Crowdfunding In Practice
It’s all about the money!
In our last article we spoke about how you can finance your project with Crowdfunding and how you can also use it as a great way to learn more about the market response to your product or idea. Read the article here.
As we explained, many platforms require that you hit your full target to get the investment, however there are some platforms where you can choose a different approach and accept the funding that you receive, even if you don’t hit the target. Depending on what you need to do and if you can work steadily on the project with a small amount coming through this can be a good option, as many projects do not hit their targets and entrepreneurs can then be left with no finance at all.
There are many different reasons why projects don’t receive the funding they need. One big reason is that they are not correctly presented to appeal to potential buyers and investors, or have poor branding which triggers a negative reaction from the users.
Other times it’s the planning and strategies that are at fault. There are cases when the idea and the project are viable, but the founders choose the wrong moment or platform to present them. For example the beach cooler that could dispense ice cubes and keep your drinks cool at the same time. It was a great idea and well-executed, however it didn’t get the funding when they launched their prototype.
The designers were surprised by the response, but looked carefully at the feedback and analysed why people didn’t want to invest. They took on board the comments that the design needed to be improved to make it more attractive and also a few new features should be added to make it perfect.
They also realised that the time of year that they uploaded the project wasn’t right for the type of product. They saw that no one could connect with the idea in winter, as they weren’t thinking of going to the beach and therefore couldn’t relate to it.
After studying the responses they took in all the comments to create something really special that the general public wanted. Once they had made the changes they launched the project in summer and it was a massive success, achieving well over their target.
We recommend that you think carefully about all the factors of your business before jumping in and wasting time and resources, plan, do your research and make sure that when you present your idea to the world that it looks great and has excellent marketing to give it the best chance of success.
We would love to hear your experiences of creating a new business or product and if you’ve used crowdfunding before, so please share your stories below.