Have any of you tried crowdfunding?

[Dudevondudenstein]

A friend and I are starting a business and we are floating some ideas to help us fund this project. I was wondering if any of you have had experience with any of the crowdfunding web sites that are out there? Kickstarter, fundable etc?

[anamericaninbangkok]

A friend and I are starting a business and we are floating some ideas to help us fund this project. I was wondering if any of you have had experience with any of the crowdfunding web sites that are out there? Kickstarter, fundable etc?

I have not tried it yet but I know many people who have. I have two projects I'm working on that need funding so at least one of them will be partially funded by a crowdfunding organization. One is a documentary that a filmmaker friend is working on, the other is a coffee table photo book.

Kickstarter tends to be the most popular and get the most viewers and is part of Amazon. You need to be able to receive Amazon payments. IndieGoGo is another one that is supposedly good. For journalists, Emphsis is the one that is used.

With Kickstarter it's all or nothing - hit your goal and you get the funds.
With IndieGoGo, you can pay a higher fee but if you do not hit your goal you can still receive however much was sent to you.

The main things are that your business or project should give something useful to society and you give a little something to your benefactors. Small donations might mean you have to put a person's name on your website. A large donation might be a shirt or a copy of your book.

If you have a large circle of friends, followers, etc., it is doable IMO. If you don't, then it's tough. You better have one helluva video. I've seen photojournalists put together fantastic videos and raise $20,000 pretty easily, even going well over the target. Then I've seen others sit in a room and talk about his project for two minutes and he still managed to get well over his goal.

[Ghost]

.

[Tsar]

I plan to use crowdfunding for a film project in the near future.

[Renata]

Seems like a great thing too good to be true, wouldn't mind trying it out

[Dudevondudenstein]

Thanks for all of the replies. There are a few projects I currently have going on and I can fund most of them myself but I figure why use my money when I can use other peoples. The big one is the business we plan to start. It is an entertainment software development company. We want to make a game.

I am going to do some more research and networking while we are still setting up the details of the company. Once we have everything legal, with a mission statement and a solid business plan ready we will start work on our video and fund raising campaign.

[C.J.]

Thanks for all of the replies. There are a few projects I currently have going on and I can fund most of them myself but I figure why use my money when I can use other peoples. The big one is the business we plan to start. It is an entertainment software development company. We want to make a game.

What kind of game do you want to make?

[Christianfilipinacom]

Thus far we have never felt comfortable asking for charity in this way. We have thought about it for some projects (not our main online business but for instance to build a certified kitchen) - be we are confused. What kind of mindset do you need to have, in order to ask someone else to support your business project? It seems shameful somehow but maybe we don't get it.

[anamericaninbangkok]

If you use crowd funding it's usually for a product that is going to provide others a better product or service. So for example, a certified kitchen that once a weeks provides a place for the homeless to learn how to cook. In addition, if someone gives you $5, you stick their name on your website or some other minimal sort of acknowledgement. If they give $50 their name might go on the wall of the kitchen permanently, $100 they'll get the cookbook you make once you're up and running. Or if you're making a movie, they get a producer credit. So it's not asking something for nothing.

Also, in my case, if the amount is less than say $5000, I'd rather try and raise the funds privately. When I went to cover boxing at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 for two magazines, they weren't about to give me any advance funds. One of the magazines almost always took 9 months to pay me so they had diddly and it's now out of business. I hit up friends, family, acquaintances, and boxing organizations. I finagled $3000 plus a room, which ran about $450 a night x 15 nights. They got photos, reports, stories from me, and pins. A couple gave me $1000 each and the rest were anywhere from $5 to $100. This was my own sort of crowd funding.

In the near future I have five projects planned for the next 2 years. I may use crowd funding (probably Kickstarter) for two or three of them. But I want to get another journey under my belt and put out a photo book....

[momopi]

If you're uncomfortable with asking money on kickstarter, you can use P2P lending sites to borrow money (at interest). i.e. prosper.com. Unsecured P2P lending sites offer up to $25,000-$35,000 in personal loans from investors.

[PeterAndrewNolan]

A friend and I are starting a business and we are floating some ideas to help us fund this project. I was wondering if any of you have had experience with any of the crowdfunding web sites that are out there? Kickstarter, fundable etc?

Guys...if the idea is good then you should offer it to OTHER MEN to fund...it would be even better if you used MBA as the vehicle for the funding to be secured. We are creating the man-bank and loans from the man-bank are negotiated between the lender and the borrower on MBA contracts.

Why go to anonymous sources when other men SHOULD step up to fund good ideas...if the idea is not good? Men should not fund it.

I will soon be announcing an issue of shares for the Mens Business Association and men will be able to buy shares in EUR1,000 lots. There is no more important project in the world for men today than to launch and make work the MBA. We need a second economy because as long as we only have the one economy that is controlled by the Illuminati it does not really matter what you do...they are in control of the economy and they can suck the money out of it at will...with the man-bank and a man-currency the Illuminati will not be in control of the currency.

Those who refuse to help get the second economy started and try, instead, to make money in the first economy at the expense of someone else can hardly complain when someone else makes money at their expense.

MBA gents....it is you only path to freedom.....it is shame more men are not waking up to this faster.

http://www.mensbusinessassociation.com/Downloads.aspx

[Christianfilipinacom]

If you use crowd funding it's usually for a product that is going to provide others a better product or service. So for example, a certified kitchen that once a weeks provides a place for the homeless to learn how to cook. In addition, if someone gives you $5, you stick their name on your website or some other minimal sort of acknowledgement. If they give $50 their name might go on the wall of the kitchen permanently, $100 they'll get the cookbook you make once you're up and running. Or if you're making a movie, they get a producer credit. So it's not asking something for nothing.
...

Thanks for this helpful advice, we will talk about whether something like this might work.

[anamericaninbangkok]

Take a look into the Kickstarter vids and you'll see there are a couple of consistent themes from those requesting funds.

[Dudevondudenstein]

Thanks for all of the replies. There are a few projects I currently have going on and I can fund most of them myself but I figure why use my money when I can use other peoples. The big one is the business we plan to start. It is an entertainment software development company. We want to make a game.

What kind of game do you want to make?

It is a MMORTS something like a cross between Evony and Star Craft. Instead of generating revenue by selling the game or selling game coins to be used on items in the game we want to do it with tiered membership. We want to give people the ability to make free accounts with a basic membership and then offer a few different levels of premium membership.
Something like this.

Level 1 – Free
Level 2 – $4.95
Level 3 - $9.95

We will still offer a few items in the game shop but nothing to throw off the balance of the game.

Thus far we have never felt comfortable asking for charity in this way. We have thought about it for some projects (not our main online business but for instance to build a certified kitchen) - be we are confused. What kind of mindset do you need to have, in order to ask someone else to support your business project? It seems shameful somehow but maybe we don't get it.

It isn’t exactly charity. On crowd funding sites you offer rewards in exchange for people giving you money. If you want to make a film then you would offer movie posters, copies of the script and DVD’s once it is released. If it is a book or an eBook then you would offer to list them in the books website in the book, give them special thanks and send them a free copy of the book.

Most crowd funding sites do not allow non-profits or charities to register. You have to be creating a finished product so the people that give you money can see the results of it in the end.

I am also making a list of venture capitalists that invest in technology, software, entertainment and gaming. Once we have our business proposal ready I will be contacting them as well.