I received a question today on the Bits & Bytes Facebook page asking “What is Crowd Funding?”
Crowd Funding is not a new phenomenon, indeed the humble telethon (think “Red Nose day” if you are in the UK) is an example of Crowd Funding. In the case of a telethon a charity is raising money to achieve an objective (i.e.: help the homeless, etc) and in return for entertainment (i.e.: celebrities giving up their time) people donate money to help the charity to reach their goals (or exceed it).
This is crowd funding! People giving a small amount of money, which when accumulated allows people/businesses to obtain a larger fundraising goal.
The big difference is that these days the act of crowd funding is no longer limited to televisions, etc but can be ran on platforms (websites) like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. These platforms, in effect, have democratised crowd funding (allowed the crowd funding approach to be accessible to anyone).
More often than not crowd funding is used by people/businesses in the creative industry (i.e.: people want to make a movie, produce an album, release a card game, etc) who would be unable to find traditional funding (investments, loans, etc) due to the risky and/or creative nature of what they propose. In the case of Bits & Bytes, whilst there is clearly a need for something like Bits & Bytes (the UK government has made it compulsory and all children should be learning to code), it would not be considered attractive for any form of investment until it had a sales track record behind it. Sort of a case of the “chicken and the egg” (without the investment you can’t release the game, but without the game being released you can’t get the investment).
So just like a telethon that offers entertainment in exchange for your support, I have lined up a range of “perks” (rewards) that in exchange for your support you will receive. I don’t look upon it as you’re making a donation, rather you’re buying something and at the same time your support allows Bits & Bytes to become a reality.
Once the crowd funding campaign is live for Bits & Bytes (on Tuesday the 26th August) I will include a link on the front page of the website and on Facebook, so it is easy for you to locate. And you don’t have to worry about security of the transaction – you can pay via credit/debit cards or PayPal (and all data is sent across encrypted HTTPS connection – which is what the banks use to protect you when banking online).
If you have more questions about Crowd Funding then please contact me through the contact page on this website – I will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have or to address any of your concerns.
