A British beer company has launched BeerBankroll.com which is using crowdfunding to start their new brewery company. It is currently recruiting a minimum of 50,000 members, each of whom will contribute $50 in exchange for voting rights on ideas such as the company name, logo, product design, product mix, marketing plan, advertising and sponsorship. It is a model that works better for businesses with people who are passionate about the company–bands, movies, sports clubs.
The benefits are that it allows for alternative financing and word of mouth promotion.
The down side is that it opens up the opportunity for copycat businesses with better financing.
One of the more interesting applications is in community-funded journalism. A nonprofit called Spot Us has two main components:
- ask people for story ideas, and
- ask them to provide funds to defray the costs of producing the story
In the latter case, “the experiment has also raised concerns of journalism being bought by the highest bidder” according to the Times.
More to come on this fascinating business model.
