Analysis of the successfully completed crowdfunding campaign “435nm. To live outside the Earth! ”To raise funds for the construction and testing of a biological life support system, suitable in the future for use in space.
The campaign for the project lasted from February 8 to March 29, 2018 and raised 407,001 rubles with the required 400,000 rubles.
Analysis of promotion channels, evaluation of their effectiveness. Background of the project is set out in the
publication .
Introduction
A little less than a year ago, on July 14, 2017, our team launched
Mayak , the first space satellite in Russia built by a team of space enthusiasts, into the Earth orbit.
Even while working at Mayak, we thought about what our next project would be and decided that it should contribute to the exploration of deep space and be sure to have a commercial application on Earth.
The idea meeting these criteria turned out to be the creation of photobioreactors for the cultivation of unicellular green algae - the most important element of the biological life support system, an autonomous biosphere located on an interplanetary ship or a planetary base and providing crew with air, water and food. On Earth, microalgae is used for air cleaning at home and in the office, for sewage treatment, they are eaten by people as dietary supplements, they are fed by animals and used to produce biofuels.
Our project is based on the developments of the
Institute of Biomedical Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences and is called
435nm in honor of the peak absorption of chlorophyll a in a living plant. The cornerstone of the project is the hypothesis that it is possible to reduce the cost of growing algae by narrowing the spectrum of radiation by which they are illuminated.
To test this hypothesis, a campaign was launched on the Bumstarter platform. This was our third campaign. Before that, there were two gatherings on the Mayak satellite in
2014 and
2016 .
General campaign characteristics
So, how did it turn out to collect 407,001 rubles of crowdfunding.
Preparation of the project for launch on the “Bumstarter” platform continued from January 11, 2018 to February 8, 2018, from February 8 to March 29, the campaign itself lasted, the money was transferred to the account on April 18. Thus, it took about 3 months to receive 400 thousand rubles.
Over the campaign in the process of preparing for the 0.5 rate, 4 people worked, while
the process of its conduct occasionally involved other participants. Special thanks to the company
looi.ru and
Mark Golberg for helping to prepare graphic materials for the project page on the Bumstarter website and in social networks.
The list of rewards and their cost can be viewed on the
project page.
It should be noted that in developing the ideas of remuneration it was taken into account that the delivery of material rewards in previous campaigns caused a large number of problems, so their number was minimized.
The financial costs of preparing the campaign before the launch were structured as follows: video recording - 5,000 rubles, contribution for project registration - 4,000 rubles.
Commissions and taxes paid from the amount of fees after the successful end of the campaign were: Agency commission Boomstarter, 3.5% of the fees - 14,245 rubles, personal income tax of 13% - 52,910 rubles.
It is planned to spend 34,986 rubles for rewards. It is planned, since the process of their manufacture and distribution is not yet completed.
The cost of promoting the project was zero, we did not pay for the publication.
Thus, the technical work will go to 290,860 rubles, or 71.46% of the amount of fees.
During the campaign can be divided into two stages:
- promotion of the project among those who read non-fiction media and blogs, February 8 - March 12,
- promotion among the general public, March 12 - March 29.
The daily progress chart is shown in the figure below. It should be noted that the progress graph of the platform means is calculated with an error. Probably, the calculation does not take into account the amount transferred, but the amount of remuneration that the sponsor has chosen. For example, on the first day of the campaign, the first sponsor chose a remuneration for 50 rubles and transferred 2,000 rubles, while his contribution was counted exactly as 50 rubles.
Promotion channels
The friends of the author of the project turned out to be the most effective channel, which brought in 251,899 rubles, or almost 62% of the fees. Friends of the author donated money from the very beginning of the project, but their involvement in fees increased in the process of sending personal messages to FB and VK, which lasted from 03/14/2018 to 03/21/2018.
In the case of other channels of promotion data is not so unambiguous. Their effectiveness can be indirectly judged by comparing the time of publication of the material in the channel and the schedule of fees by day. This information is shown in the figures below.
A complete list of publications on the 435nm project is given in the
table .
findings
It took about 3 months from the first meeting of the team to transfer money to the account to hold the fees of about 400 thousand rubles.
The most effective channel of fees was the promotion of the project among the personal friends of the project author. Among other channels there is no possibility to single out channels with pronounced efficiency.