Startups of the People: A New Generation of Community-Based Launches
There is an amazing new trend on the verge of coming of age in startup land: the community based, community created startup.
The two biggest examples that spring to mind and that have left the biggest shoes to fill are undoubtedly OUYA, Pebble Technologies and APP.net.
Megan Berry, the founding community manager at Klout states:
"I’ve experienced firsthand how social media can change the momentum of a company. It’s not about a set of tools, but about reducing the friction between the two things that really matter: ideas and people."
Interestingly enough, both startups have heavily leveraged not only social networking sites to amass their legions of fans, followers and contributors, but have also implemented successful (or at least wildly popular) crowdfunding campaigns to fund their company.
Others have taken similar approaches, but in the past they were limited to the traditional "donate" buttons on the site and more of an underground, word-of-mouth marketing style. The main trailblazers of this older generation include Reddit.com and DuckDuckGo.
Now, community based missions and multisided marketplace startups are supported by massive million dollar crowdfunding campaigns to keep everyone engaged and excited.
Some (astounding) key stats from the OUYA campaign (run on Kickstarter) are:
$8,596,475 pledged of $950,000 goal
Fastest to raise $1M on Kickstarter (8H 22M)
Biggest single day total on Kickstarter ($2,589,687.77)
Some amazing stats from the Pebble Technologies funding campaign:
Goal of raising $100,000 in 38 days
Reached $100,000 just two hours after starting
6 days later: $4.7 million to the project
Some amazing stats from the APP.net funding campaign:
HOMEMADE CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN
Community of about 20,000 people (in about 3 weeks)
$154,900 (as of August 3 with 10 days left in the 30 day campaign)
But how have these companies so rapidly embedded themselves into the social conscience? The secret? They have fuzed the left and right hemispheres of a brain and so deeply engrained their marketing and development that the bar has so suddenly been raise, we haven't noticed the reset - too distracted by the impeccable execution.
People join causes at two critical moments: the beginning and the end. Marketing and promotion schedules tic perfectly in-sync with the gears of development so that as the last wave of press and site updates settle, a new feature or development emerges to capture our attentions all over again.
OUYA has mastered this operation over the mere month their campaign lasted, and through a variety of forms: text, images, professional promotional videos, interviews, visions, press, and most of all, their personal story.
So what can the average startup take from this? That having a community of engaged and interested users has never before been as important or critical as it is now. Regardless of whether or not your product/service gets it's start from crowdfunding, the main key is to replicate the state of mind - being in front of your audience continuously but not in an annoying salesy way, rather in the sense that they are part of your startup - a founding customer.
Give them value, give them responsibility, and let them be part of what you are looking to change.