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by
Marc Boucher
Brand and Product Marketing via Crowdfunding, SpaceRef Business
“Crowdfunding is becoming a familiar word for those who need to fund a project or product. In the case of a startup, it can replace the role of the angel investor to get the initial funding. However the scope of what is being funded, and why, is evolving as startups use this collective effort for brand recognition and marketing a specific project or product.”
Marc Boucher is an entrepreneur, writer, editor, podcaster and publisher who has worked in space media for more than 25 years. In 1999 he co-founded SpaceRef with Keith Cowing. The new media company grew into a network that included NASA Watch and The Astrobiology Web. After selling SpaceRef, he joined Multiverse Media, which later merged with SpaceNews. There he helped steer the combined company toward more multimedia, a subscription paywall and intelligence products, and pushed for a mobile app. He is also the founder of SpaceQ Media, Canada’s space news and market intelligence publication.
Marc started his first Internet content business in 1992 and hasn’t looked back. When he’s not working, he loves exploring Canada and the world and expanding his photography skills.
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This confirms what many of us surmised, that the crowdfunding is not being used for increased company start-up capital, but rather for follow-on activities that are quite separate from the activities funded by the initial investments. I think this is a smart way to go, and it spreads the added risk around (small risks for may contributors, each of whom decides their own level of risk/investment). This is an example of how the capitalist system can rather painlessly achieve results that other economic systems can’t achieve at all. Perhaps capitalism shouldn’t always be treated as a four-letter word.
I hope the crowdfunding approach survives and grows. It allows people to make choices, and “vote” for ideas with their money, and it allows people to contribute at their own rates. Best of all, start-ups, new research, and diversifications that previously would have failed or never been born because of a (relatively speaking) small amount of funding being unavailable now potentially have another investment source to turn to.