Step-by-Step Guide to Start a Crowdfunding Website in 2023

Step-by-Step Guide to Start a Crowdfunding Website in 2023 1
Step-by-Step Guide to Start a
Crowdfunding Website in 2023
Introduction
Crowdfunding is a powerful concept for startups and small businesses to get help from
the community. A well-run financing campaign can bridge the gap between a startup
and future customers. Since you are reading this blog, you are at the right place to learn
more about building a perfect crowdfunding website. With our step-by-step guide, you'll
get all the answers you need. Before jumping into the topic, let's understand more about
it.
What is crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding is the process of donating money to support any startup. For example, it
can be an artist, a patient, or any community that needs money to grow. Campaign
creators usually conduct fundraising through an online platform. By creating a website,
campaign creators can make their cause visible and help them to connect with a larger
audience.
Crowdfunding helps several artists and small businesses to generate a handsome
amount of money to meet their goals. Fundraising shows the power of community.
Statistics
As per the reports, on average crowdfunding campaigns can make $28,656. In 2020
there were over 6.4 million crowdfunding campaigns. As per the studies and reports, by
2030, experts expect that crowdfunding will reach $300 billion in funding. To learn more,
check out these detailed reports.
Types of crowdfunding
People often consider raising funds to help others, using one or the other crowdfunding
method. The goals are the same for a campaign to help someone, but the benefits for
supporters differ. The category chosen determines
the type of crowdfunding:

Reward-based crowdfunding
Donation-based crowdfunding
Equity-based crowdfunding
Debt-based crowdfunding
These four are the most well-known crowdfunding types and have different benefits.
Reward-based and donation-based crowdfunding are almost identical. The core
difference is that reward-based funding includes a reward for the support. Rewards can
be anything non-financial such as goods and services. Meanwhile, donation-based
funding, as the name suggests, is a donation at will without any expectation. It gives an
internal feeling of happiness for helping.
Equity-based crowdfunding is when a company sells ownership shares to investors in
exchange for funding. Debt-based crowdfunding is when a company borrows money
from a group of lenders, paying back the investor's loan with interest.
How does crowdfunding work?
The process usually involves registering a campaign on the fundraising website with the
goals and target. Interested people start to take interest and donate as per their
financial situation. Once the fundraising campaign reaches its goals, the creator
receives the funds. And the platform earns a commission, which varies from 5% to 20%.
How to start a crowdfunding website? - Step-by-step
Guide
"Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening
the axe." - Abraham Lincoln
Step – 1 Choosing the right business model.
Before jumping into the detailed process, it is necessary to take several actions to
future-proof your goal. For example, we must ask ourselves several questions before
going all out. It's essential to analyze the pros and cons of the idea you are thinking of,
so it is recommended to research and gather knowledge before taking any further steps.
Long-term goals: Before starting, it is necessary to think long-term so we maintain
motivation. You must pre-plan things like gathering enough knowledge to ramp up the

starting process. It's mandatory to plan the investment and time you have to put in so
that you don't allow the ups and downs to come your way. Long-term planning helps you
to make your business sustainable for the long term.
Research other's websites: Researching means checking out other crowdfunding
websites too. Analyzing how they built their platforms and what features they provide to
users will help you create your website.
While researching, you can take notes like:
What type of UI are they using?
Features on their website
Difference between websites with different Crowdfunding niches.
How much profit do they make?
What sort of niche has a solid customer base?
These are some topics you can research. Here are some crowdfunding websites that
you can look for IndieGoGo, Kickstarter, Wefunder, Gofundme, and FundersClub.
All these websites contain different niches and provide similar financing for fundraising.
For example, WeFunder, Kickstarter, and IndieGoGo belong to Reward-based
crowdfunding. GoFundMe is based on donation crowdfunding. Meanwhile, Capitalraise
and Funderclub are Loan-based and equity-based crowdfunding.
Investment to make: The last point concerns how much you are prepared to invest. A
Crowdfunding website needs an initial investment. It's necessary to build a robust
website. Investment also depends on how clear you are about your long-term goals and
what specific needs or features you add to your website. The higher the initial
investment, the more quality and features you expect from your website.
It's okay to build a full-fledged website with all gimmicks and features to succeed, but
the better the website, the greater the chances of success.
Step – 2 choosing the right niche
Just like to win a race, you need a well-built car. Similarly, it would be best to have a
well-performing niche to help you outperform other websites. It's the pre-planning that
assists you in out-run your competition. Choosing the right niche is tough, but with the
correct strategy, it becomes easy. Choosing the right niche is valuable because only
some fundraising websites become successful.

Consider this basic niche selection idea that can help you to find the niche that belongs
to you. Like every other website, you need to analyze the niche that has low
competition, high demand, more interested customers towards the topic, and profit or
loss.
While choosing a niche, choose the model you need for your crowdfunding website.
Generally, there are four types, as we mentioned earlier. Pick the best model for you, as
every model has pros and cons.
Step - 3 Getting all things together
After conducting thorough research and finalizing the niche, it is time to take the first
step toward building the website. While analyzing is important, it is also essential to
establish connections with others who share similar goals. This can contribute to your
success. Although not mandatory, having a network of like-minded individuals can be
beneficial.
Your website must comply with all legal regulations, including securities, data privacy,
and anti-money laundering laws. Ensuring all this compliance can be difficult, but it will
make your website future-proof with your legal regulations.
After summing up everything, building some good connections, and finalizing the budget
for your website, the second big task is to find the right software development
company for your needs and what to look for in an agency. And that's what we will
discuss in the next step.
Step - 4 Choosing the right agency to make your website
When developing a feature-rich crowdfunding website, it is necessary to pick
a software development company that is right for you. You can count on the website
that provides the best ECP (Experience, communication, and pricing).
Experience: An experienced team can provide you with the most quality work, as
they have enough skills in the field. Appoint someone with years of exposure and
expertise in developing websites. An experienced agency can assist you with
launching your website.
Communication: One of the biggest mistakes people make when working with an
agency is communicating poorly. It's essential to work with someone who has good
communication skills. It helps you get better results and pricing. Agencies with

experience handling many clients have better communication skills. Good
communication also indicates reliable customer support, making an agency a more
reliable option for your project.
Pricing: As a startup, you must choose wisely where your money is going for
investment. The last thing you need is to get into debt before starting your website.
Hire someone who works under your budget and provides the best value for your
buck.
Step - 5 Investing small with an MVP
A general definition of MVP is a minimum viable product, a version with just enough
features to be usable by early customers, who can then provide feedback for future
product development. For easy understanding, an MVP development is a trial or a
smaller product version with an adequate feature usable by new customers.
Importance of MVP: Before launching a full-fledged website, it's vital to understand
what key features are needed to add to your website. MVP helps with experimenting
with your website needs so you stay moderate with unwanted features added to your
website.
Another benefit of MVP before Launching a website is you get a general idea of your
targeted audience. For example, think of MVP as a magnet and needle as a targeted
Audience. MVP helps you attract customers who are interested in your services. They
will try your product and give you feedback to create a better version out of MVP. The
new adapter promotes you to create a larger audience later.
Benefits of MVP
Filter out your targeted audience.
Minimizing unwanted features and saving money
Refining ideas of service with audience feedback
A targeted audience helps to make a marketing strategy for later.
Examples of MVP for a Crowdfunding website: A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for
a crowdfunding website typically includes the essential features. Here are some
examples below that you can use for your upcoming projects.
Payment gateway integration

Campaign submission
Social sharing
Project search and discovery
MVP is a powerful tool for targeting an audience by validating your idea with feedback
and generating early adapters. Use our detailed Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
guide to learn more about MVP.
Step – 6 Designing the website
When creating a crowdfunding website, it's necessary to add details to your website that
look appealing and convincing. There are no hard and fast rules to follow, but to do
things better than the other platforms. It's the best practice to follow some crucial points
so that your website stands out. So, here are some fundamental guidelines to abide by,
which will serve as a solid foundation:
Taking a minimalistic approach: A first impression tends to create a compelling idea
for the first-time viewer of the website. So, it's necessary to make a website that looks
minimalistic, clean, and elegant with enough details provided. Also, using a website
theme that flows with the website niche. For example, using a vacation theme on a
crowdfunding website will negatively impact the user. While designing the website,
adding every possible detail will help users to learn more about our services. Instead,
doing so works against you and makes it hard to read the website, and that is the last
thing we need. To sum it up, design a website that looks minimalistic, simple, and
convincing to the user.
Using convincing colors: While making a visual appearance, you must use colors
appropriate for the design. Using the right color can significantly influence the
perception and emotional response of the audience. By carefully choosing the right
color, you can enhance the impact and effectiveness of your design, making it more
compelling and engaging.
Easy-to-use navigation: The navigation bar is the key to your pages. Think about a car
that does not have proper wheel alignment. It's the same thing with the navigation bar, a
good nav bar helps your user to surf through your website easily. Here are some quick
pointers so you can understand them easily.
It should be easy to navigate.

Seamless user experience in every type of screen
Easy exploration for users to find any campaign
Navbar guides you through all pages of your website in one click. So, it's crucial to link
pages to the navigation mentioned below:
Home
Campaign page
Search/ campaign discover
Login/Sign Up
FAQs
Contact us
About us
CTA Buttons: A CTA (Call-To-Action) button is a critical element of a crowdfunding
website that motivates users to take action, such as making a contribution or starting a
campaign. To make a CTA button most effective, it should be visually prominent with a
clear message to take action and placed strategically on the webpage. By designing a
compelling CTA button, crowdfunding platforms can increase the likelihood that users
will engage with the site and take action to support crowdfunding campaigns.
Multimedia support: Multimedia support is an essential feature of modern websites.
Allows the website to incorporate media support, such as images, videos, audio, and
animations. Supporting multimedia on a website can enhance the user experience by
making the content more engaging and interactive. Another benefit of adding media
support to your website is it opens the gates of marketing for campaign creators. They
can add lots of videos, images, and animations if needed to attract supporters during
the start of the new campaign.
Step- 7 Adding Features to your website
After creating a perfect web layout, it's time to add some features to your website. Every
website has features that help it withstand the competition. Adding a fair number of
features and a good interface to your website gives the user a good experience, making
it easier to use.

We will discuss how to add features that can make a crowdfunding website more
engaging and user-friendly for both project owners and supporters.
The type of user visiting determines the basis of some tools mentioned here. You can
differentiate them with campaign creators or project owners and supporters. To make it
simple and easy to understand, we added a table that separates the features for
campaign owners and supporters.
Features for Campaign Creators:
Project Creation Tools
Payment Gateway Integration
Project Analytics
Trust and Safety Features
Communication Tools
Rewards Management
Features for Supporters:
Search and Discovery Tools
Pledge Management
Social Sharing Tools
Backer Analytics
Project creation tool: The tool helps the individual create a new campaign by adding
essential details. These tools are critical to creating compelling campaigns that resonate
with their target audience and inspire them to support the project. With the help of this
tool, campaign creators can build project pages, set goals, and communicate their
vision to potential supporters. You can also create a more appealing tool by providing a
step-by-step guide to creating a campaign for new users. By providing easy-to-use
project creation tools, you can empower campaign creators to join your platform and
bring their ideas to life.
Payment Gateway Integration: Your website must have a reliable, fast, tried, and
tested secure payment gateway, as a crowdfunding website runs with cash flow most of
the time. It can also take multi-currencies with different payment options. A well-

integrated payment gateway helps build trust and is essential for the success of any
crowdfunding campaign.
Social sharing: The social sharing tool is a feature that allows sharing of campaign
details on social media. With the help of this tool, the campaign helps to reach a larger
audience and helps to generate more support. By providing easy-to-use social sharing
tools, crowdfunding platforms can help campaigns to achieve their funding goals more
quickly and efficiently.
Project Analytics: This tool helps provide data and insights on the campaign's
performance. Think like it's a performance card of the student providing all details about
positive and negative. The tool includes a dashboard that displays key metrics like the
number of supporters, funding progress, and traffic source of the campaign. With
necessary details like traffic sources, the campaign creator can make the marketing
strategy for the specific region to improve the campaign.
Communication tool: Communication is critical for the success of any crowdfunding
campaign. Fundraising platforms use a communication tool. This tool allows campaign
creators to send updates and messages to their supporters, respond to questions and
comments, and build relationships.
Rewards Management: The rewards management tool allows campaign creators to
manage the rewards offered to their supporters. This tool enables campaign creators to
set up reward levels, define the perk for each level, and manage the fulfillment of perks.
Search and Discovery Tools: As the name suggests, the discovery tool is the tool
used for finding the campaign as per supporter needs. These tools typically include
search filters, recommendation engines, and trending campaign lists that help
supporters find campaigns that match their preferences. The search filter allows
backers to refine their search based on many criteria, such as campaign category,
funding goal, location, or stage. The recommendation engine uses machine learning
algorithms to suggest campaigns to supporters. Based on their browsing history,
pledging behavior, and other factors, like Youtube and Amazon.
Pledge Management: Pledge management is a feature on crowdfunding websites that
helps supporters track their campaign pledges. When they support a campaign, they
are promised a certain amount of money as a reward. This tool allows them to track
their pledges, manage payment information, and communicate with the campaign
creator about their rewards. For example, if a backer wants to change their pledge
amount, they can use this tool to adjust the amount and select a new reward tier.

Supporters can also use the tool to view their payment history, update their payment
information, and manage their shipping addresses for physical rewards. By providing an
easy-to-use pledge management tool, crowdfunding platforms can ensure that
campaigns run smoothly and ensure good support for backers.
Supporter Analytics: This feature on the website provides campaign creators with data
and insights on their supporters. With the help of this tool, a creator can keep an eye on
the supporter. This tool is convenient for a campaign creator as it gives deep dive into
data about supporters, such as the location, age range, the amount pledged, and the
rewards or perks they selected. Deep data like this helps campaign creators to target
their audience for future goals. Allow them to create a marketing strategy to generate
better results. These features are found on most crowdfunding websites as they are
critical to the success of both campaign creators and backers. There are several other
features that you can also consider.
Fund calculator: A funds calculator is a practical tool that can help startups estimate
the funds they need to raise for their project. This tool takes various expenses such as
taxes, platform commission, and payment processing fees, giving an accurate estimate
of the required fund.
Pre-launch page: Adding a pre-launch page feature allows supporters to do so without
starting the campaign. Allowing the campaign creator to attract a larger audience before
launch and helping to spread awareness of his upcoming project.
Step – 8 Testing face for your crowdfunding website
After putting in lots of time and effort to develop your website, it's time to test your work.
As making mistakes is human, your website needs to go through the testing phase. The
testing phase refines your website to take it to the final stage. So, testing all the features
and the overall website before launching is necessary.
Step – 9 Pre-monetizing your website before the launch
While running a business, marketing plays a crucial role in making your first audience.
There are ways to pre-monetize your website before launch. Pre-monetizing a
crowdfunding website involves generating revenue for the platform before it's launched.
Here are some strategies that crowdfunding websites use to pre-monetize.
Advertising

Pre-selling
Affiliate marketing
Crowdfunding
Step – 10 Launching the website
After going through all the effort, it's time to launch a website. Following all the steps will
help you create a website that gives a platform to users in need. If you are drafting to
launch a full-fledged crowdfunding website, our team can guide you in detail with every
step mentioned here. With our experience making crowdfunding websites, you can trust
us to make your website as good as you planned.
Acquaint Softtech Experience in Building a
Crowdfunding Website
Our team at Acquaint offers top-notch web development services to help leading
companies in various industries achieve their goals.
As a leading software development company, we offer services in web and app
development; here are the services we offer to build your dream website.
Mobile App Development
Frontend Development
Backend Development
Database Development
CMS Development
eCommerce Development
MVP Product Development
Hire Remote Developers
Acquaint team has a team of trained remote developers that help you create a custom
website for your business needs, from simple technologies like HTML5, CSS3, and
JavaScript to advanced stacks like Laravel and Django. You can outsource our remote
developer or team as per your need to build your custom project.

As we said earlier, we have enough experience in making websites. To give you a
detailed analysis, here is a small case study of the website we created named
Artscause. These will help you to understand making a crowdfunding website.
For making ArtsCause, we used technologies that fit the needs of our clients.
Frontend Development: JavaScript, Bootstrap, HTML5, Css3
Backend Development: PHP
CMS: WordPress
Journey of building a crowdfunding Art Website with
ArtsCause
A crowdfunding website aimed at artists, an ART niche to support emerging artists,
Walter Allen established ArtsCause. ArtsCause aimed at providing a space for artists to
showcase their work and receive support from their community. Partnering with
ArtsCause, Acquaint created a platform for artists, a bridge between artists and their
supporters and bringing their creative visions to life.
Requirements of ArtsCause
Building a crowdfunding website needs enough research and analysis. ArtsCause has a
clear vision of its needs for the website, so it gets easy for us to understand them. As
per their requirements, they needed a website with the following:
A seamless user interface with easy-to-use navigation for users and social media
integration for sharing and promoting campaigns.
A secure payment gateway that accommodates various currencies, making it easy
for supporters to pledge from different parts of the world.
A comprehensive campaign tracking system that provides real-time updates and
analytics to campaign creators, allowing them to make informed decisions
throughout the fundraising process.
A responsive customer support system that provides timely and functional
assistance to users, ensuring that needs are fulfilled.
Overcoming the challenges

Creating a crowdfunding website faces various other challenges beyond building a
website. For example, a Crowdfunding website compliant with legal regulations is
crucial to avoid future issues. The second challenge is to make a CMS that can handle
new campaigns. Crowdfunding websites need a robust CMS that can handle different
types of campaigns. And lastly, a well-tested secure payment gateway for easy and
dependable money handling.
ArtsCause approached us with the idea of creating a crowdfunding website for the ART
niche. As their vision aligned with our expertise, we took up the project and worked with
the client to provide the best possible results. We aimed to build a user-friendly, secure,
and compliant website with all legal regulations.
How Acquaint Helped ArtsCause to Achieve Their Goal
We created a robust CMS for the crowdfunding website using PHP and JavaScript to
achieve this goal. We also used WordPress to ensure the website ran smoothly and
fast. Furthermore, we added a well-built customer support system to help users with
issues.
Building trust is crucial in crowdfunding, and we created a website that looked reliable
and trustworthy. The website had a colorful, artistic design with a secure payment
gateway that made it easy for supporters to donate. We also added a system to track
every type of campaign, which helped users keep track of their progress and ensure
they were meeting their goals.
In conclusion, we were honored to work with ArtsCause to build a crowdfunding website
for the ART niche.
Conclusion
In conclusion, starting a crowdfunding website in 2023 can be a fruitful business
venture. But it requires careful planning, execution, and ongoing management. Using
this guide with the right approach and dedication will take you a step ahead of your
competition. Following this step and the small case study we provided will help you to
grow your crowdfunding business.
If you are also interested in making a similar website like ArtsCause or want to hire a
remote team, check out our skilled team of remote developers to help you grow your
business.

FAQ
How much does it cost to make a crowdfunding website?
It depends on the requirements of a website, so it's hard to give the perfect figures here.
But a website with a basic set of features costs you from $10,000 to $25,000; with more
added features, it goes up to more than $500,000.
What type of features do Crowdfunding websites use?
Crowdfunding websites use a range of features that benefit different sets of users. The
feature list includes all types of users for both campaign creators and supporters.
Project Creation Tools
Payment Gateway Integration
Project Analytics
Trust and Safety Features
Communication Tools
Rewards Management
Search and Discovery Tools
Pledge Management
Social Sharing Tools
Backer Analytics
How long does it take to set up a crowdfunding website?
Crowdfunding websites made from scratch will take around 3 to 6 months. The time it
takes to set up a crowdfunding website can vary depending on several factors, including
the complexity of the project and the sets of features needed on the website.
If the project is big and a website requires more sets of features, then it will easily take
6-8 months.
How many types of crowdfunding websites are out there?
The type or category of a crowdfunding website varies by how they provide value to the
supporter. The category chosen determines the type of crowdfunding.
Reward-based crowdfunding

donation-based crowdfunding
Equity-based crowdfunding
debt-based crowdfunding
What are the requirements for crowdfunding websites?
If you want to Start a crowdfunding website, it's crucial to understand the main
requirements that the website must fulfill.
Your Long-term goal with the website
Knowledge requirement to run a crowdfunding website.
Investment to make
Niche selection
Strong security
User-friendly design
Safe and easy-to-use payment gateway
Good customer support
Monetization strategy

Step-by-Step Guide to Start a Crowdfunding Website in 2023

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