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Why you should share your CrowdFunding Idea?
The 1st step about starting your CrowdFunding journey is to share your idea. There are many advantages doing so but the most important one is to find people that have same interest or frequency as you do. Finding a co developer , co founder and even co dreamer is one of the essential steps in the process. CrowdFunding is more about the crow. You can reach your crowd by sharing . |
6 Crowdfunding Tips
CrowdFunding Preparation - Honesty on Kickstarter is a mistake we willingly made
Busting a few myths for KS startersLet’s be honest, no matter how old you are, deep down you still want to believe in miracles. So did we, when we decided to go for Kickstarter with a game that we always dreamed to make. We spent a few years in preparation while analyzing successful as well as failed campaigns on Kickstarter to understand how things work. We also have spoken with a number of experts in the crowdfunding field just to be sure and the result shocked us. They all underlined the same thing over and over - Kickstarter is no longer what it seems and maybe it never actually was. Here are the main things most crowdfunding veterans agree on: 1. Forget about fully funding your game (in our case) with crowdfunding alone. You have to be a household name, a Big Name studio or a celebrity. 2. Forget about being honest with your final price goal. Ask less and you will get more! If you go for the honest and true budget, you are just going to scare people away. 3. Prepare to invest a lot in Promotion (FB ads, forum banners, reviews and press coverage) Unless you are making a potato salad :) of course 4. Don’t start a KS campaign if you do not have at least alpha or even beta of your game. But don’t tell anyone about it promise it soon and only to high-bidders. That really has shaken the ground under our feet at first, but then again, even if your parents tell you that fire hurts - what do you do? Right! First you try. Assuming that the quality of our kickstarter page, artwork, concepts as well as our own passion seen in the video will help us explain the high budget we decided to do it anyway. Speaking of budgets, here is an honest graphic pie chart of what we need to make our game named Game Master in its core version: Our honest goal is £130,000.![]() As a matter of a fact the budget is not high at all especially, if you create the game of the proposed magnitude and scale. There is absolutely no realistic way this game can be done cheaper than with at least 100k budget. Otherwise it will be a mere shadow of the vision and detailed plan we have. It won't be a worthy game for our supporters and admirers at all. It is really nice to see that there are a lot of beautiful and successfully funded projects on Kickstarter recently. The bar is high for all the ones that are going to follow, but will it be possible to make a complete game from scratch and just for a mere 50K budget? Based on our calculations and experience - We are not convinced! How do you spot an honest indie starter from a camouflaged pro?The obvious indicator of a pro studio ‘going indie’ that you can base your educated guess on is most certainly the final goal of a particular campaign. Even from a complete outsider’s perspective and not being someone intimately familiar with crowdfunding platforms, you have to admit that when a team of 10 people asks for even a medium complexity game a mere 50K of funding, that does sound suspicious. Considering you have to pay fees for the campaign, taxes to the government and on top of that manufacture pledge rewards, what is there left to make the game itself with?There is nothing bad with making Kickstarter a marketing platform for a given title as long as you deliver the final product of decent quality. The main problem here is that thanks to the recent surge in professional studios posing as indie developers and asking for pennies, life became really hard for the real dreamers. Fundamentally, an indie going to Kickstarter is looking for funding. For capital and budget to make the whole game from scratch. A professional studio is going to Kickstarter only as a marketing exercise. In no way are we trying to discriminate other great campaigns that started lower than 50k goal. We even backed them, but the idea of "ask less to receive more" - feels somehow sad and even wrong. What happens if you only get 50k? Are we going to lie to the people and make a low quality half-game on the budget? Are we going to desperately search for investors, which are in most cases going to impact the game development with purely commercial aims in sight? We can't afford that. Despite all those dream-breaking facts we still decided to try our luck on Kickstarter while being honest. The start was hard, as only friends and family supported us. Then the tide changed as slow but steadily people started to back. The campaign hasn’t even passed the middle point and we are receiving tons of fan mail (the majority of which found us on Kickstarter accidently) and they love the concept with all their hearts! That assures us that we are on the right path and the only thing that is left is to get more people to know about us. It is very hard to get in touch with the leading press and media channels for people like us - ordinary folk, without any celebrity or famous game studio status. The only thing we can do is to storm all the forums we can get our hands on. We do that 24/7 now. The really comforting fact is that the majority of feedback we get is short and colorful, with “amazing” being the most widely used word. There is still quite a long journey ahead but now we know one thing for sure. Being on Kickstarter, no matter how good your campaign is, is just the tip of the iceberg. You have to prepared the community and press long way in advance. The real hard work only begins when you press the green Kickstarter launch button! Say goodbye to your friends and family, food and sleep are a luxury your trade for your successes :) It is always hard to start something from scratch. We are ready for any outcome and yes; there may be some changes we would make if we had to start Kickstarter today. But being honest is what we will never change. In the beginning it was only us, a group of geeks from basement with some experience making art and simple games. We love this game and we we will eventually make it anyway. Kickstarter is probably the faster way, but there are always other paths to glory. Keep you fingers crossed and help us spread the word! Game Master is a title you would hate yourself all your life if missed. P.S. If only telepathy could work on Felicia Day or Will Wheaton. That would help much better than e-mails and tweets. :) Posted from: http://arcticstartup.com/2014/09/15/honesty-on-kickstarter-is-a-mistake-we-willingly-made |
Let's get together: crowdfunding portals predicts huge increases
Deloitte predicts that crowdfunding portals will raise $3 billion in 2013, double the $1.5 billion raised in 2011. Crowdfunding portals are websites that enable large numbers of individuals to financially support a project or company, with each backer contributing just a small percentage (generally less than one percent) of the total funding. A typical crowdfunded project has thousands of backers. Crowdfunding’s growth matters to TMT for two reasons. First, some crowdfunded projects raise funds for new technological devices and media content such as computer games. Second, the portals themselves are likely to become a new type of Internet portal. Media coverage of crowdfunding tends to focus on its role as an alternative to traditional venture capital (VC); however, there is much more to the concept. In fact, there are four distinct categories of crowdfunding that vary by type of portal and capital raised. Categories of crowdfunding portals Reward-based is the second largest category of portal. Individuals go to a website and support a specific project in exchange for a reward. For example, those assisting with the development of a computer game may get a copy upon completion. Those investing more may receive a basket of games and a T-shirt. Backers of a new kind of remote-controlled light bulb might receive a quantity of light bulbs, depending on the level of investment made. Backers of a new play might get tickets to the opening; more generous patrons might be invited to a champagne reception. This category could raise more than $700 million in 20132. The next biggest category is the donation market. This overlaps with the reward market: many artistic endeavors that use reward crowdfunding also encourage funders to contribute very small amounts of money, typically less than $25, without expectation of a return -- except for the knowledge of having contributed to a worthy cause. Donors often receive a thank you in a program or liner notes. Traditional charities usually request donations to support their overall mission, and then decide for themselves how to allocate the funds. Crowdfunding portals can raise funds for individual projects, meaning donors can give to the project of their choice. This market may be worth more than $500 million in 2013. Venture capital, which gets the most media attention, is actually the smallest category. Traditionally, early stage startup companies are initially funded from credit cards and savings, and then reach out to friends and family. This usually covers the first $250,000. Beyond that point startups look for money from individuals (angels) or established venture capitalists, with the first seed round raising perhaps $500,000. Expected changes in North American securities regulation could make it possible for companies to raise money via a crowdfunding portal62b, with contributors receiving an equity stake in the company. This category is the wild card for 2013. It could raise more than a billion dollars if the rules change, but less than $50 million if they don’t. Crowdfunding generally involves small contributions at the individual level. Although the top pledge packages can be more than $10,000, on average the individual contribution is likely less than a thousand dollars in almost every category3. The funds raised for a particular project or investment tend to be in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, although on rare occasions they can be in the millions. For example, on one of the better known crowdfunded reward sites only 17 projects raised more than a million dollars and only two raised more than $ five million4. Still, across tens of thousands of projects and investments, the total funding can really add up. In the past five years, the 30 largest lending portals raised more than $1.5 billion5. The largest reward platforms collected nearly half a billion dollars cumulatively. Donation sites raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Venture capital portals raised just tens of millions of dollars, but that number is expected to rise dramatically in the near future6. In aggregate, crowdfunding portals are already a multi-billion dollar industry, growing at more than 50 percent a year. That being said, the $3 billion that crowdfunding is expected to raise in 2013 remains small compared to comparable funding mechanisms. Traditional venture capital raises about $40 billion annually7; charitable giving was almost $300 billion in the United States alone in 20118, and the pay day loan market in the United States was worth more than $50 billion in 20089. In each category, crowdfunding is growing much faster than traditional sources of funding, but still represents less than one percent of the total. Given crowdfunding’s impressive growth rate, it is worth looking at some illustrative examples. The reward-based market is expected to have the greatest impact on technology and media developers. In May 2012 a company sought $100,000 via a popular reward-based portal to make 1,000 programmable watches, but ended up collecting $10.3 million from 68,929 people – an average of $150 per investor10. Most reward-based projects have tended to be for consumer products such as watches, smartphone accessories or games. In one recent survey, seven of the top ten products fell into these categories11. But there are many exceptions. Some non-consumer technologies, such as multiple-core chip architectures, also use the platform12. Equity-based crowdfunding is often discussed as an alternative to VC for small to mid-size firms. Growth is accelerating as new platforms are launched, investor interest rises and regulatory constraints are reduced. In the United Kingdom, there are several platforms that provide equity-based financing for startups and growth capital13. In the US, a large crowdfunding portal raised $15 million in venture capital to pursue expansion into equity crowdfunding14. In Canada, an alternative stock exchange has publicly stated its support for crowdfunding15 and a provincial government is contemplating an exemption to the accredited investor rule for crowdfunding sites16. Despite these advances, and even if VC portals become larger due to beneficial regulatory changes, they may still only capture a small share of the VC market. Startup companies value the intangible contributions such as knowledge and networks that an experienced VC provides. Also, regulations protecting casual (non-accredited) investors may remain in place for many jurisdictions. Finally, investor enthusiasm may be dampened once crowd investors experience their first ‘burn’. Crowdfunding will more likely have a role in complementing traditional VC, generating additional capital at the ’friends and family’ stage of funding that generally precedes VC involvement. Indeed, crowdfunding could benefit the ‘A round’ market (where startup companies usually first try to access institutional money; typically for one to three million dollars) by helping more start-ups establish proof of concepts and secure their first paying customers. Further it could enable VCs to skip the riskier and more laborious early stage investing that many would rather avoid. In a recent survey, seed financing from VCs was down almost 50 percent year-over-year17, indicating that there may be a funding gap for crowdfunding to fill. Crowdfunding also brings the potential for more democratic or broader access to capital for startups and innovators without personal connections to capital. The Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act in the United States has added to the excitement surrounding equity-based crowdfunding by requiring that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) consider the creation of new classes of investors who could participate in venture-like financing, in addition to the existing ‘accredited investor’ class. The SEC could decide to significantly loosen the rules, which would likely attract billions of dollars. However, there are many concerns about investor protection, disclosure and the potential for fraud77. If regulators don’t alter the rules in a meaningful way, or if they add new barriers, the equity crowdfunding market is likely to remain small. It is unclear at the time of writing what the outcome of the SEC process will be, or even when a decision will be made: it was supposed to be by January 2013, but by mid-December there were media stories suggesting that deadline will not be met18. Bottom Line: If regulations around equity crowdfunding are relaxed, there are likely to be increased risks -- and not just for investors. While crowdfunding may open the floodgates, capital will largely flow to inexperienced inventors and project managers. Crowdfunded projects have a history of unanticipated delays as inexperienced teams struggle with project deadlines and manufacturing details19. Some research suggests that crowdfunded opportunities are a bigger risk than traditional IPOs, and that the potential for the average investor to misunderstand or misinterpret the promises of an early-stage startup are higher than for an experienced accredited investor20. There are also risks for those who participate in reward-based projects. The time elapsed between contributing money and receiving the reward or product may not be very long, but it is longer than scooping a similar item off the shelf of a retail store, and during those few weeks or months the funded product may become obsolete, as happened for some iPhone-related projects when Apple switched to a new kind of connector21. In the computer gaming industry, crowdfunding portals could be an important source of funding –primarily for smaller titles that need millions of dollars, not hundreds of millions22. But given the uncertain nature of the creative process, many game projects never get finished, take longer than expected or need more money. Crowdfunders are unlikely to be happy with any of those outcomes23. 1 Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited estimates based on existing knowledge, conversations with industry players and published industry estimates 2 Source: Crowdfunding Platforms Raise $1.5 Billion and Successfully Fund One Million Campaigns in 2011, Finds Research Firm Massolution, Market Wire, 8 May 2012. See: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/crowdfnding-platforms-raise-15-billion-successfully-fund-one-million-campaigns-2011-1654020.htm 3 Based on Deloitte Canada review of multiple crowdfunding portals. 462b Source: Information Regarding the Use of the Crowdfunding Exemption in the JOBS Act, see: http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/jobsact/crowdfundingexemption.htm The gaming category was responsible for nine of the 17 million dollar plus raises.Source: The most funded projects in Kickstarter history, Kickstarter, 28 November 2012. See:http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/most-funded?ref=sidebar. 5 Deloitte Canada analysis of publicly disclosed crowdfunding portals. The amounts we cite are likely to be lower bounds. 6 Deloitte Canada analysis of publicly disclosed crowdfunding portals. 7 Source: Global Venture Capital Volume Up in Q1, Deal Number Down, Science Business, 4 May 2011. See:http://sciencebusiness.technewslit.com/?p=4150 8 Source: Giving Statistics, Charity Navigator, 2012. See: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=42 9 Driehaus, B. (2008, September 7). Some states set caps to control payday loans. New York Times, p. A18. 10 Source: Some States Set Caps to Control Payday Loans, The New York Times, 6 September 2008. See:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/us/07payday.html?_r=0 11 Source: Crowdfunding video games, The Economist, 8 September 2012. See:http://www.economist.com/node/21562213 12 Source: Spurned by VCs, a ship startup turns to Kickstarter, GigaOM, 27 September 2012. See:http://gigaom.com/cloud/spurned-by-vcs-a-chip-startup-turns-to-kickstarter/ 13 Source: Raising business finance through online investments, Crowdcube, 2012. See:www.crowdcube.com 14 Source: Indiegogo Raises $15 Million Series A To Make Crowdfunding Go Mainstream, TechCrunch, 6 June 2012. See: http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/06/indiegogo-funding-15-million-crowdfunding/ 15 Source: Trading Summary, Alpha Trading Systems, 2012. See: http://www.alphatradingsystems.ca/ 16 In the United States, securities regulation is principally a matter of federal jurisdiction under the SEC. In Canada it is under provincial control, through various Securities Commissions. Source: Ontario examines ways to loosen crowdfunding rules, The Globe and Mail, 29 November 2012. See: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-money/business-funding/ontario-examines-ways-to-loosen-crowdfunding-rules/article5781219/ 17 Source: Where’s the Venture Capital?, Chief Executive Group, 11 July 2012. See:http://chiefexecutive.net/wheres-the-venture 18 Source: Small Businesses Await Crowdfunding Rules, The Wall Street Journal, 12 December 2012. See;http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324339204578173731988591450.html?mod=WSJ_SmallBusiness_LEADNewsCollection&mg=reno64-wsj&utm_source=buffer&buffer_share=a7755 19 Source: Crowd-funding dark side: Sometimes investments go down drain, USA Today, 14 August 2012. See:http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/markets/story/2012-08-14/crowd-funding-raising-money/57058678/1 20Source: Crowd-funding dark side: Sometimes investments go down drain, USA Today, 14 August 2012. See:http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/story/2012-08-14/crowd-funding-raising-money/57058678/1 21 Source: Kickstarter’s Obsolescence Problem, Illustrated By A Fantastic iPhone Cable I’ll Never Use, TechCrunch, 26 September 2012. See: http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/26/kickstarters-obsolescence-problem-illustrated-by-a-fantastic-iphone-cable-ill-never-use/ 22 Source: Video game raises $4 million through crowdfunding, EtonDigital, 18 October 2012. See: http://www.etondigital.com/video-game-raises-4-million-through-crowdfunding/ 23 Source: Crowdfunding’ should be a red flag’ to backers, Develop, 3 October 2012. See:http://www.develop-online.net/news/42140/Crowdfunding-should-be-a-red-flag-to-contributors |
Crowdfunding Industry On Fire: Trends to Watch
![]() Image credit: Shutterstock The crowdfunding industry is already growing rapidly, and as that growth accelerates, several crowdfunding niches are expected to really take off. Last year, 308 crowdfunding platforms across the world raised $2.7 billion, an 81 percent increase over the amount raised in 2011, according to the annual report released today from the Los Angeles based research firm, Massolution. The growth in 2012 represents an acceleration, up from 64 percent growth in 2011. Looking ahead, growth is expected to reach $5.1 billion raised in 2013, representing an expected 89 percent increase in the dollars raised, the report predicts. While this data is global, crowdfunding is centered in North America and Europe. More than half of the funding raised last year, $1.6 billion, came from North America and $945 million was raised in Europe, the report says. Related: JOBS Act, One Year Later: Hang Tight, Equity Crowdfunding Is Coming As it exists, the majority of money raised with crowdfunding is still on donation or reward-based platforms, where an entrepreneur or artist raises small sums from a large group of people in exchange for a product sample or experience. Of the $2.7 billion raised in 2012, $1.4 billion was on these platforms, made popular by brands such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Lending-based crowdfunding, where campaign leaders have to repay their investors, equaled $1.2 billion. Equity-based crowdfunding, where investors receive a share of the company in exchange for funds, was the smallest sector the market in 2012, totaling only $116 million. Startups in the U.S. are able to crowdfund from accredited investors. Also, in a handful of countries, like the United Kingdom, equity-based crowdfunding is already legal. In coming years, the distribution of funds raised from donation-based, lending-based and equity-based crowdfunding is likely to shift. Related: Crowd-funding Platform Connects Entrepreneurs With Consumer-Product Giants Part of what is expected to drive acceleration in the U.S. is the implementation of the forthcoming Securities and Exchange rules for allowing U.S. entrepreneurs to raise money by selling equity in their company more easily to non-accredited investors. Crowdfunding is in its infancy. Here’s a look at three trends expected to emerge. 1. More groups use crowdfunding to support innovation challenges to solve complex, social problems. Communities will increasingly come together to raise a pot of money to award to an entrepreneur that solves a problem, says Chance Barnett, the co-founder of Crowdfunder, a Venice, Calif.-based crowdfunding platform. “That might be solving poverty in an area, it might be building a mobile solution for people in developing countries who don’t have the ability to do accounting in a very basic level,” Barnett says. “We will see a lot of innovation come out because of crowdfunding because people are willing to put dollars up to solve big problems.” Related: Raising Money Through Crowdfunding? Consider These Best Practices for Success 2. Increased popularity of local, crowdfunding communities. Amateur investors often prefer to meet the entrepreneur they are backing face-to-face, says Barnett. That’s the idea behind his newest venture, CROWDFUNDx, which launched last week. It’s an online network that brings together leadership boards in 11 cities across the U.S. and in 12 cities in Mexico to run 120-day startup challenges culminating in a pitch contest. The local community then funds the winner through crowdfunding. 3. Women entrepreneurs stand to raise more investment dollars. Women get 5 percent of all investment capital, says Barnett, but they will have increased access to funding with crowdfunding. “Not only are women more active on social media, they are often more collaborative when they do invest, so it is going to be a really interesting space and it is going to be the perfect place for women to gain a lot of traction,” Barnett says. Posted From ; http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226302 |
What Entrepreneurs Need To Know About Equity Crowdfunding and its Expected Growth
Drake: How do you feel about the progress the crowdfunding for equity portion of the JOBS Act has taken to date and where are the three industry areas for this new regulation? Barnett: When I sat down with you at the SEC April 20 to our pleasure and surprise both leadership and the staff expressed their sincere desire and interest to meet the staggered rulings throughout the 270 days timeline.Unfortunately the big boss was not present. While key staffers have worked diligently on crowd funding they have also drafted proposals for commenting on regulation D 506 c which removes the general solicitation ban. Neither of those rulings are making the deadline the SEC had. In an ideal world Walters Chair of SEC would accelerate the ruling on these underlying JOBS Act bills. What could you ask readers to do to accelerate implementation of the rules? Reach out to your congressmen and ask how they care for job creation, capital access for small business owners by writing the SEC. How is Reg D 506 important to you? Give us your secret sauce. The truth is crowdfunding for equity won’t be around till 2014. Accredited investors are the only game in town for security transactions. We are now getting our hunting gear ready. The more public message is that this is a more crowd funding like environment prior to ruling on the SEC rules where we circulate offerings to accredited investors. Accredited investors are the best “trial group” to solicit as FINRA and SEC would agree. Guess at a date by which crowd fund equity will be legal in the U.S.? January 30, 2014 Who should pay attention to companies like CrowdFunder? People interested in this newly forming capital market for early stage investments. While these investments might carry significant risk, not unfamiliar to traders, but along with that comes potential for large returns for successes. At CrowdFunder we are serving three name areas: small businesses, social enterprises and technology startups. What’s going to be the total cost for issuers to do crowdfunding for equity before a campaign launches when it is legal? Gaining to raise any investment round can be costly. Raising investment in crowdfunding will include legal background checks, external accounting reviews and any cost associated with your legal agreements. For less than $500,000 would cost up front $12,500. For above $500,000 raises would cost an additional $25,000 in audits if you have a history of revenue. How can large companies get involved in Crowdfunding? Strong brands with large communities and strong following have a huge opportunity to use crowdfunding to use it as a marketing vehicle for their products and services. Crowdfunding offers unique and innovative ways to make people more closely aligned with the brand. What are else would you advise an issuer on crowdfunding for equity to be cognizant of? Work with a crowdfunding platform that will protect your proprietary information. CrowdFunder does that by having a private layer to your deals and documents and requiring that each investor has a personal profile connected to their social networks and proof to accredit investor profile. This way you can accept or reject potential investors. How many investors do you have now and how many are foreign investors? 12,000 and 10% foreign. What are the fears and pitfalls of crowdfunding for equity? How big an industry will this be in 2014? $10.5 billion How will broker dealers and angels be affected by this law and how can they best leverage it? Broker dealers will be the sole security participants and beneficiaries of the crowd funding legislation of 2014. Angel investors will have new and unique opportunities on platforms like CrowdFunder to have access to deal flow they would have never had otherwise. Posted From ; http://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2013/02/28/what-entrepreneurs-need-to-know-about-equity-crowdfunding/ |
Crowdfunding Will Make 2013 The Year Of The Gold Rush
While 2012 was an amazing year for crowdfunding, 2013 should outdo it. Here are my half dozen predictions for the year – and why this new form of capital formation will continue to soar. 1. The Global Crowdfunding will double in annual revenue to $6 billion in 2013 Crowdfunding was exploding quietly in 2012 for the non-believers and loudly for the embracers between March 8, 2012 and President’s Obama signing of the JOBS Act into law on April 5, 2012. Some of the largest sites in the world for rewards and donations – Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Grow VC and Rockethub – saw their daily traffic and donation amounts double within a few months. Kickstarter has had its issuers raise a cumulative $200+ million in sales 2008-2011 to reach an addition $145+ million to a total of $345+ million by year end 2012. To give you an example, LendingClub reached $75+ million per month in debt lending as a crowd funding platform in November 2012. It is the largest U.S. peer-to-peer lender and will hit an additional $1 billion in loans 2013 vis-a-vis the cumulative $1 billion it lent since inception 2007. The global predictions in 2013 for the debt crowdfunding industry are strong. LendingClub will add almost $1 billion in 2013 to the total of $3 billion reached in 2012. There are 34 additional debt crowdfunding firms growing globally, including Zopa ($400 million since inception) and Prosper ($250 million). The balance of the $1.25 billion will come from donations and rewards-based crowdfunding, which will provide the bulk of growth in 2013 and 2014. 2. The EU will embrace crowdfunding laws Led by the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, the EU Commission will have a couple more workshops Q1-3 2013 and create a proposal towards making crowdfunding for equity a legal option by Q4 2013. It will take EU 1,000 days to make such a law legal from the day a proposal is created. My prediction is that the EU is lethargic in pan-European law implementations. 3. Crowdfunding platforms will turn into a commodity The 700+ crowd funding sites today will increase to 1,500 by Q2 2013 and quietly contract under the hood to 200 well-financed and revenue-generating sites by Q1 2014. Sites like Crowd Valley with 300 plus private label crowd funding platforms offered free to organizations will start charging for these services. These private label extensions will lead to the growth of more community sites using crowd funding but the back end technology will be run by a few dozen leading platforms. In parallel we will see 1,000 more sites using crowd funding with free API technology from firms like CrowdTilt which allows any site to start group charging and collecting money from several projects and thousands of donors. 4. M&A will not fuel Crowd Funding in 2013, but international expansion will Crowdfunding firms are poorly funded, with few assets to be purchased. The lack of standardized valuations for crowdfunding sites makes 2013 a year where we see growth but M&A will mature to grow fastest in 2014. M&A in 2013 will probably kick up little dust, just as it failed to do in 2012. We have seen some acquisitions but those are more of acquiring the liabilities of running sites and spending more money to drive traffic. Crowdfunding platform assets will not mature in 2013. Crowdfunding has one inherent challenge – a bottomless pit cost requirement to drive traffic to your site. Nextyear will see a the gold rush: International expansion firms will grab market share and organically grow with innovation being the discernible advantage. Kickstarter launches in the UK, Indiegogo is already in Germany and several other countries. We will see more international expansion by US companies in the field. Meanwhile, more leading international firms, like Crowd Valley and Give2Gether, will push into the US, while Kickstarter and Indiegogo get as much as 30% of their revenue from abroad. 5. Broker-dealers will lead the “Rich Man’s Crowd Funding” strategy The smallest broker dealers will consist of crowdfunding for equity players licensed with FINRA that use “Rich Man’s Crowd Funding.” What’s that? Currently you raise private capital mainly through SEC exemptions. Most common is Regulation D, 506 which allows you to have only 35 non-accredited investors and an unlimited amount of “rich people” allowed to invest. To be accredited you have to have earned $200,000 ($300k for married couples) the last 2 years or have a net worth over $1 million (and you must exclude the value of your home). Reg D, 506 as we call it, stood for $900 Billion in capital raised in 2011. The large distribution online promised by crowd funding technology will empower broker dealers to differentiate and use the crowdfunding as a tool for their clients. It was presented to the National Investment Banker Association Spring 2012 and today we have seen recent movements of SoMoLend and CrowdFunder, which signed up with the leading broker dealer Gate Technology whose back end crowd funding platform is run by visionary CEO Vince Molinari. We will see the two to three dozen crowdfunding-for-equity pure plays partner up with broker dealers in Q1 2013 and start pursuing SEC broker-dealer transactions under the Rich Man’s Crowd Funding option, as everyone waits for crowdfunding to become legal. We predict Crowd Funding for Equities will not become a legal SEC / FINRA regulated program in 2013 but rather by January 2014 because of the byzantine processes required for the SEC and FINRA to interpret the JOBS Act and implement the law. See Obama’s 10 Steps with SEC & FINRA to Legalize US Equity Crowd Funding. 6. By July we will see issuers raise $1 million in capital per week By year end we will see a total of 104 startups in 2013 having raised a minimum $1 million through crowd funding in 2013. Crowdfunding will be a generally accepted tool to raise capital and the general public explosion will come in 2014 when corporate America officially embraces it. Posted From ; http://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2012/12/27/crowdfunding-will-make-2013-the-year-of-the-gold-rush/ |
How to Start a CrowdFunding Consulting Business
Do you want to learn how to put your expertise and talents to work for you as a CrowdFunding Consultant? As industries go, the CrowdFunding industry is still in its infancy - it's a toddler if you will. Crowdfunding as it stands is full of momentum, in constant motion, filled with unlimited potential, and growing more each day. But Crowdfunding is not so new that it hasn't already spurred the creation of the Crowdfunding Consultant. The CrowdFunding Consultant as a career track as found a foothold with the need for alternate sources of financing for entrepreneurship, small businesses and innovation alike - and there are no signs of this new trend losing steam. A CrowdFunding consultant's job is to consult. Nothing more, nothing less. It's that simple. What separates one CrowdFunding Consultant from being more successful than another is the knowledge, experience, and passion they bring to the table. More people are getting into CrowdFunding consulting field because technology has made it easier to do so. The same technology that has caused less need for labor can also help you be successful as a consultant.
"The CrowdFunding industry is growing. You can either be someone who knows all about it or someone on the outside looking in and wondering if you missed your opportunity of the century."
CROWDFUNDING CONSULTING The reality is like most industries with a product to sell, crowdfunding campaigns (when done well) can be challenging to successfully accomplish without proper planning and a diverse skill set by the person or team launching the crowdfunding campaign. Creative types, who tend to be the predominate users of this new source of capital, are often lacking on the communication, marketing and business end of crowdfunding. Approximately 75% of crowdfunding campaigns currently do not meet their funding goal. Take a look at popular platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, and you will find many projects with seemingly great potential that did not achieve their target goal. More often than not, the reason they fail to achieve their goal is a solid plan, lack of campaign preparation and insufficient knowledge about the proper steps and tasks necessary to create the best environment for success. The question at hand for anyone looking to become a CrowdFunding Consultant is, “how can I become a CrowdFunding Consultant who will give my clients the best chance of crowdfunding success and what do I need to do be that person?” First, you must accept that in this profession one person alone cannot effectively accomplish all the necessary tasks. There is no "one-size-fits-all consultant". Crowdfunding is an industry that encapsulates many different delivery segments. For instance, graphic designers can be experts in art, web designers can be good at creating attractive web pages, writers can be good at developingcontent for web and press releases, innovators can be immersed in inventions, attorneys are learned in legal matters, videographerscan make appealing videos, marketing/advertising experts can be good at displaying a product and social media experts can be good at disseminating information about a product. Each one has their specific skill set. Some may have more than one skill but will likely be lacking in others. Because of the crowdfunding wave, many individuals from various backgrounds of expertise are advertising services about how they can get campaigns to their goal. Attorney’s want to file your paperwork, graphic designers want to build you a website, writers want to create catchy content and press releases, actors want to be in your presentation video, and even those in between careers are saying they can get it done for you. In fact, over 100,000 domain names referencing the “crowd” in one way or another have been purchased by those looking to take advantage of this growing industry. Some key sales pitches include: search engine optimization, creatingattractive websites and videos, press releases and utilizing social media. Those are key tools, but in themselves are just tools, orrather tasks, that need to be part of your overall campaign strategy. Having a team or network of proven experts in various avenues readily available will make the difference between delivering to your client a campaign that is lacking or one that has the parts to succeed. Our Belief: We believe that what senior-level executives , sales and marketing (CMO, CIO, CTO, COO, CFO, President, VP, EVP and Director-level executives) crave most is know-how, and that once they have it, this knowledge is what they apply to be successful every day. We believe that with the right know-how and the new CrowdFunding Trend — and the right "know who" — you can make any opportunity happen. Being in the right place, right time and collaborating with right tools. Crowdfunding is human will expressed in pure form. A person with a vision becomes a dream funded on a mission. It is the explosive combination of democracy and free market capitalism. It’s democracy and capitalism in action: think you have a great idea? Convince enough people and you can make it a reality. If not, back to the drawing board. It allows new ideas to get funded and to be free market tested at a lower cost, with less complexity, in less time than ever before. Experimentation has now become possible for millions that were previously excluded from having any chance for their idea to be tried. We are confident that this simple breakthrough socio-economic tool is about to herald in mankind’s greatest era. CROWDFUNDING MENTORS Be a part of www.crowdfundingmentors.com and you can become a part of the growing network of crowdfunding experts. By beinga member of CrowdFunding Mentors you can:
By being part of crowdfundingmentors.com, you will no longer be left in a situation of "not knowing" who to turn to. You will no longer feel alone and left wondering how to reach clients. CrowdFunding Mentors provides its members with the opportunity to shape the crowdfunding industry, learn the details of the marketplace from peers, stay informed, stay ahead, and the advantage of working as a global team. Second, being a successful crowdfunding consultant means having the knowledge to properly work with your clients. Yes, the internet is full of information. But do you have the time to read through countless pages about Crowdfunding? Do you have the ability to do proper in-depth searches to find information relevant to yourself and for your clients? Most important, are you able to differentiatecrowdfunding facts from opinions? Wouldn't it be nice if there was one location where you would be able to learn real and relevantcrowdfunding information that you can use on day one as a CrowdFunding Consultant? The great news is there is, www.crowdfundingframeworks.com
CROWDFUNDING FRAMEWORKS CrowdfundingFrameworks.com is a comprehensive Crowdfunding E-Learning System. By learning this system a Crowdfunding Consultant will be able truly answer the quesitions: 1. "What do I need to know and what do I need to do to give my clients the best chance of crowdfunding success?" 2. "How do I help my clients reach, engage, and convince the crowd to financially support their project? This E-learning system is the culmination of over 4,000+ man hours and $350,000 of capital used in research, program development, campaign testing, and input from experts in the fields of crowdfunding, marketing/advertising, social media, intellectual property, branding, publicity, product development, and technology. Even if you are not an expert in all these fields, to be effective as aCrowdFunding Consultant, you must have working knowledge of all of them. The sytem includes access to In your goal to become a CrowdFunding Consultant, the Top 5 things you will learn how to:
IS CROWDFUNDING CONSULTING RIGHT FOR YOU? Because CrowdFunding is still in it's infancy - being in the "know" will mean the difference between having a competitive edge when carving out your niche as a CrowdFunding Consultant. CrowdFunding takes work from yourself and your clients. The good news is that you can learn it, you can master it and you can achieve the ability to earn unlimited income from it. If you are comfortable working around computers, working with people, and like to keep up with the latest relevant news and information a variety or specific topics, than being a CrowdFunding Consultant can be right for you. Regardless of your background, skill-set and expertise, you can learn the crowdfunding frameworks system and be on your way to joining this growing industry. CROWDFUNDING CONSULTING ADVICE 1. Understand there is no "one-size-fits-all" consultant. You have monetizable value and you have your skill-set and expertise. But you would be doing yourself and your clients a disservice by trying to be a "jack of all trades". Clients understand that one person can't do it all. The current crowdfunding failure rate is strong evidence to that fact. Your job as a consultant is to provide positive service to your clients. There are only a finite number of hours in a day. It's better to pass along tasks that others can do more efficiently and reap greater rewards, than to attempt to do it all. However, in order to sustain yourself financially, you must be able to handle multiple clients. 2. Create an airtight contract with your client and third-parties stating specific responsibilities. Crowdfunding campaign's have many steps and tasks that need to be managed, from campaign planning, pre-launch, launch, rewards delivery, post-launch and other tasks to simultaneously coordinate. Without explicit task assignments, details will be missed and tasks will not get done. Then, who's to blame if the campaign fails? 3. Stay Engaged. Yes, 80% of a crowdfunding campaign consist of the planning and execution of tasks prior to campaign launch. Once the campaign launches, the gears switch to campaign maintenance and momentum accelerator tasks. Regardless, when you are hired as a Crowdfunding Consultant, your client needs to feel your passion for their campaign throughout the entire campaign. Be prepared and have contingency plans in place to overcome potential challenges. 4. Success should not be guaranteed. This seems obvious. But unlike a physical trainer or a nutritionist, who can predict success if you follow their strategy, crowdfunding offers no such magic eight-ball. Even if you do everything right, you and your client are not the crowd and the crowd is the final determining factor. 5. Associate yourself with respected industry memberships. Like any industry, crowdfunding consultants need to validate their expertise. Membership organizations, such as crowdfundingmentors.com, serve this function. 6. To get you must first give. To get the word out about your consulting service, nothing beats words of mouth from those clients who you have served well. It may take offering your services at reduced prices or even doing some pro-bono. However, you will not only receive leads for more clients based on your hard work and effort; you will receive the recommendations and testimonials that letsothers know you can be trusted. "The CrowdFunding industry is growing. You can either be someone who knows all about it or someone on the outside looking in and wondering if you missed your opportunity of the century." You're on the Right Track. Get access now! Shift your career and business life forward today. Get to more jobs, more recruiters and more opportunities throughCrowdFunding. |
What Does CrowdFunding Do?
By: Sam Hogg, Entrepreneur
The JOBS Act, signed by President Obama earlier this year, will dramatically change the nature of early-stage funding. (Read more: What Does the JOBS Act Do?) With buzz from fundraising websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, equity crowdfunding is a welcome player. Under the new legislation, the typically small round of capital (in terms of dollar amount and number of participants) that flies under the regulatory radar for most startups has been expanded to $1 million annually, with similarly limited oversight from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Why does this round of capital, which I call "friends, family and fools," exist? Because early-stage money is essential to entrepreneurs armed with only an idea, their good name and their work ethic. When those are the only assets in your arsenal, you aren't much of a hot commodity to professional investors. Who better to fill that round of good-faith capital than the people who know you—the friends, family and (occasional) fool? (Read more: Why Young Workers Prefer Start-Ups) These folks can invest nominal sums in your company with little to no oversight or regulation. Until now, other investors had to be accredited through a process that ensures they have at least some limited knowledge of risk as well as the ability to afford the potential losses. They have to disclose things like annual income and asset levels to the SEC. Enabling funding portals The new legislation will make this formal disclosure all but disappear in the early stages of company formation, enabling entrepreneurs to sell up to $1 million worth of equity to the general public through accredited crowdfunding platforms. That makes everyone a "friend," and, in true web 2.0 style, enables funding portals where these friends can come together and make real investments in real companies. It used to be that you had only so many family members and a relatively limited network of friends. This legislation expands the number of prospective investors in your funding pool. The long-term viability of crowdfunding will be contingent upon the ability to link these two parties and manage the investment process. Many experts are skeptical as to whether proper auditing, reporting and legal diligence can be accomplished in companies that are by definition completely broke, but the crowdfunding sites are laser-focused on providing that level of disclosure and transparency to the masses. Whether crowdfunding will displace the "rich uncle" category of investor remains to be seen. One thing is certain, though: Traditional early-stage funding mechanisms will now have some competition. That's good for entrepreneurs. Equity crowdfunding has essentially created a new era, that of the recreational venture capitalist. No matter what side of the deal table you are on, ignoring the impacts of this phenomenon would be just plain foolish. |