USING CROWDFUNDING FOR DESIGN DRIVEN, NEW ENTREPRENEURIAL VENTURES

The main strategic advantage of design driven new entrepreneurial ventures’ consists of providing breakthrough innovative offerings while mitigating exposure to the disproportionately large risk. One way of managing this risk is for their design team to prototype and test the offering, rapidly releasing a series of improved minimal viable products (MVP). Online crowdfunding platforms are an attractive venue for design driven new entrepreneurial ventures to quickly and inexpensively test market adaption due to their high degree of visual user-interface. This paper explores the crowdfunding campaign process, together with the pros and cons of running campaigns and identifies early lead predictors for achieving a high level of pledging on a crowdfunding platform. Our contribution to the design and business literature consists of recommendations on how to apply online crowdfunding to establish and validate design - market opportunities for design driven new entrepreneurial ventures.