Crowdfunding reinvented: Visual crowdfunding!

Ok, we admit right off the bat that “reinvented” is probably a bit of an overstatement from a certain point of view — after all we won’t be talking about an entire overhaul of crowdfunding as we know it. However we will be talking about something that can easily (and deservingly so) be considered a huge buff to crowdfunding. And in a new and surprising direction too! A “mod” or an “expansion” to crowdfunding, if we decide to use gaming terminology.

Besides, “reinvented” sounds way better than “improved”.

What we are talking about is something called “Visual crowdfunding” — one of the great, fun aspects of the new and emerging crowdfunding platform — CoverrMe.com. Yes, CoverrMe.com is not just free, but it also strives for excellence and quality by introducing innovative elements to crowdfunding.

Visual Crowdfunding explained

Visual crowdfunding refers to the use of mosaic images, consisting of multiple different components that get revealed upon funding a campaign. Essentially what visual crowdfunding does is that it lets the funders leave a visual mark — a footprint — on the campaign, displaying their participation in it. The funders decides where, in what shape and what size the mark is going to be, and the cooler and more interesting image the campaign owner has given to be revealed, the more fascinating the whole process is going to be for everyone.

Visual crowdfunding is fun and engaging, because it introduces a new and playful element to the act of crowdfunding, in contrast to the usual, dry and simple clicking on “Contribute” or other similar and boring buttons. It stimulates the potential funders to actually go ahead and participate in the campaign by showing them the footprints of those that have already contributed. It also provides an even more rewarding experience in return. It turns crowdfunding into an even more unifying enterprise by displaying in the most visual way possible what the act of crowdfunding really is — a lot of people coming together to turn an image and a vision into reality.

People are more likely to contribute, and likely to contribute more

Basically, visual crowdfunding is an additional reward for the funders in and of itself — it gives them the feeling of “Here, see? I did this!” It’s both an emotional boost and an emotional incentive that makes all participants — funders and campaign creators alike — happier and more satisfied. We hypothesize that Visual Crowdfunding will result in:

1. People are more likely to contribute: uncovering the campaign image is an incentive for people to contribute to the campaign. Family and friends can see that their peers have contributed to the campaign, so why wouldn’t they?
2. People are likely to contribute more: when campaign page visitors start adding circles to the fundraising canvas and uncover images underneath it, they require multiple circles to uncover them (and keep clicking!). Also, they see from the other contributors how much they have spent on the campaign, and people tend to meet or exceed other folks’ contributions.

Earlier appearances of Visual Crowdfunding

It should be mentioned that visual crowdfunding is not something entirely new to the world — of course there’ve been projects like this before (not just the actual puzzles themselves).

The first thing that probably comes to mind to most veteran internet users is http://milliondollarhomepage.com — the website that literally attempted and succeeded at selling pixels to people (those that haven’t heard about it till now, are probably scratching their heads right now).

The site was started back in 2005 by Alex Tew, then a 21-year-old student from Wiltshire. Tew’s idea was to try and make $1m by selling 1 million pixels for $1 each. Sold in groups of 100, each pixel could link to another webpage, and so they were used as advertisements by the companies that bought them. As word spread, and more and more users visited the page to see what the fuss was about, the value of an ad there rose, until, 138 days after it launched, the final pixel was sold.

~10 years later, more than 20%-25% of those links are already inactive and many people are calling Milliondollarhomepage.com a stark demonstration of ‘link rot’”. And while “link rot” doesn’t sound nice now, it’s undeniable that Tew’s endeavor was a resounding success and that his visual method worked in a great way.

Which is why other people have used it as well — Solar Schools UK (a fascinating project about accommodating schools with solar panels) and Solar Impulse (an amazing solar-powered flying plane!) both used a visual method of crowdfunding to achieve their dream. Successfully, too!

Inspiration

From these projects came the inspiration for CoverrMe.com to tailor the visual component into a crowdfunding platform and harness it for great and rewarding results.

Because while the majority of the other crowdfunding platforms out there pride themselves with their simple and lean designs (which is important, don’t get us wrong — the simpler a crowdfunding platform is, the easier it is for potential funders to use it), CoverrMe.com strives to not only be user-friendly, but to also offer a rewarding experience to both funders and fund-seekers.

We believe CoverrMe makes the process of crowdfunding more successful and fulfilling, and as a result — simply better.

Originally published at coverrme.com.