Zero Fees Start-up Fundraising

One of the biggest challenges that start-ups face is the issue of fundraising. Some have had a combination of a great product or service, and access to funds to fuel growth,and then have been able scale up to their goals. The vast majority of start-ups however have had to struggle with raising funds to even meet basic operating costs. As part of recent developments, there are some banks that offer loans to young companies that can demonstrate a high likelihood of success. However, these financing offers are few and far between, and often carry significant fees and charges because of the element of risk to the financial institution. Until recently, zero fees start-up fundraising has not been an option at all.

However, entrepreneurs now have access to crowdfunding sites that do not charge a platform fee or other service charge. One of the pioneers of this concept is countrycause.com - an online fundraising website that is making the dream of zero fees start-up fundraising a reality. Crowdfunding websites have traditionally been the first choice for individuals and NGOs to meet their funding needs. Now, start-ups can also use this service to solicit financial support for their product or service. They have the advantage of being able to lower the entry barrier for financial support, since the basic principle of crowdfunding is the small size of each donation, thus minimising the risk to individual contributors.

There are a number of other advantages of using crowdfunding as a fundraising channel. The campaign can be created and implemented quickly, and the response rates for donations is significantly higher than other fundraising options. The reach of the campaign is also maximised by using social and professional media, opening up access to an extended donor pool. As with other types of crowdfunding, the donations can come in very quickly, and the campaign creator can access them almost immediately. There is a better chance of success with crowdfunding for another reason - social media. Since crowdfunding websites use popular social and professional media, most contributors assign a higher importance to requests for donations that they receive from people they know - friends, family and colleagues.

For an entrepreneur looking to pay little or even zero platform fees, start-up fundraising is now a strong possibility at countrycause.com. There is an added benefit of easy-to-use tools and real-time metrics for campaign creators to setup manage and monitor the performance of their campaigns. The other area that this service stands apart from the competition is the fact that multiple campaigns can be run at the same time. This can be significant because ad revenue generated from the campaign pages is also shared with the campaign creators. For start-ups this creates a unique situation - they can make money while raising funds at the same time!