This crowdfunding malarky is a very strange beast. Surprising, awkward and encouraging!
Surprising:
When we put the 30-day campaign live 24 days ago we thought that it was a numbers game. We hoped for lots of small contributions to reach our large goal. Between us, Colin and I have 1,705 unique friends on Facebook and Studio Faire has 699-page followers (many of these will also be friends of course, but still…!).
We realised that we were most likely going to have to rely on people who know us, as there’s such an element of trust involved in supporting this campaign because our ‘product’ does not exist yet. We thought that if we could persuade 1,000 of these people to contribute £20, we’d soon reach our goal of £20,000 for half of the deposit for the business premises.
Not so! So far, we have had just 73 contributions, but between them, they have raised a whopping £6,019!
Awkward:
It’s not terribly British to talk numbers when it comes to money or to admit that you don’t have enough of it!
It’s kinda awkward putting yourself out there like this and we feel a tad self-conscious about what some of you might think. I mean, we are clearly not charity cases, we are hardly wasting away here are we?!
With the changes we have made to our lifestyle (cheaper rent, smaller car, cheaper nights out, etc.) and the full-time work we both do in the digital world, we have been able to put aside around £1,000 per month. So, yes indeed, we could have attempted to do this alone… but it would take us another three years to raise the £40,000 required at £1,000 per month, by which point Colin will be 50! It’s just too long to wait! We are far too eager/impatient/OLD to wait that long!
With every £1000 we have raised through the campaign we have moved one month closer to getting the property and getting started with the next phase of our lives. So has the mild embarrassment been worth it? Absolutely! Would we do it again? No, we imagine this to be a one off!!!
Encouraging:
From the moment we started telling friends and family about the idea of Studio Faire we have received nothing but encouragement, advice, and support!
Receiving the video testimonials from our creative colleagues has given us a huge amount of confidence in our ability to make it a special, inviting and unique place (Have you seen these in the GALLERY yet? Blooming’ fantastic btw and two more crackers to look forward to this final week!).
Getting such generous contributions from the 72 people who have supported us financially through the campaign, along with their coinciding words of support, has really blown us away!
Please, may I end this blog post with a HUGE thank you to all of you have supported us on this journey, with your encouraging words, physical assistance with our move and/or generous contributions to the campaign!
Feeling very loved and encouraged.
THANK YOU!