“Crowdfunding forces you to get your shit together,” said Evan Leach, one of three UK alumni panelists who participated in a crowdfunding seminar yesterday as part of UK’s Social Media Week blitz. “Sometimes entrepreneurs get stopped dead because they have no funding. With Kickstarter, that’s no longer an excuse.” Kickstarter is one of many online crowdfunding sources that gives anyone, anywhere a chance to help others achieve their dreams by donating to a fundraising campaign. Often, that sum is  as little a single dollar.
Brian Raney started Awesome, Inc., a local accelerator, that helps businesses  get it together, find funding and build a viable enterprise. He thinks Leach is correct, but with the caveat: a business must “get something out there quickly to see what is working.” He said thatentrepreneurs should expect to fail. In other words, be realistic. ” You simply have to go ahead with whatever it is that you want to do. If you wait until it is perfect, you’ll never get started.”  He took the “worst- case scenario” advice of former UK president Lee Todd. Todd told him that the worst that could happen was that he could waste time, energy and money on something that didn’t work out. Awesome, Inc. worked out and is the engine that is helping others, such as Evan Leach, push forward with his own business.
Griffin Van Meter is a partner of Bullhorn Creative.  Van Meter’s tactics are a little different, as he said “a little rough”.  He wanted Kentucky to have a Superbowl video. To that end, they brainstormed a Kickstarter campaign that, unfortunately, didn’t reach its multimillion dollar goal. However, he did learn the art of setting up a campaign and feels that  it failed because of poor marketing strategy. “It started out as a joke, just a fun idea.” No real effort was expended on it, just six months of tossing it back forth before they dug in and made the video. It took a couple of weeks to complete and get it online. “Other people provided the content. We built up to 1,000 fans. We didn’t start it to make money, though” Van Meter said, indicating that is often the sole focus of many businesses  when signing up for social media sites. ” People aren’t there just to be sold to.”
Often, Raney said, the goal is to get “1,000 likes as quickly as possible, but if you overlook engagement, you are going to lose potential customers.” Leach agreed, adding that businesses often make a mistake by trying to brand everything. He thinks that growing a business with customers who are willing to fund and  virally share your business is much better. It is also has none of the costs of other marketing and fundraising strategies. Social media is free as is the goodwill of customers who like what you do.
“Crowdfunding is a gamechanger,” Van Meter pointed out. Now a business can know what a customer thinks immediately. They will not only tell a business what they think, but they will tell the the entire world.
Evan Leach sees crowdfunding moving into a new era. Essentially, a business can test an idea before widening the marketing scope. “If someone is willing to hand you a dollar, then you know you’ve been validated.”
Graduate social work student Jacob Ewing was particularly interested in crowdfunding as a way to address social ills in Lexington. He intends for his campaign to raise $150,000 for a feasibility study by Manchester Bidwell. According to Manchester Bidwell’s website its mission to help adults- in- transition and at-risk youth. Ewing said that Manchester Bidwell “puts people in beautiful art-filled surroundings and it inspires them to improve their lives.” UK student Josh Nadzam said, “I was just interested in how they did it.” Bill Strickland echoed his sentiment, but he came also because, ” I helped organize it.” He said it was important and inspiring to listen to the panelists explain how they used crowdfunding to help their businesses.