Crowd­fund­ing is an idea that has been around now for a while but which is only just start­ing to really take off and res­ult in some truly amaz­ing suc­cess stor­ies for entre­pren­eurs who have seen their pro­jects become real­ity. The concept here of course is that you pro­mote an idea, and that you then get back­ers to provide you with small sums of money in sup­port and exchange for some perks, but do so in such large volume that you are able to raise all the money you need in order to see it through to completion.

Of course this is some­thing that is hugely more achiev­able these days thanks to the web which makes it easy for any­one to com­mu­nic­ate their idea to thou­sands of people in a short space of time and to col­lect pay­ment automatically.

Crowd­fund­ing this way is a dream for busi­ness own­ers as it means get­ting the fin­an­cial aid that many require to get their ideas off the ground, but with none of the spectre of debt or the loss of cre­at­ive con­trol that comes from using other means. That and it’s also free expos­ure and a great way to ensure there’s a mar­ket for your audience.

So you’re prob­ably sold on crowd­fund­ing. Now the ques­tion is how can you get star­ted? Well here you have plenty of dif­fer­ent options and mul­tiple aven­ues you can take. Here we will look at some of them.

Kick­starter

The most obvi­ous place most people will start is Kick­starter which is the best known crowd­fund­ing site on the web and pos­sibly largely respons­ib­il­ity for the strategy’s cur­rent popularity.

Indiegogo

While Kick­starter might be the most fam­ous and provide you with access to the biggest num­ber of poten­tial back­ers, this can also be a bad thing in that it means you’ll be facing more com­pet­i­tion and will need to fol­low stricter guidelines. Indiegogo then provides a slightly more ‘light­weight’ altern­at­ive where it can be easier for begin­ners to get noticed.

People​fund​.It

Kick­starter rules the roost in the US, but until recently it was less access­ible for those based in the UK and Europe. People​fund​.It aimed to take advant­age of this by focus­ing on the UK mar­ket, and has now found a niche as a great place for char­it­ies to raise money and for Brit­ish entre­pren­eurs to find backing.

Smallknot

Smallknot is a rel­at­ively young crowd­fund­ing site that looks at busi­nesses rather than pro­jects and encour­ages users to invest in small local organizations.

Rock­etHub

Rock­etHub func­tions largely sim­il­arly to Kick­starter, but has become par­tic­u­larly pop­u­lar among musi­cians and philanthropists.

Gam­bi­tious

Gam­bi­tious is a crowd­fund­ing site just for games developers. One other dif­fer­ence is that all the com­pan­ies on there have had to meet and be vetoed by the site own­ers before get­ting the expos­ure which makes it a great place to invest with confidence.

DIY

If none of these crowd­fund­ing sites really sounds like it offers what you’re look­ing for, then you can always attempt to go without and raise some crowd­funds your­self. You can do this simply by explain­ing what you’re try­ing to accom­plish through your web­site or other out­let and then by provid­ing a pay but­ton in which case you’ll not have to abide by any rules and won’t give away any cut of the profit, but will also lack the infra­struc­ture these sites have in place. Mean­while another form of crowd­fund­ing in a way is simply to take lots of pre-​orders but in order for this to work you need to be abso­lutely cer­tain you can provide the product or ser­vice you are prom­ising. Oth­er­wise you could end up sorely out of pocket.

Attached Images:

• License: Cre­at­ive Com­mons image source
• License: Cre­at­ive Com­mons image source
• License: Cre­at­ive Com­mons image source

Sara Brown has a deep know­ledge in respect to engin­eer­ing and busi­ness. Through her art­icles on injec­tion mold­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers and vari­ous such industry related top­ics, she emphas­ises on thor­ough qual­ity check and their timely deliv­ery to the market.

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