INDIEGOGO crowdfunding platform. Analysis of the best projects on Kickstarter and Indiegogo What is the payment zip code indiegogo com

Indiegogo is a crowdfunding platform based on the principles of openness, transparency, freedom of choice and action. It is designed to finance absolutely any projects and, therefore, has a number of advantages over its main competitor - Kickstarter. Indiegogo has no project type restrictions... They can be technological (including without a prototype), entertainment, educational, and charitable. Moreover, a person can collect funds for his own personal goals (here the area of \u200b\u200binterest overlaps with another competitor - GoFundMe). Another notable difference is the ability to launch campaigns based on a flexible funding model, as well as be open to users from anywhere in the world.

Indeed, both creating campaigns and funding them (unlike the above-mentioned Kickstarter platform) can be a person from anywhere. There are no geographic restrictions. The only thing he needs is to have a legal bank account.

The flexible funding model, also called "Keep It All", is the ability to receive money even if the campaign's financial goal is not achieved. However, the standard All-or-Nothing model also exists. The author of the campaign can initially choose it, making it clear to his sponsors that he is ready to take risks and hopes for their help in this uncompromising struggle.

Of course, this flexibility imposes its own restrictions on the financial relationship with the platform. In the case of a flexible financing model, the platform Indiegogo takes 9% of the collected funds... However, if the goal is still achieved, then 5% are returned back. It is clear that under the All or Nothing model, only the 4% option is possible.

For charitable projects, the platform offers a 25% discount on all interest rates. True, non-commercial projects usually receive their funds through a special structure - FirstGiving, which takes an additional 4% for their services.

In general, the scheme for working with the Indiegogo platform is standard and fits into the next few steps:

1) The author prepares a description of his project. Writes texts, uploads video messages, illustrations, tables. Everything that will help the user navigate and make a decision in favor of this particular project. At the same stage, a financing scheme ("Keep it all" or "All or nothing"), campaign duration and financial goal are selected. The author also indicates the rewards that he is willing to provide to his sponsors. Depending on the type of campaign, this can be anything from a thank you speech to a pre-order of the product itself.

2) After publication, the author's task is to notify his closest circle of the new project as quickly as possible. It is also advisable to contact the media for support. With a frequency of several days, you need to publish updates on your project so that sponsors and stakeholders remain motivated.

3) After the campaign expires, the author receives his funds. However, there are some subtleties here. Let's dwell on them in more detail:

The part of the funds that were transferred using PayPal immediately goes to the user's account. Less 9% (Indiegogo commission). Upon reaching the financial goal, 5% is returned. It is clear that in the case of working according to the "All or nothing" model, the money gets to the PayPal account only after the successful outcome of the campaign.

Funds transferred through a bank account are sent to the user only after the campaign expires. Moreover, it can take up to 16 business days.

Finally, funds received by non-profit organizations are transferred to her every week or month, depending on the type of campaign and the arrangement.

The creators of the Indiegogo platform tirelessly remind that the end result depends solely on their own activity, which is expressed in the promotion of the campaign primarily through social channels. They call it gogofactor. The higher this indicator, the more likely it is that the project gets to the main page in the selected list. Of course, this will increase his chances even more. So everything is in the hands of the authors.

Despite the global nature of the platform and the absence of visible restrictions on participation, funds can only be raised in several currencies: US dollars, Canadian dollars, British pounds sterling and Euros.

It should be noted that, in addition to fundraising, companies often use crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo to publicize their projects and probe the market. Especially often this is noticed by technology companies that release a new product and, using crowdfunding technology, collect pre-orders, wanting to make sure that the new product is to their liking. This method also helps the company to attract a large venture capital investor in many ways, since there is a direct evidence base for the positive attitude of customers to the product!

At the time of publication of the review, the largest project on Indiegogo remains the Ubuntu Edge smartphone campaign, which raised almost $ 13 million of the planned $ 32 million. However, given the All-or-Nothing model, the campaign ended up being a failure, albeit a significant one.

In 2014, the platform experienced a record number of updates:

  • january: Launch of Outpost, which gives businesses the ability to migrate their Indiegogo campaigns directly to their site while maintaining the platform's benefits of marketing channels, analytics, and user network;
  • april: change of logo and site design;
  • july: Canadian iOS mobile app launched;
  • august: increase in the list of services integrated with Facebook;
  • august: launch of an international mobile application for iOS;
  • september: office opened in Israel;
  • september: launch of the Forever Funding model for companies that have already attracted the necessary funding and would like to receive additional funds on an ongoing basis;
  • october: Indiegogo becomes the first Apple Pay crowdfunding partner;
  • december: the launch of the service of voluntary insurance for backers;
  • december: launch

    Website address:

    Launch date:

    Placement:

    United States of America

    History:

    The platform in the form of a concept appeared in 2007 under the name "Project Keiyaku". The site was officially launched in January 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival. This choice was not made by chance. The emphasis was on financing film projects. In 2009, the platform expanded its field of activity and began to accept any projects.
    In February 2008, the platform received Angel Investments.
    September 2011 - seed investment of $ 1.5 million.
    June 2012 - $ 15 million in Round A.
    January 2014 - $ 40 million in Round B.

    Founders:

    Slava Rubin, Eric Schell and Danae Ringelmann

Most entrepreneurs who are looking at crowdfunding as a means of obtaining funding for their product choose between Kickstarter and Indigo, the two most popular platforms at the moment. Each has its own pros and cons.

Of course, you can learn a lot by studying the specifics and differences of both sites, but this article compares 100 projects on each platform to determine which platform is more suitable for your product.

The analysis of the highest grossing projects on Kickstarter and Indigo was carried out. And here are the patterns that were noticed.

  • Kickstarter was marked by 115 projects that raised over a million dollars. And all 100 projects from the sample, respectively, also exceeded the one million mark.
  • On Indiegogo, 41 projects have raised over $ 1 million (including the Ubuntu Edge project, with huge fundraising but unreachable goals). The rest of the projects from the Top 100 on Indigo raised from $ 336,000 to $ 993,311.
  • The most successful projects on Kickstarter and Indiegogo grossed $ 20,339,000 and $ 12,814,000, respectively.

However, you will be surprised to find an interesting trend that suggests that Indigo is growing faster than Kickstarter. The graph below shows this trend in the number of projects from the Top 100, depending on the year.

Indiegogo is showing great growth in projects raising over $ 1 million:

  • 3 in 2012
  • 6 in 2013
  • 20 in 2014
  • 12 in 2015 (7 months)

The area in which Kickstarter has proven its leadership relates to the number of backers per project. For the top 100 projects of the site, this is on average 24,928 backers per project versus 11,468 for Indigo. It is also worth noting that among the top 100 Kickstarter projects, 16 were launched by authors who already had successful projects behind them.

Speaking about the most popular categories of projects, it can be noted that at Indigo, 64 projects out of the grossing hundred will be eliminated to Technologies, 7 to Cinema and five to Design and the Internet. Kickstarter is dominated by Games (43 projects), Technologies (31 projects) and Design (15 projects).

But the most surprising is the geography of the authors of the most successful projects. Since Kickstarter has restrictions on the countries with which it works, it is very difficult to know the exact "homeland" of a startup, as many use the services of intermediaries and business partners.

However, on Kickstarter, the geographic distribution of super-successful authors is as follows:

  1. USA (83 projects)
  2. Great Britain (7 projects)
  3. Japan (3 projects).
  1. USA (79 projects)
  2. Canada (5 projects)
  3. Great Britain (4 projects).

Output

The numbers describing the most successful projects on both platforms are really exciting. Looking at them, many potential authors come to us with thoughts in the spirit: “we want to collect half a million dollars to start”.

But we must remember that successful projects that create the main hype around crowdfunding make up less than 1% of the total number of projects launched. To get into Club 100, you need to spend several months on intensive preparation of the project, even before its launch, in order to prepare a strong team and an effective plan of action.


Crowd ... what? For those who meet this term for the first time, we explain: crowdfunding is a way to attract financial resources for the implementation or support of independent projects (literally from English - "public funding"). As a phenomenon, "people's fundraising" has existed for a long time, but with the spread of the Internet, it has moved to a completely new level. Crowdfunding provides an opportunity for anyone to raise funds to bring their project to life - be it the creation of unique accessories, a non-commercial movie, a new gadget or a social project. All these ideas have one thing in common: they would hardly have been realized without the help of crowdfunding platforms.


To be successful in crowdfunding, first of all, you need to correctly present yourself and your project. If you want to grab the attention of potential investors but don't know where to start, be sure to read these tips.

1. Make a plan

The structure of the plan will depend entirely on the type of your project. The plan should include not only the fundraising campaign, but also the implementation of the project itself.

Experienced crowdfunders start raising funds only at the second or third stage of the work, as most sponsors prefer to invest in an existing project. Set feasible goals and deadlines for yourself, and be sure to include them in your project description. As a rule, people are easier to part with money when they know the time frame in which they will see the result.


2. Be convincing

It is important to remember that in reality, you are asking complete strangers to open wallets and give you their money. You have to stock up on a couple of powerful arguments that will help convince a potential sponsor of the value of your project. First of all, the description of your project should convey its significance, the uniqueness of the idea and the value of the product that will result.

Be sure to use visuals if you have them (and if not, take care of it!). Show examples of completed projects, demonstrate the completed stages of current work, record a video message to potential investors - anything that will convince people to click on the "Help" button will be useful.

4. Offer something in return

Many successful campaigns promise their investors something in return for their investment. For example, you can give everyone who donated a certain amount a copy of your movie, a T-shirt with your logo, tickets to your show, or a DIY product. In order to motivate people to leave large donations, you can come up with a graduated reward system: the larger the amount, the larger the gift.


5. Find promoters

Communicating your campaign to a large number of people is the most difficult task you will face in crowdfunding. Ideally, promoters should be people who have invested in your project and count on its success. It is also advisable to involve friends and family: together you can talk about the project in social networks (you will find useful tips for promoting the project in social networks). If your project is truly unique, getting media attention to it is not an easy task, but a worthwhile one.


6. Learn from the best

There are many successful examples. It is interesting that in Russia the most successful projects are related to creativity and charity (films, games, books, social projects), while technology startups are equally popular abroad. We have selected several crowdfunding campaigns that can inspire you to be successful.

Such a phenomenon as crowdfunding appeared relatively recently, but has already managed to firmly occupy its niche. Many of you have heard about Kickstarter - a platform where ordinary people throw off their own money on projects that they like more than others. However, few people are familiar with the equally large-scale crowdfunding resource Indiegogo, where you can also raise money for your startup. Today, within the framework of our section "Exchanges" I would like to tell you exactly about this site.

What is Indiegogo?

Indiegogo is a crowdfunding platform whose principles are transparency, openness, freedom of choice. The service is designed to raise money and finance various projects, having a wide range of advantages, and this is only why it differs from its famous competitor. On the site, you will not find any restrictions regarding the type of project. They can be educational, technological (without a prototype), entertainment, and even charitable. Moreover, the user can collect funds for any personal purpose. And, of course, there are no geographic restrictions. The main thing is to have a legal account in any bank.

Funding models

When a user opens a campaign, the user designates a certain amount that he needs to collect (we'll talk about this later), but Indiegogo has one clear advantage - a flexible funding model called "Keep it all." The principle of this model is that as a result, the user can receive money, even if the final goal has not been achieved.

Well, for the most drawn there is a standard "All or nothing" model, which immediately makes it clear to potential sponsors that the person who launched the campaign is ready to go to the end and will not give up.

As already became clear, the user chooses the model himself before launching the campaign. However, it is worth considering the fact that the percentage of the platform will depend on the chosen model. So, if your choice fell on the standard funding model, then Indiegogo will take 4% of the collected money. In the case of the flexible model, you will have to pay 9% of the accumulated amount. But here, too, there is a plus: if later the goal of the campaign is nevertheless achieved, the service will return you 5%.

Site work scheme

Opening a campaign on Indiegogo is easy. The main thing is to prepare in advance all the necessary information on your project. But let's walk through this process step by step.

1. The author of the campaign prepares a full description of his project, takes photographs, tables, records a video with an appeal to potential sponsors. Simply put, you need to provide users with information that will help them make the right decision and finance this particular project. You will immediately be asked to choose a financing model, monetary goal and duration of the campaign. At this stage, you can also specify possible rewards for sponsors. It all depends on the campaign itself: the reward can be either a simple speech of gratitude or pre-ordering a product.

2. Immediately after the campaign is published, the author must notify his surroundings and potential sponsors about it through social networks, blogs and even the media. Again, the author should periodically update the information on the project so that people who are interested in him do not lose motivation.

3. As soon as the campaign expires, its author will receive his funds, but there are some subtleties:

- money transferred via PayPal goes straight to the author's account in the case of a flexible model or at the end of the campaign if the All or Nothing model is selected;

- money that was transferred by bank, under any funding model, will be sent to the author only after the campaign expires.

Conclusion

The crowdfunding platform is very suitable for developers and programmers who want to launch their own project. By the way, sometimes the result exceeds all expectations, and a vivid example of this is the Jolla tablet, which collected the required amount of $ 380 thousand in just a couple of hours, and two weeks before the end of the project, this amount increased to $ 1.17 million. All that remains is to come up with a project and ask people for funding.

In this article (in two parts) we will take a closer look at how to support projects on the Indiegogo crowdfunding site, or create your own. But first, a little about the site itself and crowdfunding.

Indiegogo crowdfunding platform allows everyone, regardless of country of residence, to support projects, or create their own. This is its main difference from the leader of crowdfunding - Kickstarter, where only companies and US residents can create their projects and withdraw money (at the time of this writing, 05.2015).

So ... Registration


To register, visit the Indiegogo homepage. You will be prompted to log in with a Facebook account from which your First Name, Last Name, Profile Photo and Email will be pulled. This is most likely the fastest and most convenient way to register. If you do not have such an account, or you want to use another e-mail for authorization, then click on the button Sing up:

Next, a registration window will appear with the minimum required information. First name, last name, e-mail, password. After filling in all the fields, click CREATE AN ACCOUNT and you will be returned to the main page already under a new account:

To take further actions, you need to confirm the registration e-mail in your mailbox by clicking on the link Verify your email address in a letter from Indiegogo. Optionally, you can fill in additional profile fields. To do this, click on your account top right, and select My settings... Here you can specify the country of residence, city, postal code, connect your Facebook profile, tell about yourself, upload an additional photo, add an avatar, add a link to a Facebook group, to your YouTube channel, or to a VKontakte group. After all the actions, do not forget to click SAVE bottom right.


On this, the registration can be considered complete. From now on, you can become a sponsor of projects, or create your own. In this article we will consider the first scenario.

Project support

Usually we learn about projects of interest from Internet publications, blogs, social networks. In this case, using a direct link, we directly go to the project of interest to us. If we do not have a direct link, then the site provides a rubricator by project topics ( EXPLORE), exactly like the search by projects, if you know its name:

The whole variety of thematic projects can be sorted by country and city, by the amount of funds, or by the type of monetization. There are two types of monetization - fixed amount (Fixed), or with flexible budget (Flexible)... Monetization parameters are very important. And here's why ... Fixed Sum Projects ( Fixed), these are projects that have clearly defined the minimum amount required to start the project, and if the required amount is not obtained, they are considered invalid. In this case, the money is returned to the sponsors. Also, by supporting projects with a fixed fee, you can leave the project at any time before its end. Projects with a flexible budget are projects that get as much as they collect. But it is not a fact that this amount will be enough for the developer to implement his project. In this case, sponsors' money will not be returned. Typically, flexible budget projects involve charitable, artistic, or recreational activities that do not require any explicit budget.

At first, it would be great to re-examine the essence of the project, since changes could have occurred during its development and publication on the crowdfunding platform. If you are not sure of your English, it is better to use the translation of the page into Russian. In Google Chrome, for example, this is done through the right mouse button. The translation looks funny, but in the overwhelming majority of cases it conveys the main essence of what is happening:

If you have any questions about the project, you can ask them in the section Comments, or contact the developer directly via Contact... Such requests will not remain unanswered, because the success of the company directly depends on this.
When all the issues are resolved, it's time to familiarize yourself with the terms of participation in the project. For this, lots are provided ( PERK). Each lot indicates its value and what you, in the end, will receive for your money. Also, an important fact is the planned start date of shipments of goods. This is the current status of the project:

More details about lots:

Usually, the shipping cost is indicated in the lot. As in the example above: “Free delivery in Russia. Add $ 22 for international shipping. " To do this, you need to click on the lot, and below, by clicking on the button Custom, enter an additional delivery amount:

Shipping costs can be arranged in a separate lot. This can be useful if you forgot to add it in the main lot. Additionally, you need to pay the shipping cost from the same account from which you paid for the main lot. This will help the system combine these 2 payments:

Payment page

At the moment, on the Indiegogo site, payment can be made through PayPal, or using a bank card. Let's consider both options.

After selecting the lot and adding the shipping cost (if necessary), you need to enter your shipping address and click CONTINUE TO PAYMENT... The address can be entered in both Russian and English:

Next, you will be taken to the PayPal payment page. If you already have an active PayPal account, then you just need to confirm your e-mail with a password and pay as usual. If you do not have it, you can pay by credit card by clicking on Pay with a credit or debit card:

In this case, payment will be made via PayPal's Guest Checkout (guest payment):

In the second part of the article, we will take a closer look at how, and on what conditions, to create your own crowdfunding company on the Indiegogo platform. If you still have questions, or we missed something, please write about it in the comments. Changes will be made instantly.

 

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