From IEEE The Institute: Six Tips For Crowdfunding Your DIY Project

If you want to take your side project to the next level, you’ll likely need a little help from your friends, and perhaps a whole lot of strangers. Crowdfunding sites, like Indie­gogo and Kickstarter, encourage people to contribute money to help inventors realize their ideas, whether it be for completing a humanoid science tutoror a game console for pets.

“One of the hardest things to get people to do is open their wallets,” says Alon Hillel-Tuch. He helped create one of the first crowdfunding sites, RocketHub, in 2009. He has given talks on TEDx and was interviewed by Make: magazine on how tinkerers can use such sites to raise funds. When people do back a project, he adds, it’s because they believe in the idea, want to be part of a community that supports the innovation, and would like to own the final product.

But with tens of thousands of projects on crowdfunding sites to choose from, how can yours stand out from the pack? Hillel-Tuch, who sold RocketHub in 2015 for US $15 million, offers six tips on how IEEE members can launch a successful crowdfunding campaign.

Read more on IEEE The Institute here.