Why we need to be daring to create a truly global crowdfunding platform
Solving big problems calls for big ideas.
The Acorn Collective is a truly global crowdfunding platform. We will be using blockchain technology to help founders and startups find access to funding.
As head of User Experience (UX) at The Acorn Collective, I wanted to share how we will be approaching the design of the Acorn platform.
In my first article I gave a brief introduction to the guiding UX principles that we have come up with to help us ensure the platform is as usable, accessible and pleasurable for everyone who comes in contact with it.
In this series I will discuss each principle in context of a challenge that we will face when building this new product.
This is a completely new concept
This might be a divisive statement, but I believe Acorn is the first true crowdfunding platform.
- Our research shows campaigns need at least $10,000.00 to be successful.
- Most platforms demand you have a working prototype before you start crowdfunding.
- The reality is that most successful campaigns are fully funded before they start.
- As I was advised when looking at crowdfunding for a project of my own: “you need to invest about a quarter of your own money to ‘prime the pot’ and expect 50% of contributions to come from your own network”. That leaves only 25% of the total to be made up by the ‘crowd’.
- I was also advised that I should pretend that my total raise was a lot lower than it was, as fully funded campaigns raise more that partially funded ones.
So in ‘traditional’ crowdfunding: I need tens of thousands to get started, know loads of people willing to part with money, and to have already built the project before I start. Even then I should lie about what I need and risk my backer’s funds.
This is insane! And it’s certainly not what I would call crowdfunding.
The Acorn concept solves these issues. We will give founders everything they need to run a successful campaign.
Of course the more you invest in your project the better you will do, but at a basic level you can start with nothing. The transparency aspect means you don’t need to lie, in fact it actively discourages dishonesty and supports founders to success.
Our principle = Dare to try something new.
To revolutionise crowdfunding we need to have big ideas and forge our own route. We believe in grabbing those big ideas, seeing if they work, and if they don’t learning what we can from it. This is often referred to as ‘celebrating failure’. The idea that if we fail it means we’re trying new things and learning as we go.
Doing something new is really positive in many ways:
- We will have access to new markets that traditional crowdfunding doesn’t.
- Innovations make our platform viable in ways traditional crowdfunding. platforms aren’t.
- The eyes of the world on us for doing something interesting.
However there are several negatives:
- No tried and tested solution out there to copy.
- Difficulty in communicating new concepts to users of the platform.
- Risk of wasting time on features that don’t provide value.
Let’s be honest; There are existing crowdfunding platforms out there — and we will learn as much from them as we can — but we need to be aware that no-one has done crowdfunding like this before.
