
Ask HN: Crowdfunding – Best Practice - protdum
Hi guys,
I&#x27;ve been looking at how to raise funds from my small startup and a lot of ppl are pointing that crowdfunding could be the way to go. In most cases I see that ppl have physical products that they give away to those who support the idea, but how about if you&#x27;re doing online software product? 
I see that there are also different types of crowdfunding - those where you give equity and those where you give your product away.<p>Any suggestion, comments, ideas are more then welcome :)
======
bitcrazy
Since yours is software its much easier to give away freebies. Discount codes,
special features, early access features, etc are much easier to do than a
physical product. Also its a great way to get feedback and generate buzz on
the project.

Echoing the other comment, I would agree to avoid giving out equity. The
customer is far less vested in your company's success than you are.

------
mytailorisrich
My view is that you always want to avoid giving equity. Whether you have a
physical or online product does not make much difference in allowing you to
give it away for free. In fact it's even easier and cheaper to do with a
software product that has no marginal cost. You could consider to give free
lifetime licenses to early backers, for example.

~~~
protdum
Awesome input! That's that I was thinking. Out product will have freemium and
premium subscription. Premium subscription would remove ads and give you the
access to premium features. So, I was wondering if I could leverage that over
getting backed up by the crowd?

