Why Crowdfunding is Never a Loss

Many crowdfunders often ask me about it, and you’re likely to have asked yourself this question as well: “what if I invest all this time, energy and money in creating this crowdfunding campaign and then I fail and do not get enough funding to take my project forward?”
Well, I’m not going to lie to you. That may happen. After all, there are no guarantees — not in business, not in crowdfunding, not in life, actually. You can only do a great job, be smart and diligent about how you take your crowdfunding project forward, and keep on fine-tuning your campaign as it evolves.
However, I’d like to tell you something that I say to all my clients. If you think about it, crowdfunding is never a loss. You see, when you create a crowdfunding campaign (even if it is just a pre-launch that you do not take forward as an actual campaign), you are creating a lot of valuable assets: a brand, a concept built around your brand, an audience, a website, presence on social media, content, a mailing list, and a following.
You are also acquiring something that is very precious in the world of startups and entrepreneurship: feedback and insights from your audience, which help you to refine your idea and make sure that your project is more in line with what your target audience wants and expects.
Make no mistake: even if for some reason your crowdfunding campaign does not succeed, these assets are valuable and there are many good ways to use them even if the project faces an apparent crowdfunding dead-end.
You can run a new campaign based on the lessons delivered to you by your first failed campaign, or you can obtain a different source of funding to take your project forward, or you can even sell these assets to someone who likes you project and would like to take it forward, picking up from where you left — it if you don’t feel like taking it forward anymore.
These are just a few examples of the many ways by which you can always extract value from crowdfunding, even when your campaign did not perform as you would have wanted it to perform. Still, there’s no doubt that your goal with a crowdfunding campaign is always to succeed, which is admittedly challenging.
