We love it and loathe it in equal measure. Crowdfunding, sometimes better known in terms of brands like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, is here to stay because it does something that previous methods did not do well

1) You can go straight to the consumer for funding and in so doing avoid having to talk to bankers who have little imagination until is comes time to price perceived risk aggressively.

2) You can have an idea and test the consumer’s reaction to it without having to hire a focus group, a statistician and so on. The sequence might look like this:

have an idea, test it, fail, have another idea, test it, fail, realise that you need to tweak what it is that you are doing, relaunch, succeed.

3) The public who have put their money where their mouth is can comment on what you have created and in the case of Kickstarter, you can pledge and then later remove your pledge if the weight of evidence indicates that the product is a sham, or that it does not offer real value. Note: you have to be careful on Indiegogo because pledging can result in money coming out of your bank account right away.

4) You can get together with like-minded people through a platform like BackerClub and promote worthy products through the club. If you want to know more about BackerClub please feel free to email me at john@lamerand.com.au.

5) You can get product to market faster than it would take through conventional business models. I know, you might say “Kickstarters are notorious for not delivering on time”, and you would be mostly correct because every project will face unforeseen barriers. While you can plan for what seems logical not everything you come up against in launching a business will be obvious when you start out.

For example:
The factory that you have hired to do something does not meet the failure rate,
The packaging design looks great but it is costing a bomb, so you go back to the drawing board. 
There is a breakthrough in how you can build your thing and you realise that the result will be less expensive to make and better for the customer, so you let them know and you trust your judgement that it is better to be a little late than deliver a second-rate product.
(and I have just received a call from my child’s school saying that she fell and hurt her arm, and this was not foreseen, but if I were pushing a deadline it is clear that I would put my child’s interests over the delivery schedule, so I will sign off now and go collect her)

We will be bringing you news of the crowdfunded project that we feel offer real value to teachers. Stay tuned.