Are you a creative type wanting to start your own business? Have you always had a truly great idea but don't have the funds to make it happen?
Then Kickstarter is for you. Kickstarter is the largest funding platform where people who have great ideas can make an online pitch to other people, willing to donate money to fund their ideas and make it a reality.
The platform is designed for creative projects such as publishing, art, technology, film and music.
Project creators choose to target a certain amount of money they are wishing to fund the project. It then has a fixed time to attract users to the project and raise the money required. It's all of nothing funding, therefore if the target is not reached then the project gets nothing.
Potential funders get a choice of how much to donate. Some projects start from as little as $10 to tens of thousands of $$$$. The great thing for creators is that there is no limit to how much you can raise. If you hit your target – great – keep going until the time runs out.
To date the most funded is the Tiktok & Lunatik multi touch watches project at $942,000. Yes nearly $1 million dollars was donated by other users!
Ok, so what do I have to give over to get my project off the ground?
As funders donate real money to projects they like, no equity is transferred (in fact it's prohibited) and creators retain full control over the project. Yes – I said no equity and full control.
Whats more, starting a project is free!
Instead the project creators give away free items depending on how much is pledged, examples inlude mentions, limited edition items, first deliveries of new products and private events.
So what's in it for Kickstarter?
Kisckstarter get 5% of the total funded money. As a result take this into account when setting a target. Similarly Amazon, the payment platform take 3%. Again, just bear these two cost in mind when setting a target.
So if you have a project or business that needs funding to get off the ground go visit Kickstarter and get that dream project off the ground!
Note: At the moment you need to be a US resident and over 18 to start a project as the platform works with Amazon, but there are plans to expand the platform to other countries.
