Get Your Business Funded: Creative Methods for Getting the Money You Need

Crowdfunding Sites

With such a cool and interesting way to fund a business or project, it is no surprise that crowdfunding has taken off. A slew of sites have emerged online to facilitate the teaming of dreamer and believers. Some sites are geared toward specific industries or particular creative endeavors (like music), while others are more broadly applicable to all sorts of projects.

Here are some of the top choices:

KickStarter.com. KickStarter is one of the better-known names in the crowdfunding game. KickStarter offers a number of different categories like food, art, and technology. While listing a project is free, KickStarter retains 5 percent of all money raised, as well as a small portion of all credit card processing fees.

One of the unique things about KickStarter is that projects must raise 100 percent of their goal, or they get nothing. For example, if you are looking to raise $10,000 for your new studio, you need to raise all $10,000 before the funds are transferred from KickStarter. This is actually a smart thing as it protects investors and gives them the confidence necessary to invest. What if you raised only $1,300 for your studio? That would not be very fair to those investors since it could actually turn out to be a waste of their money. So the 100 percent requirement allows them to safely “test-drive” a project and helps you because it protects them.

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