Having a great idea but not having the ability or opportunity to bring it to fruition can be frustrating. It can be difficult to get funds or find investors who believe in your idea or vision enough to bank on you and invest in it. This is one of the reasons crowdfunding is changing the way people get their projects and businesses funded. From education to technology and even solar energy, a lot of projects have gotten their start thanks to crowdfunding sites. These are sites that help get projects funded with the help of the masses.
If you have a new business or project, crowdfunding is one of the best ways for you to get the funds you need from well-meaning people who connect with the project’s story and are willing to help. There are lots of crowdfunding sites out there, and each specializes in different aspects of crowdfunding. Choose a site that meshes well with your idea and interests.
Although the main goal of a crowdfunding campaign is gaining funding, it can also serve as a medium to validate your business, gain interested customers, and generate ideas. Through a successful crowdfunding campaign, you can find lots of people who are interested in your project and also convince new people to become interested. This builds a fan and customer base of people who will follow your project as it progresses.
Here are four benefits of crowdfunding.
It’s an efficient way to raise funds.
At this early stage of your business or project, you are faced with the difficulty of attracting seed capital, and you don’t mind exploring all the funding options available to you.
When you weigh your options, you may find that it is potentially more effective and efficient to start a crowdfunding campaign rather than pursuing other funding routes. For example, the procedure for applying for loans may be cumbersome, and then you would need to await approvals that you might not even get. The interest rates and terms of the loan if it is approved are also a major consideration. Seeking out investors and pitching your idea to them is a huge undertaking. By setting up a successful crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe or alternative platforms, you will be able to find and get your message out to people who are actually interested in your project. With the right platform for your project, you can tell the story of your business and enjoy the benefit of having potential funders find you. It’s more efficient than traditional fundraising.
It helps build interest, community spirit, and a customer base
A good crowdfunding campaign can enhance your visibility, validation, and trust. When your campaign is discovered and funded by interested people, it enhances interest and trust in your project, as other persons are likely to buy into your idea too. This demonstrates that potential customers believe in your idea or vision, and that’s a good thing.
It helps you gain loyal advocates
A crowdfunding campaign helps you gain potential brand advocates and early adopters. These are the (early) people who believe in your idea, project or story enough to take a chance and fund it. They share in your vision and could even help share your story on social networks to promote your project.
Opportunity for critique, scrutiny, and idea refinement
It also gives your ideas the opportunity to be scrutinized and vetted by would-be backers. One of the major interests of most startups is to identify important and unattended needs that customers have and do something about it. Thus, it is important to seize any opportunity for customer feedback by taking every criticism and suggestion in stride, then evaluating the feedback for relevance when developing your startup.
Crowdfunding campaigns help you get close to potential customers and give you the opportunity to answer questions, hear complaints, get feedback, and consider ideas from potential customers. This could even be where you get your next great idea!
In fact, crowdfunding brings with it many benefits, and it’s now a great way for people and startups to find capital, gain support, validate their business, and get exposure. Crowdfunding has made a lot of good things possible: it has helped unleash people’s creativity, saved lives by helping fund medical treatments for lots of people, and helped startups and projects get off to a good start.
Featured photo credit: Aurelie Coulon via nextrends.swissnexsanfrancisco.org
