Today I was encouraged with an answer to an email I sent two days ago to a college I met at the annual conference held, who is the CEO of the Canadian National Crowdfunding Association aka Craig Asano.
He encouraged me to go ahead with the concept of a Universal Tribe for crowdfunding purposes. I may even try to get invited to speak at the next conference.
So what is a universal tribe you ask? Well let me see if I can nail this down. To the best of my knowledge it is the first of its kind. You are welcome to correct me if I'm wrong in a reply to this story.
PREAMBLE
A universal tribe once established will be a great tool for entrepreneurs who want to crowdfund but are hesitant to do so for a number of reasons. The biggest reason being lack of a decent size following of people they know on Facebook, Twitter and any other social network. In fact most people who have a good idea to start a business don't usually peruse social networks all that much. Let's face it, many of us entrepreneurs have heard of the enormous successes of crowdfunding. This sets us down one of two paths. Unfortunately most head down the path of ignorance and go gung ho onto Kickstarter or some other crowdfunding platform and start a campaign only to fall flat on their ass after the thing is over, never achieving anything close to the suggested goal. Of course then the "once bitten twice shy" syndrome sets in. Some may look into the "what went wrong aspect", but most retire back to obscurity and continue their 9 to 5 job dreaming of that someday when I'll start it when I can scrape together enough money. The small other percentage do some research and find out that most crowdfunding campaigns are destined to fail due to lack of preparation. The real secret to success is having a large following in your social network. In fact almost everyone has a small tribe but no where big enough to truly muster a successful crowdfund campaign. Some may try again with another idea and likely fail. If they do succeed it is because of the actual idea. If it is a truly AWE inspiring idea or has a socially appealing cause it will probably work out. Few are really exceptional ideas and they do very well. Like any media this is the few that get talked about and raved about by the general public. In fact well over 50% of crowdfund campaigns fail outright and most of the rest don't meet their goals but do achieve some results. A very few do reach their goals.
THE NEED FOR A UNIVERSAL TRIBE (The Idea)
As mentioned above most entrepreneurs and people in general don't have a social network of say 50,000 people. Now when I say social network I am meaning people you could reach out to and perhaps engage in a crowdfund effort. The success rate might be in the area of 4 or 5 % of your social network may be interested in your crowdfunding effort and start asking questions. If you are lucky probably half of the percentage may actually donate to your cause. So really this means you need a super large social network even way larger than 50,000 or you need a social network that is more focused. This is where you as a person need to shift your social media efforts and attract entrepreneur type people to you where crowdfunding would be something they can relate to. Problem here is this takes a great deal of effort, knowledge, and TIME! OK so BING light bulb went off in my head!!! Why not create a universal tribe of social network types (entrepreneurs and small business start-up wannabe people) that form this tribe, and make it available to a viable crowdfund effort. Of course building this social group is the key. I hope to have this group large enough in a while so that this light bulb idea shines bright forever. I just think of the advantages of doing this. It would be enormous for our economy. No more would entrepreneurs have to go begging to a bank or try and overcome financial hardships to realise their goal of starting a small business. Small businesses that start up are the backbone of a robust economy. They are the seeds planted for future large organisations that employ many with good jobs that pay well. I am so stoked about this universal tribe idea and I hope you would be to. Just think of the impact it could make on having way more successful crowdfunding campaigns and small businesses started. For our future kids and grandkids this could literally be the game changer.
THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF A UNIVERSAL TRIBE
Many in the groups I am part of in linked in and Facebook have probably seen my participation increase the last few days as I finally put together my social media machine and started using it. The nuts and bolts of what I've built which is basically a website (click here), an autoresponder email sign up system (mail chimp), a Youtube channel (click here) because video is so important, and the other surrounding social media platforms such as linked in, Facebook, twitter and this new one right here (Steamit). I wasn't sure if my idea would have merit but I kept on plugging along building the website with several pages including a splash page for the email sign up autoresponder, put together the things I needed to record video for Youtube including some software. I shot some video (3 videos presently) My plan is to do about 3 videos a week as persistence is key with any kind of blogging in social media sites.