The world of business is a place full of good choices and bad choices, successes and failures, and most often, risks. Being an entrepreneur can be an area of business that encounters it’s fair amount of successes and failures, but can thrive on calculated risk-taking. So, if you’re an entrepreneur looking for a) funding and b) the best way to encounter your first risk that could lead to a success or a failure, allow me introduce you to Kickstarter.
Kickstarter is a website dedicated to projects looking for audience related funding, instead of major investors. Essentially, Kickstarter projects are crowd-funded on an all or nothing basis, meaning you have a timeline set and if you don’t reach that your goal by the end of the timeline, you receive none of the money pledged to your project. People who begin a project on Kickstarter must follow a specific set of guidelines but, and this is a huge draw, Kickstarter will not assume any creative rights on the project. In other words, if you meet your goal, Kickstarter allows you all of the funds pledged to you as well as your creativity.
Entrepreneurs and do-it-yourselfers alike have been flocking to the campaign in hopes of getting their projects off the ground. Since it’s inception in 2009, Kickstarter has successfully helped for fund 42, 286 projects and amassed a total of 637 million dollars for projects. This has allowed Kickstarter to have a 43.96 per cent success rate, and please plenty of risk taking entrepreneurs.
Bonuses for people supporting these projects are “backer rewards” or perks that people get when they pledge money to the project. These rewards can be the extra oomph some people need to pledge money, because it makes the transaction less like a donation and more like an investment.
Now, just because you may not have heard of Kickstarter, don’t be surprised if you’ve heard about some Kickstarter funded projects. Kickstarter supports artists, filmmaker, authors, illustrators, inventors, and scientists, to name a few. In the past two years, Kickstarter helped fund 10% of the films shown at Sundance, launched the app Dark Sky that helps predict weather patterns, fund the extremely popular board game Cards Against Humanity, publish multiple books and graphic novels (notably reMind by Jason Brubaker, Hatter M by Frank Beddor and The Future of You! Creating Your Enduring Brand by Roz Usheroff), as well as fund two major motion pictures for the upcoming year (the Veronica Mars movie and Zach Braff’s sequel to Garden State.)
In the wake of the virtual world taking over, Kickstarter is another way to use the Internet to your best advantage. It’s not only beneficial to helping people create and build their businesses, but it also provides an amazing network of support. It could be the best risk you’ll ever take. Kickstarter is one of the better ways to step into the virtual world of business with a wide door for expansion.
© Zoe Begopoulos, DemGen Inc. 2013
