[Crowd Leader: Jonathan Moyal] Is Curated Crowfunding Really “Crowd” Funding?
Crowdfunding sites that curate naturally want to feature high quality projects, & they want to work with people that they trust. It improves the product as well as the experience for the users. And yet, It spurs the question: does curating defeat the purpose of using the crowd?
I get it. If it’s crowdfunded then it should also be crowdsourced – I guess. But, does it have to be?
It’s great that the early crowdfunding sites allow for thousands of projects to be hosted. I think it’s great that the crowd gets to decide who gets through and who doesn’t. It’s the Internet’s version of democracy and free markets at its best.
Only those projects that are “worthy” meet their goal. Or do they?
Think about it. There were 11,000 projects on Kickstarter last year. How many of those did you see? Did you see four? Five? Twenty? A little over 50% of those projects did not meet their goal.
Crowd purists will argue that the “invisible hand” of the crowd guides us to the projects that are worthwhile. If they didn't get funded – they weren't all that good. It’s market dynamics
That’s an oversimplification though. Projects don’t reach their goals for many reasons. Some are not well presented. Some don’t get enough publicity or views. Some project owners are not tech savvy enough or don’t have the networks to get the word out.
We have seen many projects on crowdfunding sites that don’t reach their goals even though they should have. In fact The Daily Crowdsource even ran a post about great unfunded projects a couple of months ago.
Curation helps us overcome some of this. By curating we give each project the same exact stage with the same exact audience. Some great projects will still not get funded, but at the very least they get a fair shot, and they aren't drowned in all the white noise.
I think curation is one of the “next steps” that our industry will have to take to appeal to a larger population. This does not take away from open platforms that let everyone post and run their own projects. The two can coexist and in fact help each other by offering crowdfunding options to the consumers that we all serve.
What do you think should most of crowdfunding be curated? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.