Traditionally, if you wanted to raise money to start a business or launch a product, you needed to convince a bank or big investor right? Not anymore. Crowdsourcing sites are starting to gain traction at a rapid rate.
In 2012, 18 000 projects were successfully funded by Kickstarter alone, proving the trend that more and more consumers want to participate in the funding and pre-launch phase of new products and brands.
New manufacturing technologies, crowdsourcing platforms and an emerging cult of entrepreneurialism mean that consumers have become ‘pre-sumers’ – they want to be involved in a brand’s entire life history, including pre-launch.
Doing it for themselves
On the local front, artists and start-ups are using crowdsourcing to help them fund projects that they previously would only have been able to realise through big record or studio deals.
One such artist is Shotgun Tori, who is using the site indiegogo.com to launch her new Indie Rock album. The campaign is aiming to raise $10 000, and participants can choose from a number of different donation options, from $10 to $400.
Each package pays for a piece of the ultimate project, from a digital recording to the actual album, a live performance and other paraphernalia. Basically, consumers are pre-paying to allow Shotgun Tori to produce the album, which makes them the ultimate ‘pre-sumers’ – they’re intimately involved with the album’s history, and they’ll have a copy before anyone else.
Alternative investment vehicles
“Necessity breeds invention,” says the artist. “This campaign is about making my dream a reality. After two years of touring and spreading my music to live audiences, as an independent artist, I now need to find a way to make my songs available to the public without the traditional forms of financing an album.
I believe in making music that makes you feel deeply, that gives you goose-bumps, that makes your heart ache because the tales are so familiar to you, that makes you want to dance, that makes you want to love bigger and live more passionately.”
To find out more about the campaign go to http://www.indiegogo.com/tori