Equity Crowdfunding Audience Targeting is a Fallacy
Equity crowdfunding audience targeting is one of those urban legends mutated out of crowdfunding because of the dizzying array of half-truths released into the wild and left to mutate from the kernel of truth it was spawned from. At the dawn of the first age of crowdfunding, Kickstarter and Indiegogo were – indeed are – battling it out for market supremacy. A true clash of the titans.
Back then there was no equity crowdfunding. Just crowdfunding. The mitosis of crowdfunding into equity crowdfunding and reward crowdfunding happened a few years later. Audience targeting is a necessity due to the dizzying array of things on offer; movies and music, tech gadgets, board games and card games, video games, air purifiers, solar power generator and batteries, electric bicycles scooters, wristwatches and wallets, footwear and apparel, food and beverage, and so on. The only way ANY reward crowdfunding campaign hits its funding goal is through audience targeting.
In stark contrast, equity crowdfunding audience targeting is irrelevant from any aspect. That’s because more than half pf Americans own stocks and the demographics span gender, race, age and income ranges (source).
Moreover, Americans in large part are born capitalists and always on the lookout for an opportunity. Back in the 1980s I moved to New Jersey with my parents and one of the first amazing things we discovered was an Outback Steakhouse down the road. Dear friends of theirs moved out there too; our homes were a five minute drive apart. Let'[s a;; the friends of the family Jack and Jill. After our first mea; at Outback, Jill was bristling with investor energy. From the large crowds and the one hour wait to be seated to the delicious food and drinks right down to the fun Aussie feel, Jill wanted in. After dinner an emergency meeting was convened. Jill wanted to buy an Outback franchise. She knew a gold mine when sage saw one. My dad, a;ready an entrepreneur, was in, Within minutes the motion passed unanimously.
So we ended up owning and running an Outback Steakhouse, right? Not exactly. When the folks found out the all the start up costs everybody got sticker shock. We bought stock in the parent company instead.
Similarly, a disproportionately high number of immigrants decide to embrace risk and start or buy a business instead of of getting a job. Ask any business broker. It seems immigrants understand the power and the promise of The American Dream more clearly than many Americans do.
All told equity crowdfunding audience targeting is a feel -good buzzword without a particle of practical use behind it.
