Crowdfunding – Supporting Innovative Ideas Through Crowdfunding Platforms

Discussion

Crowdfunding could be defined as a cooperative effort of several individuals. These individuals are primarily responsible for developing a network with other individuals and thus form a pool of resources. This would be highly useful for supporting the efforts that would be initiated by different people or various established organizations for the purpose of developing a new project (Adena & Huck, 2017). There are several kinds of individual projects and businesses that would be financed by various contributors that could belong to different individuals. This would allow entrepreneurs, innovators and different business owners for the purpose of utilising the social networks in order to raise capital. In the recent times, the internet is the most important platform that would mostly help for the rise of the crowdfunding industry (Cholakova & Clarysse, 2015). Different businesses and entrepreneurs make varied use of the crowd for the purpose of obtaining ideas, collection of money and thus putting solicited input based on putting input on the concerned product. In some other words

The idea of crowdfunding could be defined as the initiation of an idea for the purpose of creation of a product or service. Any form of company irrespective of their nature could seek funds from various potential investors. In the previous times, the fundamental use of raising of money was difficult. People with innovative ideas had to wait for the right investors who would be able to understand the importance of the idea and thus would help in providing of funds (Agrawal, Catalini & Goldfarb, 2014).

With the advent of crowdfunding and the open source platforms based on the Internet technology, it has been useful for people to raise a considerable amount of money. This money could be utilized to be put on stake for the benefits and growth of the organisation. As the growth of the company would increase based on the correctness of the project, the company would prosper and thus the investors would earn a lot. The use of crowdfunding could also be used for raising funds for a number of other serious issues such as raising money, fund different projects and thus help different entrepreneurs for developing their ideas (Burtch, Ghose & Wattal, 2013).

This report focuses on the benefits of crowdfunding for developing a new model of phone. Crowdfunding could be performed with the help of different websites based on crowdfunding. Some of the websites that support the idea of crowdfunding are Kickstarter, Indiegogo and many others. These kinds of websites are mainly made use of supporting various businesses and entrepreneurs for putting forward their ideas and thud developing them (Agrawal, Catalini & Goldfarb, 2014).

Impact of Crowdfunding on an Innovative Idea

                                   

                                                  (Fig 1: Indiegogo Homepage depicting Crowdfunding Approach)

In this project, the crowdfunding website that would be selected is Indiegogo. The website focuses on the build of a phone model, which is Light Phone 2. The impact of crowdfunding based on Indiegogo would be helpful for empowering people for uniting with the ideas that would be put forward and could be a matter for the investors (Scholz, 2015). People from different backgrounds could make use of the website for supporting their cause in order to get inspired. The impact of crowdfunding would be able to generate various kinds of exhilarating opportunities for backend developers and entrepreneurs. Based on the idea of crowdfunding, the people within the background should be very much aware about the necessary facts that would be needed in order to proceed with their required projects. It would be important to understand that the purpose of backing a project campaign would be extremely different for purchasing an item from an online website (Kuppuswamy & Bayus, 2018). Supporting of an idea based on crowdfunding on a platform such as Indiegogo would be meaning that a work would be in progress based on an idea, project or any such cause.

In order to make a campaign to get succeeded, the team should have a high thoughtful pitch that would be able to clear the ideas based on raising of funds. This would highly be needed based on moving the project in the right direction. The campaigns should be highly transparent and should have a clear form of focus on the goals and status of the project (Hui, Greenberg & Gerber, 2014). These would be highly necessary in order to attract contributors who would be responsible for contributing of money towards the project and thus developing of new kinds of ideas.

Different kinds of successful projects would normally require a secure form of base of funding who would be able to understand the meaning of the project. The stakeholders within the project should be able to review the information regarding the owner of the campaign. They should also be able to perform review based on the previous experiences of the campaign owner of crowdfunding (Beaulieu, Sarker & Sarker, 2015). The stakeholders would also be able to perform a review based on past projects. The investors based on crowdfunding should also perform a quick research based on the innovative project, name of the company, their owners and the different related team members. They should also gather vast form of information about the owners who would be able to perform business activities. The crowdfunding website based on Indiegogo should have a comprehensive system. The system would be able to protect contributors from performing fraudulent campaigns (Josefy et al., 2017).

Evaluation of a Crowdfunding Campaign

The website of Indiegogo would not be able to guarantee that the projects of different organizations or companies would either succeed. Based on the contribution provided by different stakeholders within the project, they should be able to support the idea of the company or the project. Based on the development stages of the project, the stakeholders should be able to accept different kinds of risks that would be oncoming on the project (Xu et al., 2014). They should also be able to experience any form of changes that might affect the project. Indiegogo would not be able to provide guarantee regarding the success regarding the project.

This report is based on the development of a new model of phone, which would be named as Light Phone 2. The Light Phone 2 is a form of simple 4G phone that would have different facilities that would be able to perform functionalities such as messaging, e-ink, alarm clock and also support various forms of essential tools. The Light Phone 2 would have a beautiful kind of white and black display. The phone would be much more durable, reliable and is a practical phone (Light Phone 2, 2018).

There should be an extreme usage of tools that would be able to redefine the Operating System and thus change the experience of the people. In the recent times, the OS of the smartphones would be mainly be dependent on various OS such as Android or iOS. These have led to the adding of new kinds of layers of complexity based on the usability cost. The use of Light OS would make use of implemented tools that would have physical buttons for scrolling through the customized toolbox (Pierrakis & Collins, 2013). The developers of the new model of phone should be able to keep simplicity at the heart of the device. The developers of the new model of phone should be able to easily dial a number. They should also be able to bring up a contact based on the speed dial and thus would also be able to send quick form of messages.

The ideas that should be presented by the developers of the phone should be extremely innovative. This would attract the investors and the stakeholders and they would hence be interested for investing within the project. The different stages within the product development stages would be helpful for the backend developers for discovering campaigns during the development of the product. The development stages of the product would include different kinds of steps such as developing of the concept (Fr?czkiewicz-Wronka & Wronka-Po?piech, 2014). This would include the use of mock-ups or the use of 3D renderings, which would be able to demonstrate the appearance of the model of the phone or the functionality. The next step of the development of the model of the phone would include the use of developing of a prototype model. During the prototype stage, the organizations would be responsible for developing a working version of the physical model of the phone. The prototyping stage should also be able to demonstrate the functionality of the final model and of the phone.

People behind the Campaign

The next step would be defined as the production stage. This stage would have a working version of the physical product that would be developed in the later stages. The production stage would be able to put light on the present production stage. This would be supported by images and video representation. This would be able to help the stakeholders for better understanding of the product and thus be able to put better impacts on the model.

 The development of a new model of phone would need a huge raising of funds based on developing a phone model and thus be able to promote it. These funds would be needed for the proper form if development of the phone without any form of difficulties. The new phone model would need the attention of the masses. This would enhance the profitability of the company or the developer as they would succeed in their objectives (Cordova, Dolci & Gianfrate, 2015). The posting of advertisements on the various kinds of crowdfunding platforms would be helpful for gauging interest. Based on the project, the developers of the phone would need the feedback of the end users. They would be able to provide better kinds of feedbacks as they would be able to improve the quality of their products.  

The impact of the crowdfunding platforms such as Indiegogo would provide flexibility to the developers, as they would be able to raise funds from the crowds or public. Putting an impact on the people would be a major task before the developers. The best form of funding type would be meant for benefiting the project (Wheat et al., 2013). Indiegogo provides the best kinds of funding types based on helping the people who would be developing the project. The website supports the best forms of types of funding such as:

• Fixed Funding– In this form of funding, the contributions would be refunded if the set goals would not be achieved.
• Flexible Funding – In this kind of funding, the investors would keep the funds that would be raised within a certain date even if the developers would not reach a certain goal.

With the vast form of developments based on crowdfunding by Indiegogo, it could be confirmed that the successful development of the phone model would lead to various forms of opportunities before the people. The four kinds of opportunities that could impact the rise of crowdfunding include:

• Making of money with a click– The project would be ensured with the aid of secure of crowdfunding platforms. These would be equipped with low-cost payments and secure systems that would include Amazon Flexible Payments and PayPal.
• Data Analysis – Social networking platforms would be of a much help for the promotion of the project. This would help in reaching to a vast number of public as they would be able to gather an in-depth analysis of the flow of traffic within the website campaigning the project. This would also enhance the number of visitors on the page (Muller et al., 2013).

Conclusion:

Based on the discussion from the above report, it could be concluded that crowdfunding could be able to support for the benefits of the proposed framework of the project. This would include a relation with the investors and stakeholders who would be able to provide backup for the benefits of the project. The generation of funds from the public would need a best form of relationship with the customers. Satisfying the customers would eventually lead to the benefits for the funding of the project. The impact of technical and social platforms would lead to the vast form of benefits for the project. Hence, it could be concluded that crowdfunding could be of a major help for building of a project and thus gain profits from them.

References:

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