campaign is 255.

·         An average of 325 new crowdfunding campaigns launch every day.

So therein lies a few good reason why it should be a good idea to look into crowdfunding, right?  The key however is in the delivery of the package.  If you can imagine how many people submit on the number of websites available, for your project to make the impact it needs to capture the investors you wish, you should need to have a dynamic project that reels them in right away.

Some of the tips we have found online I list here for our edification and as a point that we will assess as we put our own crowdfunding project together.

KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN

1.       Keep it short in timeframe. You want to create project that you intend to solicit for only a short period of time.  It should be more than 30 days.

·         Budget – know your numbers as they say on Shark Tank. However you need to show your potential investors what they are getting into financially.  At the end of the day, your project has to be profitable and needs to show where and how.

·         Be cautious of how much money you spend on putting your project together.  You want an impact but think logically the overall return on your project.

·         REWARDS – Everyone wants to get something out of their investment.  You have to consider incentives.  Incentives can be and should early on for getting involved and it does not always have to be monetary.

·         By all means reach out to people you know…they will support you!

·         Follow up and stay in touch.  Let people know you are out there checking in and looking for responses.  People need to know you are engaged.

So with all that said, we are going to get started.  Our project will be small since typically they are.  I hope to show you in some way the moment with putting a package together and putting in a crowdfunding site.  We can see what happens!

I have a children’s book that I wrote about 5 years ago just after my daughter was born.  She was a preemie born 2lbs and was a ward of the Neonatal Care Unit for about 2 months before she was allowed to come home.  The children’s book dives into the world of a NICU from the perspective of the infant. It is a children’s story for an audience ages 3-5yrs old. The project is to raise money for the production of the book, from publishing, graphic design, marketing and final distribution.

We will use this as our test and go from there.  Let the fun…FUNDING begin!