Crowdfunding has exploded over the last decade, raising over $60 billion for startups, projects, non-profits, medical expenses, and more. With the rise of sites like Kickstarter, GoFundMe, and Indiegogo, the idea of raising funds from a large pool of everyday people online instead of professional investors continues to grow mainstream.
So launching your own crowdfunding platform allows tapping into this momentum while monetizing several revenue stream opportunities in the process. This guide covers key steps and considerations when building a crowdfunding website and brand from scratch:
Identify Your Niche
Instead of directly competing with established general crowdfunding sites, identify specific verticals or causes underserved currently that a tailored platform could better facilitate. Examples include crowdfunding sites for local community projects, niche product categories, university alumni, special healthcare needs, religious causes, or social issues. Catering to targeted demographics and interests helps stand out.
Build Your Crowdfunding Technology
While coding a custom crowdfunding platform demands extensive development resources, flexible white-label crowdfunding software solutions exist for launching quickly. Services like IgnitionDeck, Crowdholding, and RocketHub furnish turnkey crowdfunding modules for member management, campaign creation, payment processing, disbursements, and more. This allows focusing resources on branding, marketing, and community building rather than engineering initially.
Get Financial & Legal Ducks in a Row
As a financial intermediary between campaign creators and backers, crowdfunding platforms require approving payment processing partners, accounting protocols, fraud protections, and compliance systems staying atop changing regulatory issues around investing, data privacy, trust accounts, etc. Consult attorneys and fintech providers specializing in crowdfunding to ensure above-board operations.
Seed The Community
Rather than expecting an “if you build it, they will come” outcome by putting up a basic platform and expecting viral growth instantly, identifying and actively recruiting promising early campaigns to seed marketplace momentum proves vital. Reach out to relevant non-profits, entrepreneurs, artists, or community projects as applicable to prioritize curating stellar initial projects demonstrating viability when marketing to future crowdfunders.
Monetize Wisely
While collecting fees from successfully funded campaigns offers the obvious monetization path, consider additional earnings streams like charging premium memberships for enhanced backer dashboard insights, selling ancillary services to creators around additional promotion, coaching through the process, customized campaign development, etc. Also, leave flexibility to tweak fee structures over time finding the optimal balance between platform profitability and creator/funder value.
Market Strategically
Promote select highly fundable campaigns proactively across external channels driving crowdfunders to your platform while also pursuing earned media through PR pitches to relevant publications to drive brand awareness. Seed early excitement by researching where your niche community already convenes online and engaging influencers aligned to share your solution.
Starting any tech platform capable of connecting other businesses with funding sources demands significant dedicated resources and capital. But by identifying truly underserved market segments, moving nimbly to validate product-channel fit quickly, and leveraging flexible software solutions prohibiting the need to reinvent basics, new crowdfunding verticals can gain meaningful footholds before pursuing larger platform ambitions. Prioritize community building supporting special funding causes and the technology will follow suit.
