Corporate Crowdfunding in Practice ① | 5 Things Companies Should Decide Before Starting a Crowdfunding Campaign
機械翻訳 / Machine-translated
"Can we run a crowdfunding campaign for our products too?"
This is a question that comes up often when companies come to me for advice.
New products.
New store openings.
New business ventures.
Events.
Community projects.
There are all kinds of ways to use crowdfunding.
But I never jump straight into,
"What rewards will you offer?"
"What will your funding goal be?"
If a company is going to run a crowdfunding campaign, there are things that need to be decided first.
My starting point is always these five questions:
① What is the purpose?
② Who are you trying to reach?
③ What do you want to learn?
④ What happens after the campaign ends?
⑤ Who internally will drive it?
Not to make the campaign itself a success —
but to properly connect the campaign to the business.
The first thing to nail down is the purpose.
"We want to raise money"
isn't quite enough on its own.
For example:
We want to do pre-sales for a new product.
We want to gauge demand before a general release.
We want to get the word out about a new business.
We want to build our first customer base.
We want to establish a sales track record.
We want to build relationships with the community or other companies.
Even within crowdfunding, the design changes depending on the goal.
For corporate campaigns, I always ask:
Not what the total funding amount should be, but what you want to create beyond that number.
Rather than collecting 3 million yen,
what does collecting 3 million yen make possible?
That's where the thinking starts.
The next thing to look at is:
Who will be the first to support you?
Companies often say,
"We want to reach people across the country."
But starting with a national audience makes it hard to gain momentum.
My approach is to first identify:
Existing customers.
Business partners.
Past clients.
Employees and stakeholders.
Local businesses.
People connected through social media.
Groups that are a natural fit for the product.
Crowdfunding is not a system where strangers automatically flock to your page the moment it goes live.
That's why, before launch,
it's essential to have a clear picture of "who the first supporters will be."
More than follower counts,
I look at how many specific faces you can actually picture.
That's what matters to me.
If a company is using crowdfunding,
there's more to gain than just the funding itself.
For example:
Is there demand for this product?
Which price points perform?
Which rewards get chosen?
Who is buying?
Which messaging resonates?
Is there demand from businesses?
All of this is
first-hand information from the market.
That's why, before the campaign launches, you should decide:
"What would we need to learn for this to count as a success?"
That way, you're not evaluating the project on funding totals alone.
Even if you don't hit your goal,
discovering unexpected demand from businesses,
identifying a new customer segment,
or building a base of 100 customers who carry through to a general release
can all represent genuine business value.
This is the part I consider most critical in corporate crowdfunding.
What happens once the campaign ends?
For a new product, the next step is a general release.
For a new store, it's getting people to visit.
For a new business, it's a full-scale launch.
For an event, it's building the next relationship.
Crowdfunding
↓
Ends
↓
"Thank you for your support."
Don't stop there.
For a product, for instance:
500 people supported through the campaign.
Those 500 people buy again after the general release.
They spread the word.
They learn about the next product.
For companies:
How the customers, track record, and data built through the campaign will be used afterward
should be part of the plan from the start.
If anything, I think it makes more sense to
work backwards from the day after the campaign ends
than to focus on the campaign itself.
In corporate crowdfunding, this is also critically important.
Someone to build the project page.
Someone to prepare photos.
Someone to verify product details.
Someone to post on social media.
Someone to handle inquiries.
Someone to send activity updates to supporters.
Someone to manage reward fulfillment.
Even if you hire an external support company,
crowdfunding will never be a project where the company itself does nothing.
The most important thing is having one person inside the organization who is
"the one driving this project."
No designated person in charge.
Approvals that take a week every time.
No one who can update social media.
When this is the situation, the whole project grinds to a halt.
Crowdfunding requires preparation that goes beyond building a page —
it includes getting your internal structure in place.
When a company comes to me for advice,
one thing I always want to confirm is:
Does it actually make sense to run a crowdfunding campaign at all?
Sometimes it's better to simply sell the product directly.
Sometimes running ads is the right move.
Sometimes direct sales outreach is the answer.
Crowdfunding is not a cure-all.
So rather than,
"Crowdfunding is trending lately"
or "Our competitors are doing it,"
I look at whether
this company, this product, at this moment in time, has a genuine reason to use crowdfunding.
Depending on the situation,
deciding "now is not the right time" is also a valid call.
When I receive a corporate crowdfunding inquiry,
my first step is always to clarify:
Purpose.
Who you're reaching.
What you want to learn.
What happens after.
Who internally will own it.
Only once those are in view do I move on to:
Funding goal.
Rewards.
Page content.
Campaign duration.
Social media.
I never reverse the order.
Before thinking about rewards — who is buying?
Before setting a funding goal — what do you want to make happen?
Before writing the page — what will the campaign connect to afterward?
Those come first.
I don't think of a company's crowdfunding campaign as a standalone event.
Product development.
Marketing.
PR.
Sales.
Building a customer base.
General release.
Crowdfunding exists somewhere within that flow.
That's why the goal is not
designing a campaign to succeed,
but
designing a campaign that connects to the business.
This is what I believe matters most in corporate crowdfunding.
How much to raise through the campaign?
Before that question:
What does the company want to move forward by using crowdfunding?
Start there.
How Corporations and Businesses Can Leverage Crowdfunding | 7 Uses Beyond Fundraising
If you'd like to talk about crowdfunding, please check my profile page.
