What projects are suitable for Funding Garage?

Funding Garage provides a crowdfunding platform specifically for the automotive community. Because Funding Garage is pioneering this effort for the industry, many have wondered what types of projects would come into the spotlight in the coming months. I do not have a magic mirror hanging on my wall, but I want to offer you the following perspectives: what I think would happen and what I think should happen.

Typically when I tell people about Funding Garage for the first time, the reaction I most often get is: “this website would be great for car enthusiasts that need money to finish their garage project,” or “companies can utilize the success of a crowdfunding campaign to test the water for a new product or service.” I don’t disagree with these statements and in fact we may actually see many of these types of projects dominate Funding Garage in the early stages; some will be successful and some won’t. This is because the early adopters of our platform would inevitably be auto enthusiasts; endlessly pursuing the goal of personalizing their own vehicles or helping others personalize their vehicles.

I do anticipate the second wave of platform adopters to arrive shortly after; agents of change with the passion to drive societal impact by utilizing the automotive theme as a backdrop. I predict that we will see a gradual influx of projects focused on addressing educational development, technological advancement, and transportation safety. We may see campaigns promoting hands-on design competitions for high school students, the innovation of the next generation affordable EV vehicles, or the invention of a mobile app to warn drivers of real-time accidents in the immediate vicinity to avoid a multiple car pile-up phenomenon in a low visibility environment. This movement would open up the audience base to the greater population, allowing contributions to come from alternative sources impacted by each project scope.

This so called second wave is a necessary phase for the growth of Funding Garage as well as showing the world the greater potential of the crowdfunding platform.

Side note: in the crowdfunding realm, the “crowd” dictates (or has a large influence over) the momentum, direction, and adoption of each campaign. The accumulation of the series of successfully funded projects will act as a branding agent for Funding Garage, shaping the playground for the types of project creators and contributors likely to be attracted by the website. On the flip side, the success of campaigns depends heavily on the creator’s ability to convert social capital to financial capital where 80% of the funds will come from people already within his/her social network or will be reached through the social marketing campaigns.

I know it’s cliché but probably the most appropriate to say: “only time will tell.” In the mean time, I will follow up with a series of blog posts with generic examples of the types of projects I would anticipate to see on our website.