Crowdfunding

The Freedom Journal Kickstarter

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Today I was surprised to find that Internationally-acclaimed podcaster John Lee Dumas was running a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. I must have spent over an hour studying the campaign. By far, it is the best example of a publishing crowdfunding campaign! Following is the tweet I sent out upon backing the campaign. I have a hunch this is going to be another historical project, in more than one way. A portion of the proceeds is going to support Adam Braun’s Pencils of Promise.

Crowdfunding Feasibility Studies

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Like most entrepreneurs I have a dream to make a difference in this world before exiting in human form. Whenever I consider launching a new project, whether it be a service or product, I conduct a feasibility study. Depending on the subject matter, feasibility studies can take a while to produce. Depending on the amount of research required, studies can also get quite costly. This morning I woke up wondering if it were possible to successfully crowd fund a feasibility study. A quick search on Kickstarter revealed only one successfully crowdfunding project to date. Ironically, the search also revealed an unsuccessful campaign for a feasibility study  of particular interest to me. When I turned to Google to search the topic, the results led me to a successfully funded Indiegogo campaign for a feasibility study on cleaning up the ocean. When comparing the two successful campaigns, I could quickly see why the one for CAMP was unsuccessful – too long a video, with too much information shared up front. Clearly there is room for funding feasibility studies and other research via crowdfunding and the market has been addressed only minimally.