Are you a no-code entrepreneur looking to build a crowdfunding or fundraising platform for your next startup? In this article, we are going to show you how to create an entire crowdfunding/fundraising marketplace using white label technology.
With all of the great tools available in today’s market, you don’t need to be a technical founder in order to build an online enterprise. With such tools provided by Thrinaica, you can now build your own crowdfunding marketplace/platform just like Kickstarter or Indiegogo without having any development experience.
Getting Started
If you are planning on running your own crowdfunding platform, you should first consider what niche you want to serve. Many people are unaware of how easy it can be to build a crowdfunding platform and are astonished to find how profitable it can be when done right. You can take a look at this case study from a platform that was able to generate 49k in donations in a single day.
A good practice is to build a buyer persona. You will need to know what the campaign creators are looking for in a platform, as well as what type of backers they want to attract.
Once this has been sorted out, you can begin to purchase the domain name and customize your crowdfunding experience.
You can test out the platform first by filling out the following form.
Building the Platform
When building your platform, it is good to know how you will be processing payments. As someone who works in the industry, I find that this is one of the most common subjects among successful platform owners/operators. Processing the payments is a vital part of the crowdfunding process.
Atlas uses both Stripe and PayPal to process the payments. We considered other payment gateways, but they did not meet our requirements. Although there are many gateways to consider, when you are trying to build a crowdfunding platform, there are different funding modes that the processor must be able to handle
Processing Payments
Crowdfunding portal admins will typically run the platform in one of two ways. At Thrinacia, we call these two methods Direct Transactions and Marketplace Mode. To put it simply, Direct Transactions forces all of the funds to go into the website owner’s account, they can then distribute the funds however they please. For Marketplace Mode, the campaign creators will connect their own account to the campaign for automatic distribution of funds. With this scenario, the website owner can take a transaction fee on the platform much like you would see on a mainstream platform such as Kickstarter.
The Atlas white label crowdfunding platform can do even more, though, than the mainstream platforms. It allows for further customization and different funding modes for campaign creators. These funding modes include the following:
Keep it All (KiA) – This means that you can keep all of the donations no matter if you reach the funding goal or not. When using Atlas, you will be able to configure this funding mode even further with Direct or Post Charge which you can learn more about here.
All or Nothing (AoN) – This is what you will see on the Kickstarter platform. This means that if you do not reach the funding goal, the backers are not charged and the campaign creator does not receive the funding.
Monetizing the platform
As an entrepreneur, you will likely want to monetize this platform and make a profit. There are a couple of ways to do this with the out-of-the-box features.
- The most common way is taking a transaction fee. You can configure the platform to take a certain percentage of all donations. This can be a good way to monetize the platform since you can make a profit on the success of your campaigns. It’s a win-win situation.
- Another option is to accept platform tips. This is how GoFundMe monetizes its platform. Platform tips provide a more creative way to make a profit with your platform. You can configure the platform’s tips to be mandatory, optional, a set price, percentage, etc.
The goal is to build a community of both campaign creators and backers. So if you have a good network, you have the tools to build a profitable platform. This is not to say that it is easy. You will need to really leverage your network and provide a great service to the campaign creators. If you have more questions about how this can be done using Atlas, you can join our live Discord chat here.