Crowdfunding for small businesses and nonprofits has been a hot topic in the news lately, especially since the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act was signed into law last month. So why is everyone so excited and exactly how does this new combination of social network and financing work? Let’s follow up on my interview with Michael Nedell from “Team Vermont,” the US National Champion Snow Sculpting Team, on his experience with the crowdfunding website Kickstarter.
Can you explain what your organization is and why you needed funding?
I have been the captain of a snow sculpting team for the past 11 years. It’s a hobby that my friends and I seem to be good at, because we have been entering and winning competitions for those 11 years. Until this year, we won the Vermont state competition 8 times and came in 2nd in the US twice. So it’s an art form, but its also in a competition form, and if you do well, you get to do more and more with the art.
Had you tried other ways of raising money in the past? What ways?
I have been sending emails and letters for a few years now. I figured we might be in line with local Vermont businesses because we are just local guys trying to do well in this circuit. We got an in-kind sponsor a few years ago – Kombi Sports in Essex Junction – so that relationship kept us going for a while. Not having to think about gloves and gear was and is a terrific boon to our hobby. It’s like the base layer. Then for the last three years we have been reaching out to other companies and art patrons with some relative success. Switchback has our back each year now — We tend to drink a lot planning these things so trying to talk to beer companies seemed to makes sense.
What made you think Kickstarter was a good fit for your organization? Did you see examples similar to yours before deciding?
Our team member Alex was part of a successful Kickstarter so we thought it might work for us. It seemed like a very low barrier to entry – I had a video camera and I can do basic video editing – so it made sense since we could actually pull it off.
Were there any unexpected barriers to starting your profile/account at Kickstarter? (For example, did you need an EIN, or proof of non-profit status, credit card, business checking account, etc.)
The only hassle with Kickstarter was waiting for them to verify by bank account – but even that was pretty easy.
Once you started the campaign, how did you promote it? Facebook? Twitter? Other?
We sent emails and promoted on Facebook, the blog we have, Twitter – what was surprising though was the number of random people reaching us just through Kickstarter itself – we got maybe 12 or so people that have no connection to us whatsoever – and that was pretty cool.
You reached your goal. Was it harder than you thought it was going to be?
We thought since our goal was low and tangible ( we showed pics and the price of what we wanted to by, and explained why) we would reach it. It took 3 weeks and the campaign was 4 weeks long, so we were able to get even a little over our goal.
Did you have preconceived notions of how this process was going to be?
No. From snow sculpting and life I have learned to just try it. See it it works. We had a lot of other ideas – party – do a sculpture on Church Street – Coin Drop – Benefit Rock Show. This seemed like the easiest to pull off.
Anything you want to add?
Alex said we needed some kind of hook to get people and we all sort of came up with the start of the video – the monster truck sort of announcer beginning – and I knew I could do a text over lay over things to make it a little more interesting – so yea – mostly it was a matter of knowing – with the limited resources and talent we had – that we could pull off a somewhat reasonable video for the goal we had in mind. I think if you were going for some more money then a 1,000 bucks for some tools – you would have to produce a little better video – but this really fell in line with our scrappy sort of attitude. We are all just friends and not really pro sculptors – but we find ourselves in these competitions with these real pro sculptors – so we figured the tools – which everyone but us has – would help. And it did! The tools ended up helping us immensely and we managed to win the competition!
I also think our cause was sincere. We didn’t have a product to try and produce, or an idea for a movie, but we really sincerely needed some better tools to help us.
More
- Don’t Abandon Crowdfunding — Manage It (Harvard Business)
