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AUTUMN
2013
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19
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ALPACAS
MAGAZINE
o you have an idea for a creative product but
need funds to produce it? Perhaps you have a
design for a needle-felted product, but you need
one of those amazing but expensive needle-felting ma-
chines. Or perhaps you have an idea for an indestruct-
ible, expandable alpaca cover to keep next year’s cria
fleeces clean, but you need to do research, invest in the
right kind of fabric and get it manufactured. To move
forward with your idea, you need money.
A year ago, I was in that situation. A friend and
I had written and illustrated a children’s book about
alpacas. The major hurdle we faced was how to
finance the printing of the book. At 2 a.m. one night,
as I poked around the Internet to learn more about
publishing books, I clicked on a link to something
called Kickstarter, a crowdfunding site.
I had never heard of Kickstarter or crowdfunding,
but the article promised this was a risk-free way to
fund creative projects. It sounded too good to be true.
I clicked on it. I read and investigated and read some
more online, and by breakfast decided it was worth a
try. The worst case scenario was that I would suffer
a little public humiliation if we failed to make our
financial goal. Ten days later, our “Zadie and Plain
Vanilla, the Rainbow Alpaca” Kickstarter site was up
and running. One month after that, we had raised the
$6,000 necessary to print our book!
What is crowdfunding? When bank loans and
venture capital dried up in 2007-2008, something new
happened: a group of creative individuals invented
crowdfunding. Using social media, crowdfunding
helps entrepreneurs connect directly with people who
are interested in their project and willing to support
them financially. There’s no pleading your case with a
bank or trying to get a grant. Word about the project
spreads through the project originator’s social network
- Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter—and through people
who use Kickstarter in search of intriguing projects to
back. With the click of a mouse, people who like your
Kickstarter project make a pledge and become Backers.
Your Backers support your project by pledging money
in return for Rewards. Rewards are services or prod-
ucts created by each Kickstarter project’s originator.
There are different types of crowdfunding sites.
Kickstarter,
www.kickstarter.com, is crowdfunding for
creative projects: art, film, publishing, video games,
fashion, etc. These projects have specific goals: pro-
duce a specific film or book, a special marshmallow,
D
Developed a
Great AlpacaProduct
but NeedMoney to Produce it?
7U\ &URZGIXQGLQJ
BY BARBARA B. ZIEK
Graphics from stock.xchng