When it comes to raising money, there are only so many ways that you can gain capital. That is why crowd funding is so remarkable. Crowd funding is a combination of financing, social media, and the Internet. When these three things come together, an entirely knew way of raising money for a project becomes viable. Lets take a closer look
Individual People, Shared Aspirations
Crowd funding is relatively new. Unlike traditional funding streams, crowd funding comes primarily from individuals looking to invest in something they are passionate about. Whether this is a private game developer looking for seeding money or a multi-million dollar industry looking to develop a new technology, crowd funding can be used.
Who participates in crowd funding? The majority of individuals who participate are men, between the ages of 24 and 35. There is a major drop off over the age of 45. This is explained partially by individuals below 24 having less access to capital to invest, and individuals above 45 having relatively little technical knowhow to operate and invest using one of the crowd funding platforms. As a final note, the greatest source of crowd funding comes from those earning over $100,000 a year.
How Successful is Crowd Funding?
This can be difficult to judge. If we focus on a crowd funding website however, like Kickstarter, we can look at their data and extrapolate it to the entire industry. Kickstarter reports over 62,000 successful kick-start projects. Of these, the majority of successful projects came form those asking for between $1,000 and $9,999 and accounting for over 60% of all successful projects. The overwhelming number of projects that failed received less then the 20% of funding they initially sought.
Well Known Crowd Sourcing Campaigns
What are some crowdsourcing campaigns that you may know about? The first cloud-managed 3D printer came about through Buccaneer. In addition, much advancement in smart watches came from successful crowdsourcing. There was also Chipolo, created to track your lost devices. Pixelstick was crowd funded with over $110,000 being reached, ending in success. Finally, countless software has been successful crowd funded, including Macaw.
Getting Started
Getting started in crowd funding is very simple. Just go to a website like Kickstarter and create an account. Once you have an account, shop through the different kickstarter campaigns to see if you can find one that catches your interest. Invest, and then good luck.
Strong proponent of individual liberty and free speech. My goal is to present information that expands our awareness of crucial issues and exposes the manufactured illusion of freedom that we are sold in America. Question everything because nothing is what it seems.
