Yes. We started our very first crowdfunding project via pitchIN Reward. I think, you should too if you plan to start a side business (or go gung-ho with big plan) or just trying to raise fund for a project.
Any project. Big or small. It can be a startup idea, a new eCommerce shop idea, a charity project, a project within your housing community or a project that your kids are working on, help your talented child to raise fund for a music album… anything!
We do reward crowdfunding for a few reasons. We want to evaluate the potential of Augmented Reality if (1) the market is ready for AR today and (2) what is the dollar value for a SME/micro-business see in AR creation service – how much should I price. We want to see if we have enough “backing” to support our ideas before scaling our investment in both dollar and time.
As I pitch my idea within my network about what I am trying to do with AR via reward crowdfunding, I realize I spent more time explaining what is/how does reward crowdfunding work before explaining my project on AR. While crowdfunding is widely known within the startup world, it is not a common term within my network. Not to mention, the furniture retailers, fashion seller or optical shop owners. Hence, prompted me to write this post explaining what exactly is reward base crowdfunding and why you should do it too…
First off, what is reward crowdfunding?
If you ever have a dream or an idea to launch something new, doesn’t matter if it is new to the world or new to your community(s) or just new to you – and you want to bring your idea to life. While brainstorming an idea at mamak with friends is easy, bringing it to life is tough. Not to mention sustaining it over time.
You need to validate your idea, evaluate the market demand, get funding, gather a team and the list goes on. IMHO, all of these translate to just one thing and one thing that matter most = Risk and return.
Yes. Risk and return.
It is the risk that stop many people from even want to try startup. It is the fear of failure, the fear of commitment where one potentially great idea is put under the pillow. It is the fear of failure that stop one from even try. Return, on the other hand, is what keeps you going. Something that motivates you to proceed!
With reward crowdfunding, you can mitigate your risk of failure BEFORE you put in your commitment. At the same time, you can evaluate the demand if it is overwhelmingly positive, lukewarm or just “meh”. This, is the very reason why you want to consider launching a crowdfunding project before you embark on a gung-ho journey.
Here is how crowdfunding works
Here is how crowdfunding works. You have a great idea (at least you think it is). First thing you need to do is to tell people what your idea is in a simple to understand yet interesting and relevant manner. You tell your story on a crowdfunding platform, share your rewards options to them (how do you want them to back you) and ask them to “back” you if they find it relevant. By backing, your target can either (1) pre-purchasing your product today in anticipation of product delivery at a later date or (2) contributing fund without asking for any reward. A way to show support.
On a “all or nothing deal”, risk is minimized for both the project initiator and backers:
- If they meet the funding goal, it is a “go” and they move ahead with their plan to make the product to the backer.
- If they don’t meet the funding goal, it is a “no-go” and they don’t move ahead with their plan. Early backers will get their refund from the crowd-funding platform.
On a “flexible term” project, just like our current GigaGigs project, what it means is that our capability does not depend on minimum funding requirement because we are ready now and can deliver as your backing comes in. If orders come in scale, we scale according to demand on a flexible manner. There is very minimal risk of non-delivery.
With this, we launched our Augmented Reality service on pitchIN Reward. We see an opportunity to allow online customers to “try” a product virtually before buying a product. We are capable of doing this, today. What we want to know is, if there will be a demand from retailers to also want AR virtual try-on service or if you, even though you do not have an immediate need for an AR, think is a good idea for GigaGigs to embark on this service.
Thank you for reading my very long post today. If you come to this far of my posting, you can probably feel how much is this crowdfunding project means not only to me but also to my team members who put in countless hours to learn up AR creation skill, waiting to serve client with this exciting technology. We just love AR and it is very fun and rewarding to see our filters helping our clients. We just need confirmation and backing – to give us confidence in what we believe in.
Do support us to realize our dream!
You can help us in a few ways.
Step 1: Go to our pitchIN Reward page: https://bit.ly/2NzgeDi
Step 2: After reading through the details and try out our demos, click “Support This Project”
Step 3: You can choose whatever reward you think is relevant to you. You can either buy a reward for a 2D or 3D filter or pledge your support with any amount (be it RM1, RM5 or RM10 – any amount) to just say “Kow, I back you. Do continue with this! Don’t give up!”
Thank you for reading this post until the end. If you find this posting helpful in anyway or can help anyone to fulfill their startup dream, please share this to them.
Additional Reference:
- You can see the list of : 10 most successful Malaysian projects on Kickstarter
- How food and beverage brands are using augmented reality effects for marketing and branding purposes around the world
- Kickstarter campaign on BANGLASIA Movie by Namewee 黃明志作品《猛加拉殺手》