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What are examples of successful crowdfunded companies? How does the crowd determine the difference between your type 1 and your type 2 companies?

by nedwin 10y ago

ZenoArrow 10y ago
>"What are examples of successful crowdfunded companies?" I can talk about successful crowdfunded products, including products made by companies. To give one example to start with, Formlabs has used crowdfunding to help generate money to manufacture their 3D printers: https://formlabs.com/ https://formlabs.com/ >"How does the crowd determine the difference between your type 1 and your type 2 companies?" I'd suggest it comes down to experience. With experience in crowdfunding you can spot the campaigns that are likely to succeed, and which ones are likely to fail. The main problem I see is when campaigns are too ambitious based on the background of the people involved. For example, high volume manufacturing in China without prior experience of working with Chinese manufacturing companies.
- xja 10y ago
  In formlab's case they had a 1.8MUSD seed round prior to the crowdfunding. They raised ~3MUSD from crowdfunding. This probably helped give them some runway to put together a series A. However they still raised an additional 50MUSD. So, I don't think they're a great example of a company bootstrapping from crowdfunding. It's more of a traditional play, with some validation (and some runway) from crowdfunding.
lupin_sansei 10y ago
How about Pebble? They did start being funded by Y Combinator and angels but got most of their funding from Kickstarter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#History
- CN7R 10y ago
  But now they got bought out by FitBit after going too much in debt (?).
lancewiggs 10y ago
Occulus. That one ended well for the founders.
- CN7R 10y ago
  Bought out by Facebook -- which is not the norm of most crowdfunded companies. In my personal belief, the crowdfunding model as it exists now is not a form of investment that will scale well. When a kickstarter company fails, it's not liable to all the people it took money from unless by fraudulent circumstances. What I believe will be more viable is a crowdsourced capital fund where an executive acts as a trustee representative and makes investing decisions for us.

What are examples of successful crowdfunded companies? How does the crowd determine the difference between your type 1 and your type 2 companies?

by nedwin 10y ago

What are examples of successful crowdfunded companies? How does the crowd determine the difference between your type 1 and your type 2 companies?

ZenoArrow 10y ago

>"What are examples of successful crowdfunded companies?" I can talk about successful crowdfunded products, including products made by companies. To give one example to start with, Formlabs has used crowdfunding to help generate money to manufacture their 3D printers: https://formlabs.com/ https://formlabs.com/ >"How does the crowd determine the difference between your type 1 and your type 2 companies?" I'd suggest it comes down to experience. With experience in crowdfunding you can spot the campaigns that are likely to succeed, and which ones are likely to fail. The main problem I see is when campaigns are too ambitious based on the background of the people involved. For example, high volume manufacturing in China without prior experience of working with Chinese manufacturing companies.

xja 10y ago
In formlab's case they had a 1.8MUSD seed round prior to the crowdfunding. They raised ~3MUSD from crowdfunding. This probably helped give them some runway to put together a series A. However they still raised an additional 50MUSD. So, I don't think they're a great example of a company bootstrapping from crowdfunding. It's more of a traditional play, with some validation (and some runway) from crowdfunding.

lupin_sansei 10y ago

How about Pebble? They did start being funded by Y Combinator and angels but got most of their funding from Kickstarter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#History

CN7R 10y ago
But now they got bought out by FitBit after going too much in debt (?).

lancewiggs 10y ago

Occulus. That one ended well for the founders.

CN7R 10y ago
Bought out by Facebook -- which is not the norm of most crowdfunded companies. In my personal belief, the crowdfunding model as it exists now is not a form of investment that will scale well. When a kickstarter company fails, it's not liable to all the people it took money from unless by fraudulent circumstances. What I believe will be more viable is a crowdsourced capital fund where an executive acts as a trustee representative and makes investing decisions for us.