Key Lessons From Two Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns

No doubt you’ve heard about crowdfunding. What you might not realize is that there are many forms of crowdfunding and each type is used in a myriad of ways. Rewards, Equity, Donation and Lending. However, they all have this in common. They gather supporters that are both near and dear to them so that these […]
Flowhive-screenshot-crowdfunding

Written by Paul Niederer

Feb 8, 2016

No doubt you’ve heard about crowdfunding. What you might not realize is that there are many forms of crowdfunding and each type is used in a myriad of ways. Rewards, Equity, Donation and Lending.

However, they all have this in common. They gather supporters that are both near and dear to them so that these supporters broaden the campaign far and wide. The more traction that the near and dear create the more successful the campaign.

Let’s look at the two types:

Reward: Basically pre-sales of products that need funding and supporters to be produced.
A perfect example is Flowhive

crowdfunding-paul-niederer
A father and son working away in Byron Bay Australia for 10 years worked out a way to allow the collection of honey so that a tap could be turned and the honey ran out easily and cleanly without the risk of being attacked by bees.

Check it out in this video.

 

  • They put their campaign on Indiegogo expecting to raise $US70,000 in a month. They raised that amount in under eight minutes.
  • When the campaign ended the raise as detailed in the picture above was $US12.48 million

The plastic flow frames for the prototype hives were 3D printed, but this prepared samples so they could get volumes produced with injection moulding.

This raise is a perfect example of a convincing, compelling and credible story supported by an experienced, passionate team. However, where the home run was hit was in the area of supporters. Millions of people worldwide are aware and worried that the bee population is declining and they know that bees play an essential role in ecosystems. A world without bees would be devastating for food production. In the minds of the over 37,000 backers supporting the Flowhive campaign they are helping save the world and also get a regular supply of quality honey outside their kitchen window.

Equity: Come along for the ride with us and invest in our business and help us grow and you can also grow with us and help a craft brewery.

A perfect example is Camden Town Brewery

Camden_Town_Brewery_raising_£1_500_000_investment_on_Crowdcube__Capital_At_Risk_

Camden Town Brewery is one of London’s biggest breweries. They’ve come a long way these past few years, growing their annual revenues by 10x from £900k to circa £9m in just three years. Now, Camden is building a brand new custom-built brewery to help them keep up with demand and bring the taste of Camden Lager to the world.

Check it out in this video.

 

  • Camden Town Brewery raised £2.75m from 2,173 Crowdcube users in April.
  • It became the second exit for the equity crowdfunding market when it was sold to beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev in December.

One investor disclosed they bought 851 shares this year for £550, giving a 68 percent return if they take the cash now.

The raise gathered a passionate group of 2,173 supporters and they delivered to the tune of nearly three million pounds. Supporters are a double edged sword though as many saw when Facebook bought virtual reality goggles maker Oculus VR Inc for $2 billion. The acquisition made Oculus VR one of the most successful  projects to emerge from the Kickstarter platform.

The sale to  Anheuser-Busch caused the founder of Camden Town Brewery to defend the decision to sell the craft brewery.

Crowdfunding is an excellent way to get your supporters to fund your project or business objectives. There are many lessons you can learn from people that have “been there done that” in crowdfunding often grace the stage at Crowdfunding Week’s events and share their valuable experiences.

About Author

About Author

Paul Niederer

Paul Niederer is one of world’s leading authorities on peer to peer investing and equity based crowdfunding investment. He has personally been involved in over $60 million of transactions with 80 different companies seeking capital. With the intense interest in the Crowdfunding provisions of the U.S. Jobs Act Paul is intimately involved in advising a number of parties in how to structure their funding portals and processes, and how ASSOB has had a fraud free existence through hundreds of raises.He regularly presents seminars on Equity based Capital Raising for early stage and growth businesses and is a Council member of the CFIRA: Crowdfund Intermediary Regulatory AdvocatesPaul’s day job as CEO of ASSOB is supporting high growth companies and investors in obtaining funding through Peer to Peer investing.

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