Crowdfunding – Calling for change in people’s mindset

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” – Chinese Proverb

This statement is very cliché, but nevertheless highlights the key difference between giving charity and making someone self sufficient. Crowd-funding an idea in return for rewards is a brilliant way of making someone self sufficient. It is a new way of giving someone an opportunity to be self employed without asking for charity. There are many crowdfunding sites which are actually donation/charity platforms and are raising funds for different causes. But Crowdfunding is way more than just that. You ask for people’s support in exchange for some material rewards that you give in exchange. So there is no free lunch in crowdfunding!

It is easier for donation platforms to flourish because of the warm happy feeling a person gets by doing some philanthropic act, whether big or small. Giving in the form of charity gives immense boost to the feeling of goodness in us and people think, ‘I have helped someone’. However when some innovative or creative person seeks some financial support in exchange of rewards, people often doubt his intentions. People start gauging the value of the reward that they would be getting in exchange and many a times hesitate to take part in the crowdfunding effort. The first thought that might come to many is that, the project owner would disappear after raising the money. Some of the people we have met have gone to this extent of even thinking that the crowdfunding platform itself might disappear after raising the funds! Do we ever have such doubts about the intentions of the beneficiaries of our philanthropic act? We don’t right? Then why should we doubt the intentions of someone who is actually promising you something material, in exchange for your support? The crowdfunding platforms are established business units and not any fly by night conman. Shouldn’t we be getting the same warm happy feeling of helping someone in this case too?

Supporting someone’s creative and innovative idea helps in being a part of their creation and you actually help in generating employment and earnings in the economy. This is synonymous with teaching someone to fish and he would be creating something that could who knows make a major impact in society at large. Crowdfunding could be for either specific projects or for small businesses which have not got the traditional sources of bank loans and funding. It relies on the wisdom of the crowd to either support or rule out an idea.

Crowdfunding platforms run stringent checks in order to verify the authenticity of every project that would go live on their sites. They too have their reputation at stake on every project that goes on their site. So that should lay at rest the concern about the authenticity of the projects raising money. In most cases you would be actually supporting one of your friend’s or acquaintance’s project idea. So definitely you would know your friend better than us.

Crowdfunding is a revolution that would empower the citizens of the world to take the decision making role in their hands. The crowd decides which products and creative ventures they would want to hit the market and which they would not. Crowdfunding for the project owners is like test marketing your products before going into full scale production. If the crowd likes the idea, they would also support it and vice versa.

Every new idea always falls under the scrutiny of society. Every new thought or trend is always looked down upon at first. Does that mean we don’t change? No, we do change. We take the positive out of every change. So the good part of this skepticism is that every new step forward will be taken cautiously but it is important that we do take a step forward and change our mindset.

Crowd funding – the panacea for technology innovators in India

Most of us have grown up in India hearing facts about how Indian minds are the sharpest in the world and how most NASA scientists and Intel engineers are Indians. Does it really make us proud boasting about how an Indian has discovered something new in a foreign laboratory and commercialized it to success in that country? At the same time is it not a matter of shame that his Indian counterpart who is equally talented and had the same education and skill sets has invented something too that deserves world-wide acclaim but due to lack of funding his idea does not see the light of the day?

In India historically innovators have always faced the money crunch when it came to commercializing or bringing their ideas out from the laboratories to the market. There is hardly any government support and there is very little that their institutes and research centers can do by way of monetary support. Many such Tier-1 institutes in India like IIT and IISc have come up with incubator cells but they are not sufficient to support everyone’s idea. And we believe the innovative minds are not limited to just these few premier institutes.

How crowd-funding works for innovators

So are you an innovator? Did you get your last innovative idea patented? What next? Would you let your valuable hard work and intellectual property die a silent death? Commercialise it, raise funds for it and bring it to the masses… that’s where Funduzz.com comes in to be your partner in growth.

Globally Innovators, Engineers and Scientists have actively taken to crowd-funding to bring their ideas to the market. A secure mobile payment device, a gesture-based mouse that connects your television with your computer, a mobile telemedicine app for screening skin cancer, a satellite-linked webcam to monitor penguins in the Antarctic. These are just a few of the recent science and technology projects seeking financial support through the new wave known as crowd-funding. Crowd-funding is taking social networking a step forward. You not just ‘Like’ someone’s FB post or picture, nor do you just ‘Follow’ someone on Twitter or ‘Connect’ to someone on Linkedin. You support someone else’s creative and innovative imagination and become a part of the idea. By supporting an innovative project you are not just supporting him / her financially but also helping the society at large.

Research projects by PhD students in India hardly get any financial support apart from the petty stipend they are entitled to. How on earth can we expect the PhD students to make a living as well as save sufficient from this stipend to commercialize their project ideas?

How is Crowd-funding better than Venture Capital funding?

Crowd-funding is a better option than the traditional venture capital (VC) route, which has become riskier for inventors. VC investors are increasingly burdensome and short-term oriented. The typical VC Investors mindset is “if you don’t make your money fast, you’re not going to make it at all”. Crowdfunding offers a way to enable long-term innovation outside of that quick-buck, venture capital mentality. This will put us back on the cutting edge of the global innovation curve.

Crowd-funding helps innovators to connect to your market directly

Innovators and scientists are generally not the best when it comes to marketing their products. The advantage of raising funds on a Crowd-funding platform like www.funduzz.com is that you are actually connecting with your audience and target market and pre-selling the products to them. They are your brand ambassadors and would be spreading the word about your products to their circle of social network too thereby multiplying your marketing reach. You also get valuable feedback on your products from your supporters which could help you to tweak and improve your product before the final launch. Crowd-funding sites like www.funduzz.com also provide legal advice, social media marketing tips and guidance and also help on getting the necessary patents and licenses for your products.

Summary

Summarizing we believe that crowd-funding platforms like Funduzz.com would be filling the gap that has always been felt in India’s technological research and product development. Crowd-funding is here to stay and would be the next level of social networking which is a more evolved one. India would be embracing crowd-funding in the next 1-2 years just as it did social networking 1-2 yrs back. Calling upon all Innovators and Creative people to leverage this platform and realize their dreams.

Visit www.funduzz.com to know what a simple platform can do for you online!

Why do people support on Crowd funding sites?

With crowdfunding emerging as a new concept in Indian markets, there would be a common dilemma among the supporters and patrons…. Why do people pay to fulfill other people’s dreams? The question is very valid if you are looking at a society which is self centered and does not have any social connections or good faith in its citizens. Fortunately we people are anything but self centered. We know what goes around comes around.

Today if you are supporting your friend’s dream and helping him realize it, don’t you think tomorrow when you are in need for a similar funding for your dream, he would be the 1st one to back you?

There was a very relevant article in an American Publication on Crowdfunding, http://www.marketplace.org. A section of that article is reproduced below….

“…..There are more than 50 crowdfunding websites in the United States alone and they attract a lot of money from a lot of people. But why do people give on these sites and why do they support certain projects? Elizabeth Gerber, a professor at Northwestern University, has studied crowdfunding and says there are four primary reasons why people give:

1. Because of a reward system, people want acknowledgment.
2. Because they have a connection to one of the people seeking donations.
3. Because they want to be a part of something, be part of group
4. Because they want to support efforts analogous with their beliefs.

“We give a large part because of our identity and what we either vicariously want to experience or what we already value currently. So if you had this fantasy of becoming a movie producer, but you haven’t quite made it there — you’re going to give potentially to that initiative because you can feel like you’re part of it without actually having effectively done the work of it, if you will,” says Gerber. “What’s interesting about crowdfunding is that when you give money, you’re not just giving money and the exchange is over, the relationship lasts. So the content creator will keep you engaged in a way that you wouldn’t otherwise.”……….”

To summarise, its time we go beyond just connecting with friends and families on social media. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc are great places to connect but we at http://www.funduzz.com want to take it a step forward and leverage on these platforms to raise funds for your ideas.

Visit http://www.funduzz.com and see how your ideas can be funded at the click of a mouse.