I am a regular visitor of KickStarter, one of the most popular crowdfunding sites today.
There are loads of business ideas can be discovered by visiting KickStarter, simply because it hosts some of the most creative ideas pitched by a group of creative people.
If you are someone who value creativity and great business ideas, you might be interested in funding great projects – for less – via crowdfunding.
Crowdfunding allows you to – along with other supporters – support a particular project; this mass-funding allows a project to get the fund needed without the help of financial institutions. Of course, in return for your investment you will receive non-monetary reward – if the project is successfully funded, that is.
Of all the browsing I do during July 2011, I discover some of the most interesting projects on KickStarter that I would like to share with you – here they are:
1. Social Bicycles: A bike-sharing project
Ryan Rzepecki, a NY-based urban planner is eager to make cycling more accessible and convenient. In order to make that happen, he plans to introduce bike sharing system that are flexible, scalable and affordable – all to make cycling more accessible to everyone.
Ryan and his team are building the world’s first bicycle with mobile technology called SoBi: an on-board computer, mobile communications and integrated GPS-enabled lock systems that allow “social cyclists” to find free-to-use bikes and unlock them using their mobile devices or by keying-in their account info.
This project requires $75,000 to fund a pilot program that involves 60 bikes (deadline: End 2011) and the launch of commercial systems in 2012.
2. The Infinite Loop: Tablet and smartphone stylish stand
Your stylish iPad needs stylish accessories, I suppose? Since I’m a design freak, I always interested in great design, such as The Infinite Loop – a project of Tim Gushue, a San Fransisco-based designer/engineer.
The idea of The Infinite Loop is simple: It is a stylish, flexible stand to rest your tablet PC and smartphones in such a way that you can be more flexible in viewing, reading, browsing or doing any activities with your mobile device. It is easily bent into shapes and rolled up for easy storage.
The target funding to launch the project is $27,500. As of today, the project has received more than $50,000! Expect the figure to double soon as it’s still 17 days to go.
3. OpenPhoto: Cloud photo service for your cloud account
I fave the cloud (so I established Cloud Business Review last year.) So no wonder I am interested in this project and might feature this in the blog.
OpenPhoto – a project by Jaisen Mathai, a Yahoo! engineer who left his job to pursue the project – will be a great business startup as it offers simple service that answer people’s need: A service that enable you to share and store photos, tags them and comments on them – all done within your cloud service account, such as DropBox, Amazon S3, etc.
The fund required to launch the cloud service is $25,000 and has already supported by over 250 crowd-funders. The project still has 8 days to go – so you can still have a chance to support the project if you are interested.
So – there you go; 3 crowdfunding projects to entice you to take part in the launch of great products and services.
Better yet, I hope this article will inspire those of you who have great ideas but struggling in getting financing from financial institutions (or simply don’t want to burden your family and friends for lending you money for your business startup!)
Ivan Widjaya
Crowd-funder