New Kickstarter Alternatives Target Music Crowdfunding
With the expected signing by President Obama of the JOBS bill containing provisions for crowd investing, a new crop of funding sites are set to emerge. However, for indie musicians the use of crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and PledgeMusic will continue to be a more viable approach to project funding and presales. Here are some crowdfunding sites that feature or include musicians that have yet to be covered at Hypebot.
To be perfectly frank, in most cases it’s probably advisable to go with an established, well-known platform with a history of successful funding. Nevertheless, it’s good to have a sense of the landscape and you may find that less established crowdfunding platforms take an approach that fits your style.
MUSIC FRIENDLY CROWDFUNDING SITES
Feed The Muse – “Helping Artists Fund Their Dreams”
Feed The Muse is a project of the MilkBoy Group based in Philadelphia. Their background is in indie music so, though Feed The Muse is presented as a platform for all the arts, the current projects are mostly music-focused.
The artist gallery could use some work. A random assortment of projects is presented with a search engine option. Creating a browsable directory would be a stronger solution for project discovery.
Oocto – “Collective Action for Musical Projects”
Oocto is based in France and though some of the homepage text is in English, it’s clearly a project for French speakers. In an interesting twist, in addition to crowdfunding, they also announce opportunities to get involved as a service provider or a volunteer.
NewJelly – “Fund Your Project”
NewJelly is headquartered in Norway with the intent to build a worldwide platform. Based on press mentions, it looks like they were launched back in the first half of 2011. At this point their project list shows only three projects successfully funded.
StartSomeGood – “Igniting Ideas, Investment & Impact”
Start Some Good is focused on social change so it’s an example of a crowdfunding site that doesn’t feature the arts but is appropriate for certain projects. For example, Suna Studios has an ambitious project to “Help Us Build Secure Professional Music Spaces” in Vancouver, BC.
TuneFund – “A Funding Site Dedicated to Musicians”
TuneFund doesn’t seem to have any users. They don’t identify who they are. And they’re paying for artist referrals. This could be totally legit and well-meaning but, given the wide range of alternatives, appears to be one to avoid.
More:
- PledgeMusic’s Benji Rogers On Going Beyond Fan Funding To Power Album Campaigns
- Artspire: Making Crowdfunding Campaigns Tax Deductible, Eligible For Grants
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) maintains a business writing hub at Flux Research and blogs at Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
Great read but I think you should include IndieGoGo in there as well. Pretty sure they’re one of the larger crowd-sourcing sites and are just as good when it comes to music. For example Jimkata just raised $12,500+ to fund their newest album http://indiegogo.com/jimkatamusic
I recently stumbled across this HUGE list of all the crowdfunding sites globally, and they have a special section for music CF platforms. Although after reading this it looks like they are missing a few:
http://www.strategy-of-innovation.com/pages/List_of_Crowd_Funding_Websites_and_Websites_to_Find_Investors-4605700.html
I agree and would go to IndieGoGo before any of those listed in this post.
I didn’t add it because we’ve name checked it quite a bit and it’s well know. This was more of a not so visible platforms post.
Congrats to Jimkata!
I see, makes sense! Way to represent the “indie” sites!
That’s a crazy long list!
My one hesitation about doing this post was that they all have a ways to go and there are many companies already well-established. I have to wonder whether or not this is the best use of their time.
But that’s for them to decide and hopefully they’re all learning something that will move things forward.
Treverits.com has a network of various providers that can be very helpful on projects.
I see what you’re saying…it may be wise for them to bring something new to the table.
Just did a crowd-funding project for Chinese band Shanren touring North America on Rockethub.com, a site for artists including musicians. I hope, as the project administrator, to be able to communicate with funders or message those as a group Shanren Tour: Shangri-La to North America
You are missing quite a disruptive one: Ignition Deck, a wordpress plugin that allows you to set up your own Crowdfunding platform within your own site.
http://ignitiondeck.com
Crowdsourcing.org, the industry website, has the most comprehensive directory of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding sites. You can check it out at http://www.crowdsourcing.org/directory.
Thanks for the great article and for including us! I’m a part of the team over at Feed the Muse. We think it’s important for musicians to know that there are other options out there. As for how we differentiate ourselves, we definitely feel that we can offer a personal touch that bigger sites can’t. Our whole team receives and responds to support emails, and we are always willing to meet in person with any users in the Philly area. We also classify ourselves as a crowdfunding option specifically for the arts. Also, as an alternative to Kickstarter where you only make money if you reach your goal, all donations to a FTM campaign go to the artist. We are working on making our gallery more easily browsable and taking your advice! Thanks for keeping the conversation open!
What you’re saying makes sense. It may take a while to reach a true critical mass but lots of internet success stories, including “overnight successes”, took years so hang in there!
Glad you found my comments useful.
I’m glad we were included in the article but not too happy about the unfair and unwarranted comments from the author about our site. I’m one of the founders of TuneFund and I can assure you we are totally legitimate. We just launched in mid-March and we haven’t had a campaign go live yet. It seems extremely unfair to be penalized by the author for having to start from scratch. Believe me, I wish we had been able to start with some live campaigns you have to start somewhere.
I understand its scary to visit a site and not see any activity but we spent a year and most of our money building the site and when it was ready we wanted to get it out there instead of doing an invite-only-beta launch.
This is the promise of TuneFund – we’re a site for musicians built by musicians who are also veterans of the online industry. Our user’s music is a core feature of our campaigns. We are happy to provide as much assistance and coaching as necessary to help users launch their campaigns and maintain them. We are a music focused alternative to the big, general interest sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
On May 12th at 1pm we’ll be presenting a crowdfunding seminar at Sam Ash Music store on 48th street in NYC. I hope some of you reading this will attend so you can meet us personally and see that we are in fact legitimate and only have musicians and our user’s best interests at heart.
Greg Remillard
Founder, TuneFund
greg@tunefund.com
Clyde, All good points, regarding the blog, we started blogging as the site was being developed to try to drive some awareness for the brand.
Your point about not having bios on the site is well taken and I’m going to get those up right away, thank you for the suggestion. I hope you will continue to give us the benefit of the doubt as we grow and improve the site. Please continue to send us feedback and suggestions for how we can improve.
For total transparency here is my cell phone number: 646-294-2744 and my personal email is gregris – at – gmail.com. Contact me anytime with questions or feedback.
Best of luck moving forward!
Hi,
As the cerator of http://www.emotuned.com (free music platform for composers, launched April, 2012), I also agree starting a new service is lengthly, even more when it is free, as people obviously may have doubts about the business plan (I had then to detail it in forums).
I didn’t had time to finalize deals with great composers I know before launch (as Spotify then planned to launch a new service, that finally didn’t compete).
TuneFund seems really clean, and moreover people there seem dedicated to help (not just selecting/rejecting projects).
Jerome Denanot
Founder, Emotuned
Hi,
As the cerator of http://www.emotuned.com (free music platform for composers, launched April, 2012), I also agree starting a new service is lengthly, even more when it is free, as people obviously may have doubts about the business plan (I had then to detail it in forums).
I didn’t had time to finalize deals with great composers I know before launch (as Spotify then planned to launch a new service, that finally didn’t compete).
TuneFund seems really clean, and moreover people there seem dedicated to help (not just selecting/rejecting projects).
Jerome Denanot
Founder, Emotuned
Thanks for the article Clyde. If I may also add, Australia will soon have its own crowdfunding platform dedicated to the music industry. Due to launch in January 2013, ZoshPit will offer crowdfunding amongst other marketing tools for artists, bands and musicians.
By focusing purely on music, the site will offer a tailored service for musicians to showcase their talent, all while retaining control of their artistic licence and royalties as such.