What a busy week in the world of crowdfunding in Sydney!
Seminars for Arts Professionals: Giving and developing emerging donors
On Monday 28th October I spoke at the SAMAG event about emerging donors and where crowdfunding fits in this context. With an amazing line-up and experience on the panel I was pleased to be able to offer my perspective of where crowdfunding fits. You can read an article here about the event.
Crowdfunding for Entrepreneurs
On Wednesday 30th October I was pleased to talk crowdfunding at the University of Woollongong event for Entrepreneur Club.. Also speaking was Alan Crabbe from Pozible who shared background about their innovative platform and some of their recent expansions. They now have an office in the US, offer white label crowdfunding and (this I find really exciting) their forthcoming subscription crowdfunding. With Kickstarter and Indiegogo focussing on the Australian market you may think our first mover here may be a little concerned. Not so says Pozible. Not only have they made some amazing partnerships in their time but they believe they have the nouse to keep their market advantage. You can read more in this article.
The clever Kate Toon also shared her experience of successfully crowdfunding twice. Kate not only is a ‘can’t beat’ copywriter and search engine optimisation specialist, but a poet and writer and has crowdfunded a poetry book and a wonderful pirate book for kids. Ahoy! Kate recommended not leaping into crowdfunding without doing your budget first. For her poetry book she vastly underestimated the costs involved so it’s testimony to her hard work that she managed to achieve so much over her budget.
Indiegogo’s Australian push
Unfortunately I couldn’t make the Indiegogo event last Tuesday but it certainly got some good press. With funding now available in A$ (meaning currency exchange fees no longer applied) we can expect to see growth in this market. Co-founder Danae Ringelmann reportedly said that there has been a 275 per cent increase in Australian crowdfunding campaigns. Looking forward to seeing more Australian’s see success on this platform like the Hustle team who executed a professional and successful campaign.
Kickstarter School
With the imminent launch of Kickstarter for Australian and New Zealand creators, the crowdfunding giant has been running ‘schools’ to educate people about their platform. A couple of takeaways from the session I attended:
- The first Australian projects will go live on the Kickstarter platform on 13th November.
- Kickstarter is an all or nothing platform with 5% success fees. Transaction fees are: 3% + $0.20 per pledge. If the pledge is under $10 they have a discounted micropledge fee of 5% + $0.05 per pledge.
- For some reason they didn’t explain, the verification side is quite slow at the moment so start that process early.
- “Kickstarter is a story-telling platform.” We hear time and time again, crowdfunding is about stories. How you tell your crowdfunding story is crucial.
- Australians have pledged $25,621,856 over 27,014 projects.
- The ‘tipping point’ for projects seems to be 30% – if they reach that point they are 85% likely to reach target.
- Their current success rate is 44% generally, with different categories performing much better – or worse. I love how Kickstarter are very open with their stats. It’s also worth noting that Pozible report their average success rate is 56%.
- Their most popular reward category is $25 with the $100 tier raising the most money. They recommend 5-7 reward tiers.
- Kickstarter shared a beautiful project that really gave me a happy feel – a project to write a letter to everyone in the world, one village at a time. Crazy? Yes, of course. Kooky? For sure. But in an age of digital communication I love the idea.
- Their advice? Start building your project now because launch is only ten days away for the first Australian projects.
For more information on crowdfunding platforms, inspiring case studies and loads of how-to, buy your copy of Crowdfund it! today!
Anna Maguire, November 2013