Crowdfunding Non-Creative Ventures: Your Options

The ballooning capacity of the internet has established couch-side seats for almost any functional platform, ranging from online entertainment portals to remote contracting. The most recent living room pastime is crowdfunding, which offers gold-rush-financing to entrepreneurs with big ideas and small wallets.

Whilst the fact that funding for micro-ventures can be unearthed from the cosiness of a living room is an advantage, the trend’s growth has been too astronomical to be explained away merely because it is accessible.

In its original form, crowdfunding provided a leg up to creative and tech-based business start-ups, largely because such ventures attracted the imaginations of potential financiers. Appbackr and Quirky retain crowdfunding’s initial focus but the overarching industry’s climate has changed, clearing room for hot ventures that lack creative and innovative scope.

Late in 2012, investment analysts had grand predictions for online crowdfunding portals. By June 2013, many of these projections were satisfied.

Equity crowdfunding enjoyed particular success, whilst differentiation became the core way to maintain industry relevance: a task that Kickstarter demonstrated with aplomb. Some sites, including Indiegogo, have managed to sustain a more general portal but such examples have succeeded because of their sheer size and widening client base.

For smaller portals, the sole way to be noticed is through specialisation. In all cases, those who can prove past successes within their market will attract more interest than those who cannot.

Venture capitalists are presented with a vast array of choices and in today’s flooded market, reputation has replaced innovation as the guiding factor that attracts donors. Those with generic ideas target their financing more easily through niche crowdfunding sites that have prepared the stage by attracting a core concentration of interested investors.

Crowdfunding’€™s best practices can no longer be separated from internet references, with online portals now dominating the sector entirely. This has, within a short time-frame, altered industry behaviour through the 60 percent growth margin that is proliferating this field.

Rather than being relegated to the simple tasks of attracting interest and creating communications portals, the industry is now constructed to improve the flow of deals, enhance the pitching process and attract traffic. For similar reasons, crowdfunding sites offer a complete toolbox for beginners.

It is worthwhile to seek out sites that offer the cogent tutorials and community interactivity of Lending Club and Crowd Funder, but the transparency of portals is as valuable as it is rare. Sites which encourage updates, problems and status reports keep investors secure and entrepreneurs honest.

Some who have been keeping a cautious eye on the crowdfunding industry’s behaviour expect to see the crammed market whittle itself down to fewer, more targeted sites in the near future. Currently, those using this model are presented with a market that has already been segregated according to investment size and type.

Portal selections should be based on the site’s typical share or equity size and whether rewards and debt are offered. These are factors that help the crowdfunding platform to target specific industries, business sizes and phases of development. One of the most beneficial elements of such models is that they establish a network of experienced individuals who may offer advice, publicity and support.

The crowdfunding model has shown itself to be remarkably compliant to its new digital personae, attracting financiers wishing to profit from personal interest whilst simultaneously offering those with a basic understanding of marketing principles to win finance from both public and private accredited investors. The fact that private companies can now legally sell shares has only increased the ground covered by this concept.