Kick-Starting Entrepreneurs with Kickstarter

Entrepreneurs and businessmen alike, have you been looking to get that dream of yours off the ground but haven't been able to get your start? It's time to get kicked into gear!

Kickstarter.com is one of the newest, most innovative sites I have seen that takes advantage of Crowd Sourcing. You could also take a spin on Crowd Sourcing and refer to it as Crowd Funding. For those of you who have already found it I applaud you and encourage you to continue to offer your support. For those of you who unaware of this site I encourage you to check it out.

Kickstarter is a fundraising platform where people pitch their entrepreneurial ideas, services and products to those viewing the site through videos, displays and other presentation means in order to get people to fund their project. These projects can include anything from fundraising enough money to produce a band's first album, to designing a new product that could improve our way of life. Categorized in everything from Art, to Food, to Technology anyone who wants to get their start, this site could offer their big break all assuming it appeals to the audience enough to donate to the cause. One of the great things about this site is that it's not limited to those with a plethora of money, the site allows you to donate as little as $1 to support whatever cause you think is worth it. Although it is set up that the more money you do donate the more perks you receive back. For example if a band was trying to get enough money to produce their first album, for the $2 donation, they would receive one of their tracks as a gift whereas if someone was able to provide $10 to the cause they could send multiple tracks, along with a signed poster of the band. Things like this give more incentive for people to contribute their financial support.

This site has two key entry points; one for the project creator and the other for the investor. Both are necessary, the project creator, along with the investor or in other words the Crowd that is Funding the project. If one is to raise funds the traditional way, it is hard and will take a long time to produce the money to support your project. Kickstarter gives every project creator an opportunity to let every Internet user to become a potential investor. Project creators are able to gain feedback as well from potential investors on ways to improve their proposition, so even if they don't achieve their goal the first time around they might be able to use that feedback to try again.

Simply browsing Kickstarter is a great way to brainstorm and gather new ideas and I would encourage you to do so. You never know, Kickstarter could give you that kick you need to get started on your own business endeavor.

You were just Crowd Sourced

Crowd Sourcing...Why do we care? I think the real question is: Why should you care? By being here, you were just Crowd Sourced. Every time you visit a site, whether that's viewing, reading, commenting, sharing, interacting or even leaving, you have added some sort of value to that page. You can bring value with just the click of a button at no cost to me. Realistically, one couldn't necessarily say no cost was made because of the time spend putting into this, and you could always argue that time is money, but relatively there was no money pulled out of some lonely wallet on a desk in order to bring this blog to you. Either way Crowd Sourcing can be an effective marketing practice and shouldn't be taken lightly.

You can think of Crowd Sourcing as the practice of people (i.e., Crowds) offering value to an idea, product or service based on a business' technologies and formatted systems because of some foreseen personal value. In other words it's you, the people who offer their services in order to improve or better a certain aspect of a business or group's inner workings because you find some value in it yourself.

To highlight some thoughts on the process of Crowd Sourcing:

The Internet has generated a whole new world for the Crowd Sourcing practice. Think about all those websites that gain user generated content at little to no cost to them and are in turn able to create a profit. Some of those being: eBay, Amazon, or YouTube. However, Crowd Sourcing isn't left only to the Internet.

One of the biggest offenders, and also one of the biggest trend setters of the new millennium has been American Idol. Since the early 2000's they have created such a following that we have been able to witness such acts as Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Jordin Sparks make their way to stardom. This all because they were willing to sign themselves up for a televised competition. It was the fact that they set their business up in a way in which the talent came to them, they had nothing to lose. They were able to take advantage of people wanting their ticket to stardom. American Idol has now spawned shows like The Voice, Dancing with the Stars and America's Got Talent. It's not just the fact that the talent is coming to them, but how they also get the people involved. Allowing the viewers to vote on their favorites only reinforces the security of their business, because now people are invested because their vote had a say in the results and they will be voting on who they would like to hear next.

Time is money, and when you can get other people to invest that time towards your cause, that is money.