7 tips for funding your wildest ideas

I'm going to tell you how to succeed in a crowdfunding campaign, which is revolutionizing access to capital for entrepreneurs to fund their projects.

One of the significant challenges of entrepreneurship is obtaining the necessary funds to start or grow a project. Until a few years ago, financing options were limited to investing one's own savings, seeking support from friends and/or family, obtaining government loans (a process that often takes a long time), or being accepted by an investment fund (something few companies achieve). However, in recent years, we have seen a new financing model revolutionizing access to capital for entrepreneurs: crowdfunding. This new financing model is transforming technological innovation, social projects, entrepreneurship, artistic project development, and even real estate, as entrepreneurs use crowdfunding to test and validate their concepts in the market before going on sale, while also gaining capital, customers, and fans at the same time. My curiosity about experiencing this crowdfunding phenomenon firsthand led me to reach out to Norman Muller, CEO of Fondeadora, to launch a campaign. Contrary to my initial thoughts, running a successful campaign is not just about launching the project and waiting for the money to roll in. That's why I decided to follow Norman's 7 tips:

• Have a compelling project: I decided to launch Surfing.Digital, a movement to understand and teach the main changes of the digital age.
• Set a time limit and funding goal: A crowdfunding campaign revolves around setting an economic goal and achieving it; if you don't reach the goal, you don't receive anything, and the money raised is returned to the funders. Therefore, I learned the importance of thorough preparation before and during the campaign.
• Offer appealing rewards: Although many funders may be friends, family, and fans, people give money for something they consider valuable; it's not free money.
• Tell everyone about my campaign: I started calling friends, family, and acquaintances to tell them about my campaign, which led to radio appearances (88.9 with Eddy Warman) and speaking engagements at various universities such as UNAM, Ibero, and Anáhuac.
• Make a big launch: Norman told me that if I could achieve the first 30% of funding, I would have a 90% chance of reaching the total. So, I organized an event on crowdfunding at Startup México, where I launched my campaign to my target customers, entrepreneurs.
• Execute a social media and media campaign: During the campaign, the Fondeadora team encouraged me to constantly post interesting content on social media and seek media coverage. Norman mentioned that the vast majority of projects get featured in major media outlets, so I reached out to many and managed to tell my story in five national media outlets.
• Finish strong: The last two days are crucial in a crowdfunding campaign, so I reached out to many friends again to seek their support and achieve the goal.

Why am I telling you this? As a technology trend enthusiast for several years, I've been very curious about the crowdfunding revolution, seeing the exponential growth this new industry has experienced globally in recent years. According to the crowdfunding report by Massolution, $1.5 billion was raised worldwide in 2011, which increased to $16.2 billion in 2014, and it's expected to reach $34.4 billion in 2015. This growth indicates that the industry is booming, and it's not far-fetched to think it will surpass $100 billion before 2020 and $300 billion before 2025. This is a new form of innovation for companies and entrepreneurs because of all the benefits it generates. That's why I wanted to share my story and details on how to succeed in a crowdfunding campaign to fund your wildest ideas.