No Crowd, No Funding
How To Figure Out What Works For You
Having your research projects funded by interested supporters.
Sounds like a great idea, right?
I thought so.
But how?
Well, it turns out, there’s several ways to do that.
As a gentleman-scientist, I love a good research project. So, I decided that ‘how to fund your research’ will be (one of) my new project(s). In this article I’ll discuss several ideas on how to do that.
Crowdfunding
There’s many different platforms for crowdfunding. The biggest one is Kickstarter, which has funded over $8 billion worth of projects since 2009. Basically, you put your project on Kickstarter, and people can fund your project. Sounds easy enough, but there’s more to it.
Although there are people actively browsing Kickstarter for new projects to invest in, it probably won’t be enough to rely only on just that. So, you need to bring your own supporters. And that means: marketing. A pre-launch campaign to attract these supporters drastically improves your chances of success.
Big project
Talking about success, this is by no means guaranteed. Overall, about 40% of projects succeed in funding on Kickstarter. That means that more than half of the projects on Kickstarter don’t succeed in getting the funding they need. Kickstarter works like this: if you don’t reach your goal, you don’t get anything at all.
Successrates vary across the different categories, though. In the ‘Comics’ category, the chances are a lot better: 68%. The ‘Technology’ category only scores 24%. Something to keep in mind.
What exactly makes a project a success?
I dug a little deeper into the numbers. This is what I found:
A goal of less than $10.000 is more likely to be met
A fundraising period of less than 30 days works best
Early support matters: chances of success increase when you manage to get to 30% of the goal within 48 hours after launch
The next thing I looked into, is what successful campaigns have in common, and how they are different from failed campaigns. This is what I learned:
Successful campaigns…
…look professional and trustworthy (detailed cost overviews, they keep sponsors informed, engage with the public)
…are very well prepared. There’s a (social) media campaign to reach potential sponsors, they have a clear target group, there’s a detailed and realistic plan)
…are well-timed (no winter-themed campaigns in summer for instance)
…provide something that people want or need. Most campaigns offer something in return for backing the project. Sometimes it’s a signed copy of a book, an invitation to the launch of the finished project, or just the opportunity to be the first to try a brand new product.
Ok, the key factor here seems to be having an audience already. Which makes sense. No crowd, no funding, right?
But it’s the thing I haven’t mastered (yet!). And that’s a problem: crowdfunding like this might not be the best way to go for me right now.
Building a crowd, slowly
So, I was curious if there is a way to gradually build an audience, while also having the opportunity to gain some funding.
The perfect platform for this: Substack!
You can share updates on your project, and with the Premium feature you can have people supporting you. And make them part of your project. There’s people on Substack that might be interested, and you can try out different strategies to attract more readers from outside Substack. That’s crowdfunding, too! But in a slower, friendlier manner.
As an introvert, this fits me so much better.
This will be the way to go for now. At the moment, I’m working out the details of the project I plan to start at the beginning of next year. I’ll go into this project in my next article, but I can give you a little sneak preview. It’ll be about well-being after 40. And not just the ‘I-should work-out-more’ part. I want to dive in deep, and explore what well-being is all about…
Resources
Stanislovaitis, V. 2020. Your First Kickstarter Campaign; Step by Step Guide to Launching a Successful Crowdfunding Project. Vilius Stanislovaitis