This ultimate beginner’s guide of crowdfunding by DreamWallets.com covers the things you need to know about the fundraising for your ideas and the benefits of crowdfunding. This guide is helpful for aspiring inventors, startups, artists and creative folks to convey their vision and aspiration to the crowd.

1. CROWD-
FUNDING

3. What is Crowd Funding?
• Crowd funding is the practice of funding a project or
venture by raising small amounts of money from a
large number of people, typically via the Internet.

4. Image describing the process of
crowdfunding

5. What is Crowdfunding

6. Crowdfunding Platforms

7. Crowdfunding Models

8. Equity Crowdfunding
• Equity Crowdfunding as the name suggests, “Process
in which people invest in a company that is not listed
on a stock market in exchange of shares in that
company”

9. Debt-Based Crowdfunding
• Also called as micro-financing or peer-to-peer (P2P)
lending:
– start-ups borrow money from a number of people
online and pay them back after the project is
finished.

10. Lending Crowdfunding
• Allows entrepreneurs to raise funds in the form of
loans that they will pay back to the lenders over a
pre-determined timeline with a set interest rate.

11. Donation Crowdfunding
• Donation-based crowdfunding is a way to source
money for a project by asking a large number of
contributors to donate a small amount to it.

12. Reward Based Crowdfunding
• This type of crowdfunding involves setting varying
levels of rewards that correspond to pledge
amounts. A standard rewards campaign offers at
least three levels of pledges/rewards.

13. How does crowdfunding works?
• Flow Diagram of e book

14. Efficient marketing tool
• Setting up a successful crowdfunding campaign on
Fundable platform is far more efficient and effective
in getting your message out to the right people.
• With the right platform, you can tell your business’s
story, produce a quick video, set up some enticing
rewards, and benefit from having everything in one
centralized location where potential backers can find
you.

15. Real time brainstorming
• The basis of a start-up is finding some important
need that your customers have, and deciding to be
the one to do something about it. Thus, it’s
important to seize any opportunity for customer
feedback and consider it in planning your start up.

16. Prospective Loyal Patrons
• The people that power your idea’s social proof are
your early adopters and potential brand advocates.
They’re the people who believe in your story,
product, or service, enough to stake their money on
its longevity and long-term success.

17. Opportunity Of Pre-selling
• Big brands will use it as a means of getting
capital.
• Big brands might want to use crowdfunding to
pre-sell some of their products.
• They could also capitalize either their own
initiatives or partner initiatives using this more
donation model of crowd funding.

18. Access to capital
• Crowdfunding gives you not only the capital you
need to start your business, but also an already-
committed audience who have stuck through thick-
and-thin with you from the very beginning.

19. Why To Crowd Fund?
• Convenience
• Concept validation
• Risk reduction
• Feedback in real time
• Marketing tool

20. Convenience
• Compared to all the hassles involved in getting a
VC/Angel fund or a bank loan, crowdfunding is a
breeze.
• Have a strong business plan for the long run, it is
extremely thrilling to only have to make your initial
pitch and see the response.
• This is also a superb method for both creators and
backers to discover each other, bypassing the
traditional methods and investment options.

21. Concept Validation
• Having an idea is the half the job done. Whether one
needs to be self-convinced or to be convincing the
investors, crowd-funding is a great opportunity to
gauge the market reaction.

22. Risk reduction
• Both the stakeholders- creators and backers, don’t
need to worry about undue risk. The fact that it
provides a platform to test the water without risking
one’s life savings.

23. Feedback In Real Time
• Throughout the campaign, there is continuous
feedback coming in which strengthens the idea and
the project/product. Users in the past have created
polls and surveys during the campaign (which earlier
used to be a part of the pre-launch strategy) to
incorporate in the project.

24. Marketing tool
• Besides providing a strong introduction to the idea,
crowd-funding also provides you an excellent
opportunity to showcase your products, idea, and
your brand image to a much larger and wider
audience.
• This is a good tool to develop loyal customers who
would hence become the brand ambassadors and
spread the word with their connection.

25. Benefits of Crowdfunding

26. More Efficient than Traditional Methods
• Compared to traditional fundraising, setting up a
successful crowdfunding campaign on a
crowdfunding platform is far more efficient and
effective in getting your message out to the right
people.
• Everything in one centralized location where
potential backers can find you.

27. Gives a Social Exposure
• A strong, highly visible crowdfunding campaign can
provide validation and social proof that’s vital in
charting your path forward.

28. Marketing Opportunity
• Funders provide introductions to entrepreneurs that
provide valuable market opportunities.
• A well-planned and properly executed crowdfunding
campaign can serve as a vehicle to reach
stakeholders.

29. Risk Minimization
• Starting a company is risky, but securing funding
doesn’t have to be. Crowdfunding allows
entrepreneurs to leverage the collective assets of
their network, which gives them the opportunity to
raise capital without giving up company equity.

30. Proof of Concept
• A successful crowdfunding campaign answers the
question and shows there are others who believe in
the project. So when it’s time to explain your
business to traditional funders you have already had
an opportunity to vet the process.

31. Reaching Investors Far and Wide
• Startups that raise capital on crowdfunding sites can
share their deals with a widespread accredited
investor base without relying on expensive and time-
consuming travel.

32. How Can I Start My Project
• You have already done the hard work by forming an
idea/project. With the strong platform and eco-
system, the second stage should not be that tough.
• The project can be anything that you want to create
and share with others. It could be a video, a book,
software, or even hardware. As a creator, you just
need to keep your project well focused, with the
target end in mind and it should sail through.

33. Key Points For Project Creators

34. Initial pitch
• The project description should succinctly capture the
key aspects of what you are trying to achieve.
• A picture is worth a thousand words and a video shot
is worth a million.
• We strongly suggest that you make a video
explaining your project to potential backers.

35. Rewards For The Backers
• The rewards are things that backers could not buy in
exchange of money. Examples of rewards for projects
may be giving your backers the access to the first line
of your project/product as these are the early
adaptors. They may also include merchandise related
to your project, invitation for backstage meetings,
etc.

36. Promotion Plan
• Social media is the strongest tool and we encourage
you to use it to maximize your project reach such
that it goes viral and starts being shared organically.
This process will always start with your immediate
circle of friends and family. Once they like your idea,
they share it on their social channels like Facebook,
Instagram. Google Plus, Pinterest etc.

37. Updates On Project Development
• This is not a mandatory part to kick start your
project, but maintaining a good progress report
easily accessible to the users is a strong tool to get
your backers involved into your project and root
for its success. It has been scientifically proven
that an incremental status on the target motivates
the existing backers to bring in more support for
the project.

38. Funding Goal
• Stretch goals provide crowd funders the freedom of
breaking up their funding requirements into a
number of slabs with ever-higher perks in direct
correlation to ever-higher crowdfunding goals being
met.

40. Crowdfunding life cycle
Phase one-Ideation
• Develop a clear vision about who you are and what
your campaign is all about.
• Develop creative marketing components with your
target audience in mind.
• Establish a start date and end date for your
campaign.

41. Phase two-
• Business planning-Let everybody know your
crowdfunding campaign is live.
• Social media profiting- Upload your project and
invite them to be a part of this fantastic journey via
their support.
• Public relations-Constantly update people on your
progress through the crowd funding platform you’re
using and any other means.

42. • Reward structure-
• Pricing-Price your rewards fairly, the same as retail
cost or at a discounted rate.
• Reciprocity-Give your backers the feeling that they
are important to you and the growth of your idea,
brand and business.
• Scarcity-Encapsulate a feeling of exclusivity in your
rewards by offering limited edition or for a limited
time only.

43. Phase three-
• Reward fulfillment-Follow-through with all your
promises. Publicly acknowledge supporters on your
web properties. Personally thank them via an email
or even a hand signed letter, and / or phone call.
• Future engagement-Perhaps you can revise your
strategies and start another crowd funding campaign
in the near future.

44. Conclusion
• Crowdfunding makes the world a better place and
help people around the globe to improve their lives.
• Crowdfunding not only provides money to
organisations, it also boosts their man power as the
crowd that funds them also puts their institutional
structures on a broader footing.

45. Crowdfunding Glossary
• Accredited investor – Currently, only accredited
investors, a group comprised of some 3.4MM
Americans, are legally allowed to invest in private
companies.
• Social proof –In a crowdfunding campaign, your
early backers generate your social proof—once early
adopters vet and buy into your idea, others are more
likely to follow suit.

46. • Soft launch – Getting the word out to your
audience—friends, family, existing customers—about
your upcoming crowdfunding campaign, usually at
least a month before your actual launch. Using social
media, email marketing, and word-of-mouth, this is
an effective way to build awareness and make an
initial pitch before actually asking for money.

47. • Thank you