Crowdfunding in China: If you don't make money, how can you go in the future?

From "Big Fish? From the cartoon Haitang to 100,000 cold jokes, and then to Dongye's concert. In the United States, crowdfunding began to be known to the general public. Why did crowdfunding suddenly become popular in 1? It stems from the increasing demand for personalized products. Take the hottest smart technology products on Kickstarter as an example. For those consumers who are sensitive to new technologies, the current mobile phones, tablets and PCs can no longer meet their needs. Many geeks can't wait to make everything around them, from keys to furniture, intelligent. For large technology companies, although they are absolutely capable of doing such things, they will not actively promote such changes because the demand is too small to meet their commercial interests, which leaves opportunities for entrepreneurs. At present, the maturity of technical conditions has greatly lowered the innovation threshold of technical products, which also makes the development of hardware products no longer the patent of large companies. 2. Changes in consumer psychology. Due to the influence of geek culture, more and more Americans begin to accept the luxury of science and technology, support their favorite ideas with their own money, and express their distinctive tastes by buying these products, which is still in the advanced stage of showing off their wealth by LV and Hermes than our country. Li Dawei, a maker culture observer and founder of Shanghai New Workshop, said. 2. The value of domestic crowdfunding: The greatest value is that it is a magnifying glass and spotlight, which can not only bring VC to the project, but also bring the resources needed to push the products from the niche to the consumer market. In fact, even on the domestic crowdfunding platform, many project sponsors do not lack financing channels. From the experience of dream catchers, it is often those projects that are not short of money that finally succeed in financing. First of all, for those relatively mature projects that are not short of money, crowdfunding platform is actually a marketing channel. Putting products on Kickstarter is mainly for publicity, and many foreign agents know our strength through this. Hu Junfeng, the founder of Smartwallit, a domestic entrepreneurial team, told Business Value. Smartwallit product is a wallet accessory based on Bluetooth 4.0, which raised 76,000 USD and over 65,438+10,000 RMB on Kickstater and roll call time respectively. Users of crowdfunding platforms generally dare to try new things, which is very important for many novel projects that win by creativity, because they can easily find their first seed users here and hear direct feedback from the market. This is what those relatively mature projects value. For those entrepreneurial teams with weak strength in all aspects, it is almost impossible to expect to raise enough project start-up funds from crowdfunding platforms. They hope to be discovered by venture capitalists and change their fate. Finally, for venture capitalists who are often worried that they can't find good projects, the crowdfunding platform brings together many interesting projects for them to explore, on the other hand, it is also a rare touchstone. The Difficulty of Crowdfunding in China Although crowdfunding has been developed in China for two years, it is still a new thing for most people in China. Crowdfunding model is difficult to grow into a towering tree in the relatively poor soil of China. First of all, limited by different trust mechanisms and economic levels, the funds that local crowdfunding platforms can raise are actually quite limited. On the other hand, compared with the emerging crowdfunding platforms and hardware business incubators, there are few creative projects with good originality in China. Platforms have cast nets, but there are not many fry in the river. Even more deadly, the business model of fundraising projects inherited from Kickstarter is more difficult to operate in China. The basic business model of crowdfunding is actually very simple, which is to draw a certain commission from each successful project fund. Kickstarter's commission rate is 5%, roll call time's is 10%, and dream catcher's is 6%. According to the official data released by Kickstarter, its total fund-raising in 2065,438+02 reached a record $3,654,380.9 million, which seems to be a good result, but according to the commission ratio of 5%, the revenue scale of Kickstarter, which was established for four years, was only $6,543.80 million. On the other hand, in China, the largest company, roll call time, has only raised RMB 6.5 million in the past two years, and compared with its angel investment of US$ 500,000, its profit is not optimistic. Two ways of crowdfunding in China in the future, inherited from Kickstarter's business model, are struggling to run, and many crowdfunding websites have given up hope. On the occasion of the second anniversary of the founding of roll call time, Zhang You announced an unexpected decision that roll call time would no longer draw projects on the platform: We talked with many venture capitalists, and they didn't think this model of drawing royalties would be a big business, so they suggested that we should not use this business model. In fact, Dreamcatcher, which has been online for almost two years, didn't start collecting commissions until the beginning of this year. Before that, he had tried many other profit models, but the results were not satisfactory. 1. Make a resource platform. Combine the creative products on the website with hardware companies and VC. If we can really attract all good projects to be released in roll call time in the future, then we will have a large resource, and there will be a lot of business extending from these resources. Zhang You is unwilling to disclose the specific profit model of roll call time in the future for fear of imitating others, but said that roll call time wants to build a platform similar to Taobao, so it will definitely charge B-terminal. 2. Be an incubator. Because there are many high-quality projects, the crowdfunding platform that wants to seek a breakthrough in business model can completely invest in excellent projects on the platform and even directly transform into an incubator in the future. However, no matter which way, the industry has basically formed a * * * understanding, that is, the business model of extracting commissions alone is not feasible. In order to survive, crowdfunding websites must find other profit models. At present, everyone is still crossing the river by feeling the stones. The crowdfunding model in China is far from finalized, and the whole industry is still full of uncertainty. Even today, no one can guarantee that crowdfunding will develop into a reliable big business.