I recently came up with a new idea for supporting elderly and vulnerable people in their own homes. I patented the idea, then contacted a major manufacturer, who signed me on the spot.
Job done - right?
Wrong!
Patenting an idea, arranging agreements with manufactures, etc. all come at a high cost, most of which I covered with my savings (bye, bye house and car), but I was still £1200 short. Banks don't lend such small sums to businesses, not even start-ups. I'm either too young or too old for the vast majority of grant/loan schemes set up by the government.
So now what?
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is simple. It allows friends, family or even complete strangers to donate or invest, and there are no upper or lower limits. It connects in to every avenue of social media allowing you to reach every corner of your network - and beyond.
I looked at my immediate network and discovered I have 324 connections. That's £3.71 per person.
If someone I knew, who I knew well, came to me and said - "I have an idea which will completely change the way we care for people. I already have a major global manufacturer involved. I have invested over £6000 of my own money, but I just need a further £1200 to finish. You can help by donating/investing £3.71, would you be interested?" My answer would be "Yes" - after all what's £3.71 now? A cup of coffee? A small lunch at my desk?
I thought that the vast majority of people in my network would know me well enough and would be more than willing to support this idea. So I created my account on GoFundMe. I then set about publicising this on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
324 people were given the link http://www.gofundme.com/2yl3w4.
The stats for the first 2 days break down as follows;
41 people have viewed the page
19 people have shared the page on Facebook
8 people have shared on Twitter
2 people have donated
0 have come via LinkedIn
So what happened?
TMI (That's Too Much Information to the rest of us)
Do we no longer actually read social media posts? Do we just benignly repost, retweet, pass on without thinking? Without considering why this information was shared with us? Are we so bombarded with jokes, pictures of cute cats, videos of little darlings at their recital, sales in our favourite stores, memes, and game requests etc. that all information is superfluous?
My invention was borne out of concern that we ignore the generation that went before us, that paved the way, loved and nurtured us. What has become more apparent, and more concerning, is that we are not just ignoring our elderly relatives, but we are ignoring each other - regardless of age.
Social Media was an idea to bring us together, and in may ways it does. How would I be able to talk to my sisters on such a regular basis? Or know how my cousins are? But the flip side to that is the bombardment of irrelevant information constantly filling our "News-feeds", to the point where we completely miss something which would interest us. After all how many times have you either written or seen written "How did I miss this?" on someone's post days/weeks/months after it was posted?
I too am occasionally guilty of posting/reposting jokes and pictures of cute animals, but I do try to think "how is this relevant?". "What am I trying to say?". "Has this been seen everywhere already?"
Like supporting our elderly relatives, to get ourselves out of this rut requires consideration. We need to consider before we post. We need to post smartly and more over, we need to take time for each other.
May be it wouldn't have increased the donations/investments, but it may have increased the traffic to the site. It may have increased the number of people sharing the link and instead of having a potential 324 people donating £3.71 there would have been 648 donating £1.85, or 1200 people donating £1.
This idea did not come about because I wanted to be rich, this idea came about because somebody needed it, and nobody was making it. I am no different to anyone else supporting their family.
Put it this way - if it was your mum or dad this information would end up helping - would you walk past without at least reading?
