Personal Experience: Crowdfunding

My personal experience with crowdfunding come from nearly being an active member of a crowdfunding website called SellAband. With Sellaband (SAB) you are known as a "believer" who "believes" in artists music by buying parts (parts cost $10 each) in the artists next album which will be made when the artist reaches $50,000 in credit. As a reward for investing your money with with the band you gain a Limited Edition CD and a small percentage of the revenue the album makes through CD and digital sales.

I fell in love with the concept as soon as i read about it in the paper. It brought together my two loves (music and money!) and there was no way i was not going to sign up. I left it a few days before i bought any parts as i thought i would test the water before i invested. However i caught the SAB bug and within a week i had invested over $100.

Like i said i've been with the site for few years now and over the time I've invested a fair amount of money, i mean we are talking $1000+ here on un-signed artists. This may not seem a considerable investment to some people considering the risk factor that comes with it as very few artists make it big with major record labels so its very unlikely that a small independent label like SAB with an unusual concept could produce stars (although it is still possible, watch this space!)

As of the week beginning the 13th of December there have been 26 artists that have gained the $50k needed to record their album and 14 artists have released their album to the world. Each on with differing amounts of success.

After investing $1000+ some people out there would expect a good return on their investment however as it turns out the amount I've received back from SAB is just over $2 from record sales of the albums. This doesn't take into account that none of my LECDs have been sold or the fact that i'm investing in bands because i genuinely like them and wish for them to do well.

SAB to me is a real hobby i know I'm not going to make millions from it but i enjoy browsing the artists and investing in the occasional band that catches my attention. The music is great and any money i makes is just a bonus as i will most probably just re-invest it when i get enough money!

Here is my Sellaband account so you can see in what bands I've dabbled in and hopefully it will inspire you to take the plunge and invest in some artists that one day could make it big!