Perhaps, in our geek community no longer exists people who have not heard about site Kickstarter (we even prepared a special material about funding projects there). But today I would like to tell you about her chief rival – Indiegogo. Introduce you to the principles of operation of the site and its main strengths and weaknesses?
What’s the difference Indiegogo?
Indiegogo – this is the same playground as Kickstarter, but with a few differences. In the case of Kickstarter there are only two possible outcomes: the project collects a fixed amount and gets all the money (minus commission site and Amazon, where some 10-13%) or the project cannot find proper funding and all the funds are returned to the accounts of people. Everything, no middle ground. On the other Indiegogo rules (administration there more loyal). In the case of the successful promotion of a startup gets all the money (the site itself takes only 4%) if the said amount is not able to gather, the funds can also be obtained, but in this situation the Commission is already 9%. But the third scheme of work has appeared recently (this summer), it is called “infinite Crowdfunding” – users can “donate” money to the project, even if the collection campaign has ended.
As I have said, the administration on Indiegogo more loyal than Kickstarter, because at the second site selection comes only potentially successful projects (recently even been tightening the rules). Therefore startups that do not have money for a large-scale advertising campaign, preparation and processing of high-quality video other small things, it is usually chosen Indiegogo. Restrictions on the subject do not exist anywhere, but somehow more Kickstarter liked lovers of technology and various gadgets. Indiegogo got its popularity due to personal projects, charity, music, sculptures, films, and other similar topics. By the way, attendance Kickstarter is several times higher.
A bit of history Indiegogo
Site for the first time saw the world in 2008 at the Festival of Independent Cinema Sadness and initially specialized only work with movies. Already in 2010, the site has partnered with MTV New Media, then began to create different content, based on the ideas (start-ups), posted on this site. In February 2012, Indiegogo came to the attention of US President Barack Obama, who is invited to the project site Startup America to explore business with the base model Crowdfunding. As of January 2014 the number of successful transactions “passed” the mark of 200 thousand.
If you remember the most successful projects during the existence of the site, it is certainly, Ubuntu Edge (had $ 32 million, managed to raise $ 13 million), projection clock Ritot (had to $ 50 thousand., managed to collect $ 1.5 million), family robot -assistent Jibo (had $ 100 thousand., managed to collect $ 2.3 million), “smart” hat Skully AR-1 (had $ 200 thousand. managed to collect $ 2.8 million) and, of course, the tablet Jolla , which is a few hours to collect the required amount of $ 380 thousand., and now developers are watching $ 1.17 million on his account (and this 17 days before the end of the fundraising campaign).
Scheme of work Indiegogo
What steps need to be taken to the project owner that he published on Indiegogo? Nothing complicated, everything is just a few steps. First you need to write the text, take pictures, record video, in short, to prepare all the necessary information about the startup. Also select financial and time frames. Sometimes you can (preferably) to update the data on the page, so that investors have seen that conducted some work. If you first select the type of Crowdfunding “Leave everything yourself,” that money transferred via PayPal, enter immediately to the owner of a startup (net of fees), and the funds that come through the bank, are charged only after the campaign (in addition, it may take up to 16 days). That’s all. The main task – to tell you about your project to the maximum number of people (through social networks, advertising and other means).
For Indiegogo does not matter what country you are from, but restrictions on currency is still there. Platform support: US (USA, Canada), the euro and pound sterling. Some companies (very clever) use platform for this kind of “probing” reaction to their product – regardless of the number of pre-orders, feedback, and even then use this information to improve their products.
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