Is Crowdfunding the New Tech PR Press Release?

We glamorize entrepreneurship. This can be seen in the things that we read, and that get covered in the
media; “new” can often mean newsworthy, and startups have a certain allure for the tech journalist or blogger.

But there is no shortage of new ventures, and a relatively high flameout rate. Journalists use a number of factors to determine which ones have legs and are worth covering. These can include the state of the business – does the company have product, a foothold in the marketplace and is it now really ready for a larger stage?

One more credibility builder is venture capitalist backing; after all, getting piles of cash adds another element to the story, and journalists know that VCs do their homework and kick the tires pretty well before they invest in companies.

However, more and more these days we are seeing startups burst onto the scene and the entry point is a crowdfunding platform and campaign, especially on Kickstarter. Crowd-sourced money raising can disrupt traditional methods of funding and launching companies; while the total funds raised may be less than with a major VC, more people have an incentive to spread the good word.

We first noticed this phenomenen not long ago, while assisting the crowdfunding platform Return on Change (one of their key differentiators is that they are making it easier for a wider range of investors to purchase shares in young companies; Kickstarter offers other types of remuneration, see this article by RoC CEO Sang Lee on Forbes ). It seemed that much of the great press around crowdfunding platforms such as GoFundMe and the others, was actually more about the companies that were raising funds.

More recently, while we were working with a new client, the teams huddled to try to better understand why another company in the space was getting so much buzz.
The competitor had a number of things going for it, but unquestionably, one of the reasons for the excitement related to its use of crowdfunding. We tracked online chatter that showed that many were focused on its funding goal; the suspense about whether the company would reach it seemed to add to the buzz, and interest in the company.

The takeaway here is that crowdfunding can shake up the traditional formula of how young tech companies go to market and get attention.
If you are a startup, you should consider crowdfunding, not just for its potential to help you achieve your capital raising goals – but as a possible driver of buzz.

With these thoughts in mind we have assembled a team of professionals (see below) to offer a turnkey set of services that can help you optimize your listing, and meet your funding and PR launch goals. It taps our collective experience working with and promoting tech companies, and understanding of what works well with the major crowdfunding platforms.

If this is of interest, and you would like more info, please register at the following link. We would be happy to send our article:The New PR: 5 Tips for Using Crowdfunding to Achieve Your Launch Goals.

Fusion PR

Miles Rose of SiliconAlley.com fame

Alex Romanovich and the Social2B team

John Copen

Randi Himelfarb