We live in a time where creators who have great ideas can make them real using new ways of communicating their efforts to wide audience (Kim, 2013). One of these new ways is crowdsourcing and crowdfunding.
The two examples I looked at were Indiegogo & 99designs. Below I will include some strenghts and weaknesses of both sites.
Indiegogo strengths
- wide and proactive audience of possible donors that is easily accessible
- The platform is offered for anybody – individuals, firms, non-profit organizations
- The site gives the opportunity to test the marketability of the project
Indiegogo weaknesses
- The site does not guarantee any profit
- Website asks for 9% of the raised money, which is a bit more than other sites
- Possibility that somebody will eventually copy somebodies idea so it loses the originality
99designs Strengths
- Thousands of people who are willing to donate their time to create designs (Whitla, 2009)
- The designers have the opportunity to get paid for their design if it is chosen
- Small companies or people with lower budget can get professional designs for lower prices
- The platform offers the designers a gateway to new knowledge, improvement of skills and networking possibilities
99designs Weaknesses
- possibility of not liking any submitted designs
- Also, not all the designers will get paid
- problems with the copyright and ownership of the designs, which should be handled beforehand (Whitla, 2009)
