It seems like 2013 is destined to be the year of the niche crowdfunding platform. Startups like Zoshpit, Gambitious, and Seed&Spark have deviated from the Kickstarter or Indiegogo model with multiple project categories and instead have decided to focus on particular niche audiences.
For the non-coders who have an established audience, it can be difficult to take advantage of the crowdfunding revolution. Think of a local bank that would like to promote community investment through crowdfunding but doesn’t have the resources or the know-how to implement a complete fundraising platform. What about a music label that would like to allow musicians to fundraise for an upcoming concert tour? Mimoona solves this problem with an easy-to-implement framework for non-developers.
Mimoona’s “Plug and Fund” application helps you to bring crowdfunding to your community website or publication.
Launched by Arik (Brodach) Marmorstein and Nadav Trenter Moser, Mimoona provides analytics, social sign-in, and payment processing. In addition, the look and feel is all customizable (including adding your logo).
I had the chance to sit down with Arik, the cofounder of Mimoona. He has previously launched a successful crowdfuning platform in Israel and has some great insights into the crowdfunding industry.
How did you come up with the idea for Mimoona?
By exploring the traditional crowdfunding eco-system through the operation of the largest and most successful traditional crowdfunding platform in Israel, mimoona.co.il (raising almost 400,000 US$ for various projects within a short period of 11 months with zero marketing expenses), we understand exactly what challenges fund seekers have. After 4 months we started working on the plug & fund for the past 8 months.
Today, traditional crowdfunding platforms have 2 main problems:
(a) Marketing difficulties – most fund seekers don’t know how to market their project and therefore struggle to raise the desirable funds. The fund seeker may be an expert in his field but he is almost never a marketing expert. Yet traditional crowdfunding platforms require the fund seeker to perform various marketing activities in hopes of attract potential investors to the crowdfunding platform and to his campaign. In most cases such platforms have a lot of projects in many domains.
(b) Low rate of returning investors – most investors who back projects in traditional platforms do it on a one-time basis. People don’t usually come to traditional crowdfunding platforms looking for project to invest in. They are being brought to such platforms with a link on their wall or email.
We understood these challenges after a few months and we know all crowdfuners share it. This is the reason we developed the plug & fund.
Why should individuals crowdfund with a Mimoona platform (one of your website partners) as opposed to putting their project on Kickstarter?
It’s simple, because it will be much easier for them to raise the funds. Think about an athlete who wants to raise funds
to participate in the next world cup. We know that other than f&f, the people who will feel most connected to his cause are people who love sports. While on traditional crowdfunding platforms you have varied crowd who usually come there following a link and not because he visits the site on a regular basis. On sports related site who implemented our solution, there is existing, targeted crowd who come to the website on a regular basis.
At the end, a crowdfunder must ask himself where is the website with the most relevant crowd and how much time and efforts he needs to invest in marketing in order to bring relevant people to his campaign.
Do you think crowdfunding will go mainstream or that it is just a fad?
I’m sure of it. Many websites will have their own crowdfunding communities. Technology, in general, enables many individuals to accumulate their small units of “power” into one, big, significant power that can really change things. Crowdfunding is all about it.
