What Entrepreneurs Can Learn From the World of Crowdfunding

Friday, May 15, 2015

Since Kickstarter and its chief rival Indiegogo launched, the tech and web industries and have seen a wealth of entrepreneurs make their case before the crowd. Looking to fund everything from tech gadgets to movies and charitable causes, entrepreneurs of all stripes have turned to the crowd to bring their ideas to a mass market.

Simply launching a crowdfunding campaign isn’t a recipe for success. While many campaigns achieve incredible success, many only hit their goal by a slim margin, and even more never even pass their goal. Crowdfunding is simply the first step of a much longer process and one that is mirrored in the day-to -day competition that any new business faces when it comes to market.

Crowdfunding campaigns can accelerate the early stages of innovation, brainstorming, and strategy any company needs in order to survive. Crowdfunding campaigns teach those who undertake them valuable lessons that apply to entrepreneurship as a whole.

Here are five lessons any entrepreneur can draw from the world of crowdfunding:

1. Solve a problem

Products and services that achieve the greatest success solve a real problem or fulfill a need that hasn’t been met by existing services.

For AIRTAME, the problem was the jumbled mess of cables that exist in every conference room and the convoluted process we go through when we want to connect our computers to a TV or monitor during a meeting. Wire solutions are messy, complicated, and don’t allow for remote connectivity.

Source: Forbes (link opens in a new window)

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