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7 Game-Changing Crowdfunding Websites for Entrepreneurs

By on May 23, 2012
Crowdfunding Websites

On April 5, 2012, the president signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups, or JOBS Act, which enables anyone to raise capital through crowdfunding. Given it’s new found popularity, I figured I’d provide a short guide on how to choose the right platform for your project.

Here’s a list of seven of the most popular crowdfunding sites to get you started in making your decision:

1) Kickstarter

Kickstarter is a projects-only crowdfunding platform. It’s an amazing resource for entrepreneurs, business owners, artists, authors, fashionistas, and the like. You cannot use this particular crowdfunding resource to start-up your business (per say), but you can use it to pay for materials and such to help make the start-up easier.

Kickstarter is incredibly popular, so you are capable of raising a lot of money here – but make sure you are EXTRA careful about setting your goals. If you don’t reach your target, all contributions are refunded to the donors. Creativity is definitely wanted on Kickstarter, so be sure to use your right brain for this one!

2) Indiegogo

Indiegogo is a powerful crowdfunding platform for any kind of initiative (including starting a small business), and unlike Kickstarter, there’s an option to keep your funds without fully reaching your goal; of course, the folks at Indiegogo will charge a 9% fee rather than 4% on your contributions if you don’t reach 100% of your contributions.

No matter what your cause is, you are free to make a campaign – and a lot of campaigns on Indiegogo reach their goals. You get global exposure, and like Kickstarter, you’re able to incentivize contributions with “perks” for whatever amount they choose to give.

3) Peerbackers

Peerbackers is all about raising money from your peers for your business. Contributors get cool rewards for giving, and businesses in need of a small amounts of startup or growth capital can get connected with donors. At Peerbackers, you can get funded for your business, book, nonprofit, garden, album, etc. – and it’s all funded by your peers!

4) Appbackr

Are you designing mobile apps? Then this is the resource for you! After signing up, you post your app on Appbackr and wholesale retailers, AKA “Backrs,” purchase your app and then money is seeded directly into your PayPal account! How easy is that? This definitely seems like something worth looking into in the mobile app world – because we all know that we need an app for everything.

5) Microventures

For lack of a better term, Microventures can be described as a professional crowdfunding platform. Microventures allows you to submit a business plan and attract angel investors.  It requires an initial monetary investment of $100 from you, then investors decide if your business is something that is worthy of investment.

This is the type of investing that can get you really far – when you start talking about investors, you’re not talking about thousands of dollars, you get into raising millions of dollars for your business. Microventures isn’t for the artist seeking a down payment for a gallery, or the musician looking to record an album – this is for a business or idea that can provide a return on investment. If you’re looking for large amounts of capital, this is the place to go.

6) Startsomegood

StartSomeGood is a crowdfunding resource for those looking to fund their social causes. This site is all about helping people do good things for their community and the world at large, and it also allows people who want to do good to showcase what their idea is and run with it. There are a lot of goals on this site set by social activists and serial do-gooders with dreams of doing awesome things in their communities – are you one of them? If so, you should definitely check it out and put your ideas on there to get yourself funded!

7) Wefunder

I think this is so cool. Wefunder is a website that currently does not fund anyone, but sets up people who want to contribute funding in the future. They keep a tally of how much money the people who have joined to date are willing to contribute, and once it’s up and running, I think this site will be booming. Check it out for early access!

Want to launch your own crowdfunding campaign?

Open For BusinessBe sure to contact us at eDetroit and we can help you get started with a campaign to fund your dreams! For further reading, see 6 Steps to a Massively Successful Crowdfunding Campaign.

Othewise, please send comments with any other crowdfunding resources, or info you’d like to share with us and our readers. And as always, be sure to follow me (@kimdetroit) on Twitter!

About Kimberly Mango

Fashion designer, chicken farmer, blogger, artist, and Leading Lady at eDetroit. @kimdetroit