16 June 2014 Documentation

Crowd-funding
Crowd-funding platforms: GoFundMe, RocketHub, Appsplit, Fundly, Unbound, PubSlush, Indiegogo and Kickstarter

• Crowd-funding is often used to fund creative projects, with backers gaining nothing in return but a warm sense of self-satisfaction and early access to the goods.
• There are no real restrictions on what you can seek funds for.
• If you hit on something that really resonates, then it can be an effective means of getting cash without giving equity.
• It’s like a market research tool to establish demand and gets the big guns interested.
• Crowd-funding is a great way of showing that an idea or project has legs – if the public are putting up money to support something, then this data can be shown to bigger (traditional) financiers, be it a bank or Hollywood production company, and used as leverage to garner more funds.
• When the global masses put their money into a project, this means they’re really on to something.
• “There will be a world where venture capitalists won’t even look at potential deals unless those businesses have validated their product through crowd-funding.” - Danae Ringelmann, Indiegogo Founder.
• "The crowd-funding isn't so much about providing money, it’s about market validation and proof of the audience.” - Adam Leipzig, CEO of Entertainment Media Partners.
• “I believe that crowd-funding is 40% about the money, and 60% about connecting with your audience, building your audience and creating those evangelists and ambassadors for when the project is ready for launch.” - Adam Leipzig, CEO of Entertainment Media Partners.
• Success stories will spur the growth and acceptance of the entire space – Over time, more and more entrepreneurs will use crowd-funding to their advantage, and the fruits of their labor will be seen by friends, family and the community as a whole.
• This will create interest in crowd-funding.
• As more people learn about it, more will decide to participate either as creators or funders.
• Social Media Makes Crowd-funding Work
• In future, equity-based crowd-funding will become popularize.
• The promise of equity draws in the high-roller.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms: Funding Circle, Zopa and Lending Club

References
Hatton, D. (2013). What Makes Crowdfunding An Emerging Opportunity For Entrepreneurs - Crowdfund Insider. [online] Crowdfund Insider. Available at: http://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2013/11/27257-heres-makes-crowdfunding-emerging-opportunity-entrepreneurs/ [Accessed 16 Jun. 2014].

Sawers, P. (2014). The Past, Present and Future of Crowdfunding. [online] The Next Web. Available at: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/01/09/past-present-future-crowdfunding/ [Accessed 16 Jun. 2014].

The Next Web, (2013). Danae Ringelmann Interview (Indiegogo). [video] Available at: http://youtu.be/I5Ds8gLSPLw [Accessed 16 Jun. 2014].

12 May 2014 Documentation

After the first class of this module, I basically understand that the aim of this module is to let me know the trends of current century and predict the changes of trends in the future.

In the first class of this module, my lecturer, Kelvin, brief us about the module and show us the video about histories of agricultural, industrial and digital. He emphasized that in order to do prediction on future trends and technologies, a basic understanding about our human histories is a must. 

After the briefing and video watching, Kelvin give us a topic to debate: Benefits of digital revolution to human being. I was in the positive side, proposing that digital revolution brings more benefits to human being. It was a interesting activity as it allow me to enjoy the debate while learning new knowledges and perception of my peers during the debate.

Before we end the class, Kelvin also let us know that we need to short-list 2 topic from the module lectures and choose one of them to be our assignment topic. As only 2 persons are allow to choose a same topic, Kelvin suggested us to discuss among ourself to avoid clash of topic.

After looked through all the lectures of the module, the topics that I am interested are:

• Entertaining the Masses: Evolution of video games & movies
• Being your own boss: entrepreneurship and funding
• Design tools evolution

I not sure whether there will be clash of topics on topics that I have chosen, so I hope I can get good number when drawing lot so that I can choose the topics that I like earlier.