(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
Loading...By John Auckland, Tribe First
Equity crowdfunding is a brilliant way of raising new funds both for young business looking to get off the ground and giants such as BrewDog who are seeking to grow rapidly and capitalize on the publicity.
However, it can also be quite a scary concept for those unfamiliar with the process, and understandably so. Essentially, you’re publicly asking the world to endorse your idea with their money, so the fear of failure can be immense!
Crowdfunding platforms do their best to support campaigners, but it would be near-impossible to provide a standard solution to help each and every business that approaches them. Each campaign requires a lot of time, dedication and thorough research to set it up for success.
This is why my crowdfunding support agency, TribeFirst, along with global accounting and advisory company, Grant Thornton, are launching a Crowdfund Bootcamp to reduce the time it takes for companies to prepare and run their campaign.
So, what is it that makes equity crowdfunding such a time-consuming process?
Any campaign takes a whole lot of planning to ensure your eligibility, to produce all the documents you need and to line-up enough initial investors to get the ball rolling. In fact, most campaigns spend just a third of their time actually raising funds.
Our Bootcamp looks to condense the whole process as much as possible, helping companies to plan, launch, market and run their campaign in as little as five weeks, and bring down the overall running costs.
With so many elements to the crowdfunding process, we break it down step-by-step, supporting entrepreneurs where they need it, and leaving them to handle the bits they already have the skills for.
We’ll help entrepreneurs to nail each step of the process from the most basic (but still difficult) aspects, such as honing the perfect elevator pitch and keeping clear and consistent messaging, to the nitty-gritty of ensuring you’ve done all the due diligence and have all the documents you need to satisfy investors.
A pitch deck is perhaps the most important set of documents you’ll need.
We’ll help each business leader to produce each version:
An Exec Summary – the taster document that helps investors to decide whether to spend time looking into the opportunity further.
A Presentation Deck – a wordless, visual presentation document used to present over.
An Investor Deck – the comprehensive document that outlines your proposition in more detail, for investors who are already interested in what you have to offer.
It’s important to know about the different types of investors, understand their motivations, what they look for in a campaign and the red flags that put them off. After all, you’ll be speaking to investors on a daily basis, not just in the run-up and during your campaign, but also in the following years as you keep them in the loop and demonstrate how you’re spending their investment.
So, it’s also important to what jargon and rapid questions to expect.
What’s your five-year EBITDA forecast, for example? How did you reach your valuation? What’s your run rate? And your burn rate? We’ll do our best to break down the jargon and make it understandable so that you can answer questions like these without hesitation.
Beyond ensuring that your crowdfunding campaign is a success, we’ll help you to reap the extra benefits that come with the opportunity, such as the scope for an accompanying PR and marketing campaign, new customers, and the building of a loyal tribe who will stick with you for the long term.
Crowdfunding is already shifting the power away from the traditional gatekeepers and heralding an era of ‘New Power’ in business.
I’m confident that all the great ideas of the future will stem from crowdfunding or crowd-sourcing of some kind, and VCs will look at companies with successful crowdfunding campaigns under the belt as having demonstrated scalability and public support for their idea.
Crowdfunding is not always an easy process, but it has a lasting value that transcends money alone. We’re always happy to help young business set themselves up for the future of funding, support their first successful raise and meet the challenge head on.
The first Bootcamp will run at Grant Thornton’s Finsbury Square offices in November, from Monday 19th to Friday 23rd.
John Auckland is a crowdfunding specialist and founder of TribeFirst, a global crowdfunding communications agency that has helped raise in excess of £5m for over 30 companies on platforms such as Crowdcube, Seedrs, Indiegogo and Kickstarter – with a greater than 85% success rate. TribeFirst is the world’s first dedicated marketing communications agency to support equity crowdfunding campaigns and the first in the UK to provide PR and Marketing campaigns on a mainly risk/reward basis. John is also Virgin StartUp’s crowdfunding trainer and consultant, helping them to run branded workshops, webinars and programmes on crowdfunding. John is passionate about working with start-ups and sees crowdfunding as more than just raising funds; it’s an opportunity to build a loyal tribe of lifelong customers.
Grant Thornton has worked with thousands of small and medium sized businesses, supporting them to achieve rapid and sustainable growth both in the UK and internationally. Grant Thornton’s Growth Finance team specialises in equity and debt transactions for businesses seeking up to £10m – and 87% of the businesses they’ve supported have been successful in getting introductions to funders.
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