Crimso Launches in Colombo with a crash course in Crowdfunding 101

You have an idea to create something magical which you know will impress people. A movie, a game, an invention, a business, the idea could be among any of these or something else, but now it reality hits you in the face. You need money. Among other things such as living, you need money to make your idea a reality.

So where do you go to get the money you need? There are plenty of options to choose from already: banks, unofficial money lenders, friends & family and random but kind strangers thanks to crowd funding.

The last one is what Crimso, a Brooklyn-based crowdfunding website, will be talking about on the 23^rd at Park Street Mews – which will be its official Colombo launch event.

For the uninitiated, crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing that involves collecting small amounts of money from different people in order to finance a project. It has become an extremely popular form of financing for projects recently – because it has been proven capable of raising a LOT of money. How much money are we talking about here? Try somewhere between $1million and $10million! You’ll find everything from next-generation computer hardware to indie games to movies being funded by this method. A few examples of cool projects that we’ve seen born out of crowdfunding are: The Form1 3D printer, Panono the panoramic ball camera, and the famed Oculus Rift.

In fact, there’s already a Lankan crowfunded project in the works: a film by Asoka Handagama, the noted Sri Lankan filmmaker. It’s already collected over $6000 of it’s $50,000 goal and, if completed, will be the first major cinematic Sri Lankan production funded by the masses.

“Awesome! What’s the catch?” you ask? Well the catch, is your backers will want to see results once you reach your funding goal. That means if your idea is a product, they want to be the 1^st to get it. Your idea is a service? They want to be the first to try it out. Your idea is something to help your local community? They’ll want to see pictures and videos of smiling people reaping the benefits of your project. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka hasn’t exactly had a crowfunding service open to us – until now.

How do you pull off a successful crowd funding campaign? A lot of Google and/or email to [email protected] will help you out there. Join us on the 23^rd at Park Street Mews and welcome the Crimso folk – and their service – into Sri Lanka.