This study aims to provide an exploratory analysis to illuminate the role and meaning of crowd-funding, a new alternative way of attracting funds that has not been recognized in general yet. In particular, it focuses on contents startups in order to i...
This study aims to provide an exploratory analysis to illuminate the role and meaning of crowd-funding, a new alternative way of attracting funds that has not been recognized in general yet. In particular, it focuses on contents startups in order to investigate which factors of crowd-funding can contribute for them in creating values, and attempt to provide the directions and implications when they utilize crowd-funding. For this, it examined the case of ‘Wadiz’, the largest crowd-funding platform in Korea, by reviewing a diverse aspect of academic materials and having in-depth interviews with Wadiz’s co-founder and a crowd-funding specialist.
Analysis provides evidence that the success of Wadiz came from their role as a partner for startups, not just finance provider, that offers additional opportunities and practical assistance for contents startups’ empowerment. Based on the analysis of Wadiz’s case, this study suggests that contents startups should consider some points to create their values when they utilize crowd-funding as follows: first, the importance of startup-friendly strategy should be recognized in order to foster and expand companies’s core values; second, the differentiation in terms of visual and contents should be also considered significantly to attract public’s attentions and participation; and lastly, there needs to be a recognition of importance about fandom that can be established through continuous interactions and sharing with public. It is hoped that this analysis will be able to be used as a meaningful resource both in academic and practical fields in which materials and information on crowd-funding have been relatively scarce.