Crowd Funding – Good for Consumer Startups! Maybe Not for B2B?

There can be no doubt that crowd funding is a great opportunity for consumer-oriented startup companies, no matter whether they plan to stay small and local businesses or become overnight growth successes.  Kickstarter allows your company to launch inexpensively and prove demand for your product by taking preorders that generate cash. Not only does this bring funding with no cost to you in ownership, but it gives you additional leverage for when you might talk to traditional startup investors.

[SOURCE: Used according to Fair Use Doctrine]
The Pebble smart watch was just one of many super successful consumer product launches that generated significant pre-orders and fame.

Marketing Through Example

Cross posted from my first blog at Medium:

While I was growing up, a popular TV commercial I remember was for The Hair Club for Men and featured their President, Sy Sperling, showing how he was both head of the company, and also a client:

Sy’s commercial exemplifies a powerful, yet surprisingly rare marketing approach where one shows your usage of the same product or service that you provide to customers. In this case, you become your own testimonial.