Explain your website
Wefund.com is the UK's largest crowdfunding platform for creative projects. What is crowdfunding? It's the simple idea that, rather than going to a few wealthy individuals or a company to finance your project, you go to a crowd of people and collect smaller amounts. It was used to great effect by President Obama in his election campaign and we're now applying the same principles to theatre, film, music, art, new writing and even product design. Anyone can start a project on WeFund.
How does it work?
All they have to do is film a short video explaining: what they want to do, how much they need in order to do it, and what they're offering in return. You might offer two tickets to your show for a £50 pledge and in this way pay for your upfront costs by pre-selling tickets, months in advance. If the project sells enough of these 'perks' and hits its funding target, then all the backers are charged at the same time and the project goes ahead. If the project fails to hit its target, no-one gets or pays anything. It's a simple, risk-free way of testing ideas and putting the audience at the centre of the creative process.
Where did the idea come from and how difficult was it to get off the ground?
I can't claim credit for the idea. A site in the US called Kickstarter blazed the trail. I read about them in the paper and thought, the UK needs something like that. The arts funding crisis was just beginning so people were clamouring for some good news. I'd say it took three months from first having the idea to launching the site. I'd been wanting to start a business for a long time and this one came up so I just went for it. My boss at the time was sympathetic as he is an entrepreneur himself. My previous ideas/business plans always required too much capital to be realistic. The nice thing about starting an internet business is that you can get a product out there for relatively little cash. Of course, getting it out there is one thing, making it big is quite another! I'm definitely still working out the second bit.
Who are your biggest competitors?
Since I launched, there have been lots of competitors: some are doing well, some not. The market for crowdfunding is still very young, however. I see my market as: the music industry, the film industry, the theatre industry etc. so, we've barely scratched the surface.
What are your greatest challenges?
My greatest challenges so far have been maintaining a site that people expect to be as functional as Amazon, even though I've been doing it off a shoe string in my spare time. For the future, as I build out a team and try to achieve greater scale, I guess my challenge will still be trying to keep the users happy. It's all ultimately about that whether you're big or small.
Who is your business mentor and inspiration?
I don't really have a mentor, though I often still ask my parents for advice! In terms of business people I admire, I have to admit that Howard Schultz (CEO and Founder of Starbucks) is up there. Whatever you think about the effect on our high streets of the thousands of his cafes around the world, I'm just in awe of the fact that he went from having one coffee shop to having 17,000.
How big is your team?
My team is currently changing. For our first year it was just me working (in my spare time) with an outside team of (excellent) developers at thegreatweb.co. However, I'm now raising investment to build out a full-time team.
What’s your motto?
I don't really have a motto, but I think the best advice anyone can give is actually Nike's logo: Just do it. As soon as you say, this is what I want to do, good things start happening. I actually just looked up how Nike got started: they went from selling trainers out the back of a car in 1964 to having 50% of the US market by 1980!
Where do you see the business going from here?
I see the next year (year 2) as being vital for my business. It's the year where I hope to take what I've done (proved the concept, become the market leader and won this amazing award) and bring it to the next level by building a great team and achieving scale. After that I've no idea.
Visit WeFund.com
2nd December 2011