With over $1 billion in total dollars pledged, Kickstarter has become branded worldwide as the way to raise funds online for rewards-based projects including table top games, video games, music, and design/technology products.
However, despite its phenomenal success, creators continue to experience pain-points that go beyond the scope of the Kickstarter platform. These pain-points have led to the creation of alternate solutions like , pre-crowdfunding platforms where you can gather a crowd before launching, and post-crowdfunding platforms that enable creators to continue to take pre-orders after a campaign is finished.
Now, I’d like to share another awesome crowdfunding tool with you that has been around for a little while, but has recently been picking up steam: Crowd Supply.
For inventors or engineers thinking about launching hardware crowdfunding campaign, Crowd Supply offers a lot of hands-on asstance, from reviewing your manufacturing plans, to helping with fulfillment and the back-end logistics. Below, I’ve compared the differences between Crowd Supply and Kickstarter.
Crowd Supply
Pre-Launch
Crowd Supply will: “Provide early feedback and suggestions on your product and plan, backed by years of engineering and product experience. Make introductions to potential manufacturers, suppliers, and collaborators through the Crowd Supply service providers directory. Collect e-mail addresses on a “Coming Soon” page featuring the name and an image of your product. Work with you to prepare a list of news outlets, reviewers, bloggers, and others that should be notified of your campaign as soon as it launches.”
Crowdfunding
Crowd Supply is an all-or-nothing crowdfunding platform like Kickstarter. You will only receive funds if you hit your fundraising goal before the clock winds down. The company takes a 5% fee like Kickstarter and also charges a payment processing fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
One of the things I like about the platform is the functionality built in which allows creator to set pricing options and other configurations that go into choosing a reward.
“Here are just some of the ways Crowd Supply offers you the flexibility you need to present your product to the world:
Configuration Options: A single pledge level can have multiple configuration options, like size and color.
Dynamic Pricing: The price of pledge level can vary according the configuration options selected by the backer.
Dynamic Ship Dates: The expected ship date displayed to potential backers varies according to how many people have already backed the campaign.”
Pre-Orders
After your crowdfunding campaign has ended, Crowd Supply gives creators the option to offer their product for pre-order on the website. “Pre-orders run from the time your campaign ends until you have fulfilled all the pledges made during your campaign. Pre-order pricing and pledge level options can differ from those of the original campaign.”
The company will take an optional 10% of total pledged after your campaign.
Fulfillment Services
“Crowd Supply will:
– gather order details, like quantity, size, and color
– collect and verify your backers’ shipping addresses
– provide packing materials, box, tape, and address label
– break bulk and pack each customer’s shipment
– inventory and store your products in a warehouse
– ship via USPS or via UPS at a discounted negotiated rate
– provide you and your backers with tracking numbers
– accept and process returns.”
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is obviously more of an established platform with similar fees and all-or-nothing crowdfunding structure. However, because it is such a widely used platform you won’t receive the same level of customer service or hand holding as with Crowd Supply.
In addition, Kickstarter leaves it up to creators to coordinate fulfillment, post-crowdfunding pre-orders, and does not assist with marketing or PR (aside for including projects in their Kickstarter newsletter). To be included in their newsletter, you must either be picked up by chance or see: “Have a story, a photo, or a video about a project you want to share with us? We’d love to see it! Share them with us here: stories@kickstarter.com”
Due to the fact that Kickstarter has simply been around longer, there is much more of a community on the website, therefore you might be more likely to receive pledges from strangers if people like your hardware or design product.
Which Should You Use?
If you are planning on self-hosing a crowdfunding campaign, I might consider exploring Crowd Supply as an alternative. For the 5% that you give away, they can deliver value ranging from help with a marketing/PR strategy, to an easy-to-use pre-order platform after your campaign is finished. They also have good relationships with manufactures and experience fulfilling orders, and therefore might ease this pain-point. You can get started by reading their campaign checklist.
If you are trying to attract strangers from a crowdfunding platform, I don’t think Crowd Supply has a large enough backer community to rival Kickstarter at the moment. I would consider combining your Kickstarter campaign with some of pre-launch or post-launch tools mentioned in the beginning of this article, along with investing in my eBook to get a quick and clear view as to what to expect when running your campaign.
I’ve also listed some reasons as to why you may want to consider fulfilling your own rewards vs. outsourcing the fulfillment to another company.
