Picture this: you and your friends have this awesome idea for a startup business, and you’re sure it’ll be a hit. You have the brains, the idea, the talent, and the passion; the only thing you don’t have is the money, and that’s one hellacious obstacle. So you all shrug, say “Well, it was a good idea anyway,” and go back to your humdrum jobs, right?
Wrong.
You get help raising capital for those startup costs. You get crowdfunding.
Activate crowdfunding and make your business dream come true
What’s Crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding comes from the words “crowd”, which means “bunch of people”, and “funding”, which means “cold hard cash”. So yes, crowdfunding means that a bunch of people give you money. Sounds cool, doesn’t it? Well, first of all, in order to pitch the idea and get money, you need a means of reaching said crowd easily and quickly, as opposed to going door to door, which is time-consuming and creepy.
And some of those people have big barking dogs.
That’s why you need a crowdfunding platform to give you that voice to reach out to all of those kind-hearted visionaries and their wallets. Take for instance …
Fundable
Fundable is a crowdfunding platform that is geared towards startups. The process is fairly simple and straightforward.
- Create a Profile. You submit a profile for your company that will be reviewed by Fundable’s people. You describe your company, your product or service, and your funding goals.
- Select Rewards/Equity. As a means of incentive, you can offer potential backers either rewards or equity. Equity is a share of the company, while rewards are goods or services offered for certain levels of investment. Say, if you were working on an app, a potential reward could be a free copy of the finished app.
- Make Your Pitch. This is where the rubber hits the road and you market your startup. Consider this to be the online version of schmoozing, meeting and greeting, in order to inform people of your company’s existence, who you are, and why you’re so awesome that they need to back you.
- Get Those Commitments. This is where the backers make their commitments to your project.
- Collect The Funds. Ah yes, the fun part (or should that be “fund” part?). This is where you collect the money. Fundable uses WePay to process the funds, and they have a WePay Partner Link. The money is collected only if you make your goals.
The beauty of Fundable is that it doesn’t charge a percentage, but rather has a flat monthly fee of $179. But it should be mentioned that Rewards-based fundraising is subject to a credit card processing fee collected by WePay.
There’s More Out There
Fundable isn’t the only crowdfunding platform; far from it, in fact. Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform that’s been making a lot of noise on various social media networks, especially for smaller, personal projects. An inspiring game designer who’s trying to publish a tabletop roleplaying game adventure would be more likely to be found on Kickstarter.
GoFundMe is a good platform for causes (raise money to help spay and neuter pets in your community), or even personal need (my car’s engine seized up and I need to buy a new one!); while Razoo leans heavily towards fundraising for non-profits (though not exclusively). Or, if your garage band is trying to get its big break, then PledgeMusic or SellABand may be right for you.
There’s Potential Out There
Social media has really helped a lot in the whole fund-raising area, and made it easy to hook people up with these kind of platforms. Check them out and see which one is best suited to crowdfunding your dream and/or business!