What is a crowdfunding campaign and is it right for you?

Catch Creative has been helping businesses with their videos for years and is now excited to embark on a new adventure, helping startups with their crowdfunding campaign videos. Our crowdfunding page is full of useful information on Catch Creative’s experience and services, with advice from our very own founder Alex Sergent. For instance, you can find our collaboration with BARE Dating on their Seedrs campaign.

Crowdfunding is ‘the collective effort of a large number of individuals who network and pool small amounts of capital to finance a new or existing business venture’. It’s a concept we’re all familiar with nowadays, as a business strategy that has become more and more popular in recent years.

According to statista and Fundly, the crowdfunding market has been growing steadily and is even projected to triplicate its value by 2025. Its global market size in 2027 is predicted to reach 28.8bn USD.

As more businesses and start-ups begin to view crowdfunding as a viable route to raise investment, it is paramount to understand that in order to gain the desired results, a crowdfunding campaign is needed.

Recently, Catch Creative has partnered with ISQ Crowdfunding to offer the best videography service to their clients along with a special rate fee and an all inclusive package. ISQ Crowdfunding is a ‘crowdfunding specialist and private equity funding support partner’. They help ‘clients to expand, engage and raise investment from their direct and extended networks’. We have spoken to ISQ’s Senior Account Manager India Gilling to shed light on the process of running a crowdfunding campaign.

What's the first step to a crowdfunding campaign? How does it start?

A crowdfunding campaign starts when a company or entrepreneur decides to raise funds via this method. Usually, someone needs to have done a lot of homework in what this entails, and they absolutely need to understand what crowdfunding is. The lead up to launching a successful campaign is typically around 3 months of hard work. Check out this article too, for the key things you should understand before starting a crowdfunding campaign.

What's the most important part about a crowdfunding campaign? What's at its heart?

The heart of any crowdfunding campaign is the crowd itself, the groups of people who are willing to support a company and its goals. It really is a ‘the more the merrier’ vibe, and for a successful campaign, an entrepreneur will need to adopt an ‘everyone is an investor’ mindset.

What is the role of video in a crowdfunding campaign?

The video is an opportunity for you to talk about your crowdfunding proposition in a fun, exciting and more visually appealing way than your campaign text or investor deck. A chance for you to talk about the important bits, but adding a level of creativity. It’s also a chance for your investors to see the whites of your eyes, put a face to the brand, and see the campaign, AND the business as being run by real humans! So you need to ensure key team members are present in it. It’s also important not to rush to the video. There is a lot to do ahead of that! The most important feature of a crowdfunding campaign video is to disclose all the relevant information an investor needs to know in order to make their decision. What is the opportunity your business addresses? Why does this exist? What’s your USP [unique selling point]? Why should someone get involved at this stage?

How is a crowdfunding campaign different from other types of campaigns? (e.g. a charity campaign)

Equity crowdfunding campaigns are for registered, limited liability businesses that want to offer shares in their companies in exchange for investment. You're not asking for charity, donations, or favours. Instead, you're offering these investors the opportunity to be part of your exciting and promising future.

Who gets involved in a crowdfunding campaign?

Whilst it’s great to be able to delegate specific tasks that come up throughout a campaign, It’s important that the lead on a crowdfunding campaign is the founder or business owner. The process is long, and difficult, and it’s paramount that a company follows a diligent structure in order to successfully fund. Investors, particularly those who are HNW [high net worth] individuals, will want to be speaking to the person in charge, and not your Social Media Exec. So whilst its a great idea to get your team involved to help speed up the process and to take advantage of team members’ strengths, ultimately the day to day running of the campaign and especially investor comms, needs to be the person running the business, who knows it inside and out, back to front, not a junior staff member or a third party.

How can a crowdfunding campaign help a startup company?

‘I can crowdfund to start my company’ - this is a common misconception about equity crowdfunding. Whilst there have been lots of successful start-ups that have raised capital this way, you’re unlikely to succeed with just an idea. There’s a lot of competition and you need to stand out. You need carefully constructed investor materials; an investor deck, executive summaries, and financial projections/forecasts.You really need SOME traction, a list of achievements – something under your belt that you can talk to investors about, to show them how you got to where you are today, and why they should invest in you. If you think you have a brilliant idea for a business, that’s great, but go away and start setting it in stone. It may mean you need to look for other forms of funding first, and come back to crowdfunding when you’ve got more to talk about.

How does ISQ help with crowdfunding?

ISQ is your crowdfunding specialist and private equity funding support partner, we help clients reach their full potential! Crowdfunding is a big event for any business, it takes time, effort, money, and it’s important to make a good impression. We make sure clients don't miss that opportunity. We help our clients to expand, engage and raise investment from both their direct and indirect networks, in order to present a strongly validated campaign to the platform’s crowd. We’ll make sure any collateral produced looks as strong as possible, and that a large enough network has been established prior to launch. We work with clients in the lead up to launching for approx 10-12 weeks, and our process enables people to plan, prepare, launch and run a highly successful funding round. Our clients close their rounds on Seedrs, Crowdcube, or privately, using Seedlegals.