Crowdfunding UrbanXtreme
Reward-based crowdfunding is the starting point of some of the coolest projects. In fact, if you are living in Brisbane and your dream is practising extreme sports all year long, you may have heard about the Urban Xtreme ReadyFundGo campaign. That’s how Lindsay and her team successfully managed to find their first customers and raise some of the funds they needed to launch Australia’s only indoor snow sport and adventure centre.
Here, we take a closer look at Lindsay’s crowdfunding success story and highlight some of the essential aspects that helped her campaign jump-start and win the heart of dozens of contributors.
Bring something new to the market
Australia’s first indoor snow centre uses crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is a means to raise money for innovative projects. So, before you get started with your campaign, make sure you have something unique to offer to potential backers.
For instance, before UrbanXtreme it was not every day that people had the opportunity to practice skiing or snowboarding in Brisbane. So, when extreme sports enthusiasts saw that someone was finally going to meet their needs for adventure indoor, they couldn’t resist contributing to the project’s execution.
Make the experience available to many
Another vital success factor of Lindsay’s project is that it’s appealing to a sufficiently large customer base. No matter whether you are a beginner or professional, and coming alone or looking for a great time with friends and relatives, she has got you covered with an all-level experience and multiple activities: skiing, snowboarding, climbing walls, obstacle courses, freestyle, trampolines, you name it. It’s hard not to relate to her project with all these alternatives, and that helped her catch the attention of many supporters during her crowdfunding campaign.
Test and build market demand before you open
What’s fantastic about crowdfunding is that it allows you to test the waters for your idea. Hence you can offer rewards that consist of products or services at a discount from the expected retail price in exchange for pledges — financial commitments made by backers to support a project that hits its funding target. On top of that, crowdfunding enables you to be able to create a community of loyal frequent buyers, making it easier for you to grow.
In Lindsay’s campaign, for example, supporters were able to save between 30 and 40% for different activities alongside receiving an exclusive invitation to the opening launch event.
Establish there is a market need
As Bob Hope once said: “A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.” Indeed, convincing investors to commit financial resources to an innovative idea can be hard. Investors will question how you know there is a demand for what you are offering.
After you run a successful reward-based crowdfunding campaign, the perceived risk of your project can drop significantly and, therefore, make it easier and cheaper to get financial support in the future. The reward-based campaign gives you the opportunity to demonstrate that you have customers who like your idea and back you.
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Your idea
As we start 2018, are you one of those people who has had a fantastic idea for a while and decided this is the year you will make it happen?
Will your project be suitable for reward-based crowdfunding? If you would like to find out whether this is the case and learn more about the steps to make it a reality send us a message at info@readyfundgo.com today so we can help you build a plan for crowdfunding success.
