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Feasibility of starting company as a crowdfunded project? Or is it a bad idea?

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Miyuki:
Hi folks.
I want to ask if is there anybody who started a company with some form of crowdfunding?

I'm thinking about it but it is far from a single-person job especially when I do not have business experience. And finding a reliable partner might be an issue.
I'm not expecting it will generate massive revenue, it is targeted to a specific market/need.

I know the success of most crowdfunding stuff is mostly dependent on the presentation itself rather than on the product and it tends to have a bad reputation.

Cerebus:

--- Quote from: Miyuki on October 16, 2021, 04:48:00 pm ---Hi folks.
I want to ask if is there anybody who started a company with some form of crowdfunding?

I'm thinking about it but it is far from a single-person job especially when I do not have business experience. And finding a reliable partner might be an issue.
I'm not expecting it will generate massive revenue, it is targeted to a specific market/need.

I know the success of most crowdfunding stuff is mostly dependent on the presentation itself rather than on the product and it tends to have a bad reputation.

--- End quote ---

Thar's yer problem. As a veteran of more start-ups than I care to remember I can tell you there is a huge amount going on. There's dozens of things to organise, nothing ever goes to plan and everything takes twice as long as you expected it to. Adding "learning how to do all this" at the same time will probably be more than you can bear, and you'll make rookie mistakes that make things take longer and be even harder.

Having done start-ups with other experienced people to share the load I can tell you it was hard. I've done enough now that I might, just might, consider doing one on my own if and only if I already financing, including generous contingency provisions, in place. The thing that will kill a start-up faster than anything esle is running out of funds at a critical juncture, usually when one more thing goes wrong than you'd ever expected could go wrong simultaneously.

So, briefly, and I don't mean this unkindly, someone with no business experience that wants to do a start-up, and at that one with unreliable financing needs their head examined. To be clear, you've got to be crazy to do a start-up of any kind, it requires a certain type of highly resilient personality in the first place. It can be great fun, it can be hell.

If you want to go down the start-up route I'd say find someone you can trust with prior experience to work with you, and find a source of finance with prior experience of financing start-ups to fund it.

Crowdfunding is for social causes, pipedreamers, chancers, crooks, or highly experienced people. For a first timer I would say that it's not a wise route. The only thing in its favour for a first timer is that you won't have a self-interested vulture venture capitalist floating about in the background all the time.

Miyuki:
Thanks for your opinion.
I know it will be bad to start alone without experience.

Do you have any experience with Co-founder search platforms like a Starthawk or so?
Is that a good way to find a reasonable partner to start a project?

Cerebus:

--- Quote from: Miyuki on October 17, 2021, 10:28:40 am ---Do you have any experience with Co-founder search platforms like a Starthawk or so?

--- End quote ---

Not personally, no.

Haenk:
Be aware that things in Europe are a bit different than say USA.
Founding a company just for the fun of it with little prospect of making any money is a full waste of your and others people time.
Just the WEEE registration alone will let you grow grey hairs, plus all the tax and regulatory stuff - if you don't have any experience with that, it will be very costly, as people with enough experience will not work for nothing.

Some projects better stay a hobby :)

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