Lessons In Crowdfunding with Cameesa
It’s been quite a bit of time since we embarked on this crowdfunding experiment (2 years… in internet time) and we’ve learned a lot a long the way. I can write a complete separate post on startup lessons so I’ll restrict this post to crowdfunding lessons learned.
1. Don’t call it crowdfunding
Like the term crowdsourcing, crowdfunding is a coined term that we Internet nerds like to use amongst ourselves because it captures the concept in a single word. The media also likes to use them use because they are buzzwords. However, these terms can be confusing to the greater public and potential new site visitors. Anytime I tried to explain the idea to friends or people inquiring about Cameesa and used the term crowdfunding it would take twice as long to explain. Explaining it as the public giving money directly to artists to produce a product understanding the concept became easier.
2. Collect funds after a goal is reached.
Never get people to commit money up front to a project. It causes a lot of friction. People don’t want to commit their money to a project in limbo. Which in the case of Cameesa is a T-Shirt design reaching the goal of $1000.00 in funds to go to print. However, if the commitment is conditional on the goal being reached people are more willing to take the chance. After we made this change we immediately saw an improvement in the number of people supporting designs.
3. Quality control is paramount
The quality of projects is important especially when you are trying to grow a community of artists. It is extremely difficult for an artist to submit their best work when submissions are open to the public. The best way to enforce quality is to have an invite only system for artists and have funding open to the public.
4. Intellectual property and control belong to artists.
I think there are a lot of options out there when it comes to T-shirt competitions. These include Threadless, Tee Fury, Design By Humans and a never ending list of others. I think the biggest mistake we’ve made with Cameesa was printing and branding the shirts. In the context of “crowdfunding” the artist should be empowered to set the funding limit and ultimately produce the shirts with their own branding. The connection is between the artist and their supporters. In this scenario the artist has more control over the quality of the product. Although we do post mocks for the community to provide feedback on I don’t think we have the right to make judgment calls on how the design gets executed or brand the work. The artist should have full control.
I think one of the key things we’ve learned is that people do like to fund and support the endeavors of artists and that it is a viable commerce model. Co-creation and collaboration with consumers is a more meaningful and social commerce experience that benefits both the supporter and artist.
