The vision of ITF, “Robots give people superpowers”, is translated to the world of cryptocurrencies in means of providing trading insights to their users through signal bots. The goal is to empower traders with information that is relevant and unbiased and helps to make sense of the chaotic cryptocurrency market. The ITF joined Crowdholding in December 2017 and is utilising the crowd ever since. The immediate support of the Crowdholding platform has allowed ITF to: Drive innovation Test for bugs Map the competition Receive real-time feedback Now the company has successfully raised funding via an ICO and their trading bots are already empowering the users. ITF continue with cooperation as the progress through their roadmap. The team is working hard on development, for the year 2018 there are two more trading bot plans to be released with additional features. This is where the feedback from the crowd is extremely useful. After the launch of the Free and Starter trading bot plans, Crowdholders joined to provide a suggestions of features they would like to see in the new plans. “By asking for the opinion of the crowd, we involve potential consumers into the design and development while giving them a real and vested interest in the final product” said Thomas Counsell, head of engineering and development at ITF. ITF rewarded Crowdholders with one thousand tokens for their feedback on task asking what should be added to the new plans and what signals are interesting for the traders. In a response to this and other tasks ITF has received over 300 innovative ideas and comments from the crowd. There have been 8 tasks launched on Crowdholding so far and the community is fostering the developing process with feedback and co-creation content tasks.

TailoredInk is a content-creation and lead-generation agency. They have a broad range of clients, including companies in the blockchain industry such as Xmat, Xres and NYcrec. TailoredInk knew that community for ICO/STO projects in the blockchain industry is a key activity that no project can go without. This case study gives examples of the ICO community management strategies created by Crowdholding for Xmat, Xres and NYcrec. We hope our readers will find some bright ideas to take away and apply to their own brand’s ICO community management tactics.   When we started working with TailoredInk on their new projects, their overall community barely exceeded 1,000 people for all three companies: Xmat, Xres and NYcrec. Working closely with TailoreInk, we managed to create an engaging strategy for increasing their community size. We created a series of tasks for user-generated content to improve communication and crowd-engagement. The continuous monitoring of their telegram channels and constant interaction with their community members resulted in several highly-effective social media posts as well as an increase of the community to over 40,000 people.   Another professional advice for their ICO community management strategy was to join facebook groups for professionals. The commonality that such groups provide serve as an opportunity to pitch the projects. Crowdholding pre-selected the relevant groups, gave directions on branding within those groups, made sure that the personal profiles used in the process are of an adequate quality. At the same time, to support the core membership in the groups, we’ve devised a strategy for inviting friends to join these groups and engage where appropriate. These ICO community management efforts resulted in hundreds of new investor leads.   It is not uncommon that many projects in the blockchain industry struggle with customer support and responding to the community’s queries adequately. Crowdholding supported TailoredInk’s project by building a community strategy for dealing with legitimate criticism as well as the structure for their FAQ. Few brands are able to handle negativity within their community, but with our help, Xmat, Xres and NYcrec had a strategy in place for handling complaints and negative comments.   We recommend to any ICO/STO project to build the right processes for publicly handling legitimate complaints in order to keep their community in good health. Speak to our team to figure out what ICO community management strategy to use in order to build a loyal crowd of supporters.   You can keep up to date with what is happening at Crowdholding by following us at Facebook, or chatting with us on telegram.

This article contains a lot of learnings for all ICO projects who wish to improve upon their ICO social media marketing strategy. Brief Background: The IronX exchange is addressing today’s crypto-market issues such as lack of regulation, low user engagement, limited FIAT to crypto exchange options, low-quality customer support. At present, IronX holds a FIU licence in Estonia and the cryptocurrency exchange platform was built with with 1.2 million existing IronFX Group retail clients and 150,000 Cardano followers, giving them access to a huge liquidity. IronX platform provides full range of FIAT and crypto wallet funding options as well as 24/7 customer support. ICO Social Media campaign results: www.ironx.io - traffic increased from 120 in September 2018 to 35,000 in December 2018. This is a massive jump and a great leap in just 4 month, especially for such a competitive sector as the crypto exchange platforms. Every business faces a traffic problem and increasing this top-level funnel metric is the ultimate success for any ICO marketing campaign. Their Alexa ranking has also massively improved due to the ICO social media campaigns that Crowdholding created. When we started, the IronX website was below 1M and by the end of our social media campaign they were ranking below 400,000.   Social media Channels - the number of followers increased from 1,500 in September 2018 to over 100,000 in December 2018. Social media channels are an important medium for upper-funnel marketing. We helped IronX increase their social media presence by boosting their telegram following. This social media channel increased community engagement and also contributed to around 6% of website traffic. Bitcointalk is another important social media in the blockchain industry. Conducting an ICO social media marketing campaign with Crowdholding helped IronX increase the readership of their bitcointalk thread with over 50,000 people. As a result, IronX bitcointalk became one of the most important referring channels, bringing in around 20% of overall traffic. We are sure every ICO project can learn from IronX’s approach. A successful ICO is entirely dependant on the right ICO marketing strategy. IronX collaborated with Crowdholding to achieve success with their social media marketing campaigns and it worked. If you are interested in boosting your social media marketing strategy, get in touch with our team and we will help you execute the perfect strategy. You can keep up to date with what is happening at Crowdholding by following us at Facebook, or chatting with us on telegram.

Aerum raised funds with ICO Influencer Marketing Aerum is a next-generation blockchain and a disruptor of the FinTech industry, creating a highly scalable smart contract protocols optimized for tokenization and trustless financial operations. In 2018, Aerum successfully reached their ICO soft cap. Not only a future leader in the blockchain space, but also a tio user of influencer marketing. The business has worked with Crowdholding to bring blockchain celebrities and social influencers for several campaigns to promote their disruptive blockchain technology. When the business wanted to promote their new blockchain technology, they decided to team up with Crowdholding to create an influencer marketing campaign and attract popular blockchain influencers like Jay Park, Jake Shin, Crypto Robby, Malcolm Tan, Fionn Stakelum.   Youtube ICO influencer marketing For their influencer marketing campaign, the blockchain influencers attended crypto-events on Aerum’s behalf, created content on high-profile blockchain news media and reached out to investors, raising from their channels over 1 million USD or over 30% of their ICOs soft cap.   At the same time, Aerum used Crowdholding’s extensive network of Youtube blockchain influencers who created a series of videos (Video 1, Video 2, Video 3 and Video 4) in which they integrated the business’s messaging into the individual themes of their channels. These videos alone had been viewed more than 25,000 times and received highly positive responses.   Aerum’s influencer marketing campaign helped attract the attention of crypto-investors and built buzz for the new blockchain technology. Raising brand awareness and building a network of blockchain-investors through influencer marketing is a successful strategy for all businesses in the blockchain space. Contact us today and experience significant growth with our ICO influencer marketing campaigns.   You can keep up to date with what is happening at Crowdholding by following us at Facebook, or chatting with us on telegram.

The Jarvis team is building a borderless trading and finance platform which connects to and makes interoperable multiple centralized and decentralized financial services, products and markets, existing and upcoming, to make them accessible from a single account. It allows to manage one's assets, to access fiat, crypto, stocks, Forex and CFDs trading and DApps from multiple blockchain. Each assets can be utilized as a medium of exchange, payment, or as collateral, and can be lent or borrowed. Jarvis is an exchange platform with an innovative idea of how to utilize the blockchain technology. Crowdholding has a similar approach, exploring a novel way to facilitate and catalyze communication between businesses and the public with blockchain. That is why a cooperation between those two projects works so well. Jarvis is utilizing Crowdholding’s capabilities both for discussion and content tasks, increasing awareness and engagement of the community. Posting news on the Crowdholding platform enables Jarvis  to introduce its competitive advantage, describe the token distribution and the customer journey with their project. Last but not least, Crowdholding allowed Jarvis to validate their core idea and leverage the power of crowd wisdom. The tasks are also driving the traffic to Jarvis. The project joined Crowdholding in October 2018 and since then, their Crowd Campaigns have: Received over 350 submissions and 2,500 shares on Social Media. Got more than 15,000 page views Innovated better and got initial traction In short, Jarvis managed to create through Crowdholding an audience that became their new 5-star marketing group. This community can now be employed for the purpose of co-creation as well. There already was few tasks aiming for immediate feedback from the crowd and the goal is to continue with this, asking the engaged community for ideas and advice on the new features. You can keep up to date with what is happening at Crowdholding by following us at Facebook, or chatting with us on telegram.

Blockchain Crowd Marketing Today, we use messaging applications both for our personal and professional communication. Apps such as Messenger, Whatsapp or Viber or Telegram are a great help, connecting individuals around the globe. But they are all centralized services. There is little to no assurance that your communications will not be stored in the centralized database, vulnerable to attacks. What is more, the provider of the service can process and store the conversation themselves. The ySign project aims to change this. The team is creating a new messaging service with a goal of including Dapps and blockchain features. The service of ySign is completely decentralized, which enables an unforeseen security that your communication stays private. ySign joined Crowdholding only in April 2018 and they have already been able to utilize one of its most valuable features - the instant feedback from the crowd. “While most firms today have a presence in social media platforms, they often do not use them to listen carefully to the consumer. With Crowdholding we turned on “problem solving” mode and listened carefully to what the crowd told us” said Ivan Vujic, CEO of ySign. The feedback from the crowd helped ySign to build a customer-centric product. They received almost a hundred comments on how the Crowdholders like their project and what kind of features they would like to see in the future. ySign has explored Crowdholding opportunities even further. The newest task was not regarding their project, but their upcoming ICO. The ySign team posted a task prior to the ICO date, introduced the benefits for participants and asked for advice on how to improve the ICO plan. Through this task, ySign was able to drive traffic to their ICO page, increase the awareness of the event and get some valuable advice. The task was running for two months, it was announced prior to the ICO and was still on during the ICO. In this way, ySign was able to collect some feedback about the whole process and some of the comments were real-time responses to what is currently happening with the ICO and how the team should continue with their strategy. If you want to find out more click here. You can keep up to date with what is happening at Crowdholding by following us at Facebook, or chatting with us on telegram.  

So, chances are that you have heard about cryptocurrency or bitcoin you’re looking for ways to get into the world of cryptocurrency. Maybe because you’ve been lured by the promise of a decentralised world, or you have skimmed a few articles discussing why Bitcoin has become so valuable since it's inception.    Currently the most well known ways for people to get their hands on cryptocurrencies is to buy it on an crypto exchange with your hard earned cash or through a process known as mining, but there are other ways you can earn cryptocurrency outside of the two main ways. In this article, We will be showing you 6 ways you can start your cryptocurrency journey for free!     Bounties  Bounty programs are an idea taken from the online gaming world. In the crypto world, it is a marketing strategy where an ICO allocates a percentage of their tokens for “bounties”. These are tasks that are open to the public to complete and their reward is the new token that is launching. Once the token is launched, participants of the bounty will recieve their tokens.   There are a wide range of tasks and usually they are ongoing throughout the ICO, tasks usually take the form of following social media pages, sharing content, creating blogs / videos, translations of documents etc.    This is win win for both the startup and the person interested in the token. For the startup, they are able to create a buzz about their project without investing large sums of capital into marketing. The person taking part in the bounty has the ability to earn tokens without having to invest into the ICO.    We suggest that if you want to take part in bounties, research the project thoroughly as the ICO needs to be successful. There are a few bounty platforms, but bitcointalk.org is a good place to look.     Airdrops Airdrops are similar to bounties in a few ways, but an airdrop differs in it refers to the free distribution of small amounts of certain virtual currency tokens to its community members either for free or for performing small tasks. These small tasks are usually one off tasks, whereas bounties usually are tasks that continue throughout the campaign.    Again this is a marketing tactic to create awareness around a particular project. There are a few sites that show upcoming or active airdrops such as (airdropalert or airdrop.io). Again research the project behind the airdrop before signing up.      Crowdholding Although there are bounties and airdrops on our platform, Crowdholding differs from bounty platforms or airdrop websites as we focus more on tasks. The ideology behind Crowdholding is co-creation. Startups put tasks on our platform and the crowd gives feedback for rewards. These tasks can vary vastly from marketing, to product testing, UI and UX / Whitepaper feedback.    Crowdholding currently has over 80 startups on the platform, and one of the main advantages to our platform that when completing tasks you don’t just earn the token from the startup, but also our YUP. Tokens are added to your profile automatically, where you are able to move them to your wallet, making it a simpler, less confusing process. We have new tasks constantly so we suggest you have a look and see if any projects / tasks take your fancy!     Faucets  You might have stumbled upon websites either intentionally or accidentally that offers you free bitcoins / cryptocurrencies just by clicking. Well, those websites are “faucets”. There are hundreds if not thousands of these faucet websites around the web that give away free cryptocurrencies to their visitors.    These websites work by requesting you to visit a website, watch an advert or other small tasks that drive traffic to websites. Faucets make money from driving traffic to a specific page / advert, and pay you a portion of what they earn.   However, be aware that they give is very small amounts away for completing very small tasks, but one advantage faucets have over airdrops and bounties is you can earn a cryptocurrency that is already established on the market.      Steemit  Steemit is a hybrid blogging / social media platform that initialises blockchain technology and a cryptocurrency to reward it’s users for creating content, commenting and upvoting other posts.    The difference between the already established social media that most people use daily, Is that Steemit stores all the content on their blockchain. Using this technology has a few benefits such as the content you create is retained by you and nobody can delete it.   But more importantly, the blockchain oversees the reward system. Every day, the blockchain creates new Steem tokens. From the new tokens, They are split between the community pool, miners and holders of Steem Power.   We would advise that if you create an account of Steemit, that you store your password somewhere as you cannot reset your password. If you lose or forget your log in details, you will not be able to recover your account or the funds on the account.     Work for Crypto  Since the explosion of cryptocurrency, just like any other startup they need employees to achieve their goals. Working for a crypto company is a way to earn larger amounts of crypto. There are numerous crypto related job sites such as :-   crypto.jobs,  cryptojoblist Angel.co and use keywords such as “crypto”  There are subreddits such as /r/Jobs4Crypto and /r/Jobs4Bitcoins   Or maybe instead of full time work, you can offer a service part time. Do have a skillset that could be freelanced? With the evolution of technology, remote working is accessible to everyone, meaning you are able to work as long as you have a internet connection.    As the crypto ecosystem continues to evolve and becomes more adopted in general day to day life, we expect there will be more and more ways to earn cryptocurrencies in the foreseeable future. Do you know any other ways? Leave a comment!

The Crowdholding Guest Blogger Series invites influencers and innovators to educate our audience and provide insights into industry trends. Become a Guest Blogger for Crowdholding! Get in touch via hello@crowdholding.com Since the release of Bitcoin, Cryptourrencies have become an integral part of online markets and community discussions. Once Bitcoin became a mainstream online currency, the demand for virtual money has soared, unlike any other financial asset. Even the federal governments have been sidestepped and now they face the threat of a newly emerging online economy. One of the biggest fears with the cryptocurrencies is that the limited level of regulatory oversight could potentially lead to a parallel financial system being created across the world. A cryptocurrency is often launched along with a product or service. Community members and investors can use the cryptocurrency for purchasing the product or availing the services. When Bitcoin was launched, it was issued with a very wide coverage. Since then, many new alternative coins (also called as altcoins) have been created. Every altcoin was launched with minor changes in the features of the Bitcoin. Among the numerous coin launches, there were many coins which failed to attract investor interest. What is an ICO An ICO is a process for issuing a virtual coin or a virtual token to online investors. ICO stands for Initial Coin Offering. An ICO is like the issue of shares and fixed income securities in the financial markets. When an ICO is launched, the coin is promoted in the crypto community by showcasing the features and the benefits that it offers. Typically, a virtual currency is used in place of an actual currency (also termed as Fiat money) with other users involved in the project. This allows the members to transact among themselves using the virtual money. Interested investors can choose to be a part of this project by investing in the ICO. A white paper is also released among the community. A white paper has all the information about the coin and is like a company prospectus. This provides the investor with the necessary information about the crypto coin. Common Mistakes in an ICO Every potential crypto investor believes that one can become rich by buying any online currency. However, this is not true. Below is a list of common mistakes that an investor makes in an ICO. Mistake 1: Avoid Falling for a Scam This is definitely a mistake to avoid. Every investor should stay away from investing in an Initial Coin Offering that even remotely appears to be a scam. An investor should perform a detailed background check about the currency as well as the developer. To start with, a quick search on the internet about the currency can shed some light. Information about aggrieved parties who have invested in the virtual currency can be found online. There are many online reviews from users across the world. There are also websites that provide this information to investors. If you can’t find any listed scams online, then do not get complacent. Some more background checks must be performed. Once you have done some research on a crypto coin, then you will come up with many more questions. Do not be shy to approach the other members of the project for clarifications. Voice your opinions and concern to the online community and get it clarified. All genuine coin issues tend to address investor concerns. Members or owners are always available on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. There are dedicated platforms as well. The cyber community is especially active on websites like Slack, Bitcointalk, and GitHub. However, if you do not end up getting any response to your queries from any of these avenues, then it is a serious red flag. Never share your personal passwords or pin numbers online. This is not restricted to only the crypto space. It is applicable for all financial or monetary transactions. Sharing your passwords or personal identification numbers over the internet can prove to be hazardous. You might end up having your account hacked or something worse than that. There are many impostors online who claim be to part of the ICO. They might probe you for personal information with the intent to access your account and steal from you. So, avoid sharing your personal information on social media platforms. Mistake 2: Transferring funds from an Exchange to an ICO This is another mistake that many investors end up doing. Never transfer any funds or ether through an online exchange when investing into Initial Coin Offering. This creates some confusion for the owner of the coin. Since the payment is done through the exchange, the owner is unaware of the address where the virtual currency must be sent. It is advisable to first transfer your ether to your personal wallet. The ICO funding can be done by making the payment through the wallet. This way, the owner has the address of your wallet and can transfer the virtual currency directly into your personal wallet. Mistake 3: Not all ICO’s accept other cryptocurrencies Since the popularity of Bitcoin has soared, people assume that almost all of the coin offerings also accept Bitcoin or other alternative coins as a mode of payment. But this is not true. As a matter of fact, one of the most common currency for investing is Ether. Ether is a token on the Ethereum network. Ether is much a highly prominent token in comparison to other virtual currencies. One of the reasons for this is because many of the initial coin offerings are launched using an Ethereum Blockchain application development Network. Of course, there are a few ICO’s which do accept virtual coins or other crypto tokens. But this will limit you to which ICOs you can invest into. Mistake 4: Sending funds to the wrong address This is not a fundamental or technical mistake. Pay attention to the receiver’s wallet address where you are transferring your funds. The information on the account where the funds must be transferred can be found on the website of the cryptocurrency. This blog was written by Ankit Shrivastav as a part of the Crowdholding Guest Blogging Series.

We are delighted to announce that Connectjob has joined forces with Crowdholding and will be on our platform from today with a new task.   Connectjob have created a unique platform that allows the gathering of individual services onto one app based on blockchain technolgy.    On this app you will be able to find a range of different services such as fitness coaches, garderners, babysitters, housekeepers, plumbers through uber like geolocation. Imagine having a burst pipe and being able to use an app to find a reliable local plumber in a few minutes?    Connectjob are currently in their crowdsale, where they have raised over $9.2 million. We see Connectjob as the future of freelancing services.    If you wish to find out more about Connectjob app, their token, or detials about their ICO, click here.   You can keep up to date with what is happening at Crowdholding by following us at Facebook, or chatting with us on telegram.

  This week we brought on board one new startup, Oporty, a decentralized, self-regulated knowledge-sharing community platform and service marketplace with an Escrow system and blockchain-powered contracts. We also completed a referral system that will be imbedded for users to refer friends to sign up, in return to earn bonus Yupies that will support and increase our user growth. This will be pushed on CH soon as we are testing it on our test server first.    Blockchain Hub Event     Yesterday, we had a successful blockchain meet up organized by us and ITT out of our work space, Blockchain Hub. We had 50+ international people join the event with interesting presentations regarding different startups within the scene and including a workshop on how to be responsible with using and holding crypto. At CH it is important we give back to the community by educating and promoting blockchain and crypto. It’s important to promote locally in Prague and encourage the local community to support our projects. We will be having monthly meet ups to share what we’ve learned throughout this year. If you are ever in Prague, come join us. Keep up to date with our upcoming events by liking our Facebook page. Soon we will be sharing the recorded video from the event on our Youtube channel.       Smart Contract Distribution   We apologize for the delay regarding the timeframe of the Smart Contract, but it’s important we make sure the Smart contract is secure thus the auditing process should not be rushed. Right now we are presenting you with the distribution amounts that will be sent once the distribution will be initiated. For more info about the process you can read from our previous article here.       As you see from the chart. We are showing you an example of two investors that put in the same amount, 10 ETH. One in Pre-ICO and the other in ICO at specific dates to represent time bonus. Both include amount bonus of 10%. With a total supply of 445 million and the crowdsale representing 200,250,000 Yupies (45%), the multiplier for your new Yupies (including bonuses) from the Old Yupie’s amount is 49.65.   Log into Crowdholding and join the co-creation revolution or drop in for a chat with us on telegram.

We are delighted to announce that Opporty has joined forces with Crowdholding and will be on our platform from today with a new task.   Opporty is a decentralized business oriented ecosystem with service marketplace and self-regulated knowledge-sharing community platform. By offering blockchain-powered smart contracts and a decentralized Escrow system, Opporty puts client-contractor relations on the blockchain. The platform, with the help of its Expert community, ensures transparency and security, standardizes procedures, and creates an environment of cooperation that instills trust between parties.   Opporty’s vision is to create a productive environment — a business-focused, decentralized, self-governed community — where business owners and individual service providers engage in purchase and sale of their services and educate others by contributing content. Taking the best of two worlds (on-demand and blockchain), Their mission is to make Opporty a user-friendly marketplace that allows for the digitizing of multiple small business activities and provides a risk-free environment for doing business through Escrow and blockchain-powered smart contracts. They are currently in their Presale.   If you wish to find out more about Opporty’s platform, their token, what they are creating or their ICO, click here.   You can keep up to date with what is happening at Crowdholding by following us at Facebook, or chatting with us on telegram.  

Here at Crowdholding we are striving to create a product for our users, and inherently also help other startups to do the same. So far we have identified 5 Archetypes of users that we have (or want to have) and that we are making the platform for. Below is each archetype of users we have identified through interviews and platform research. What do you think? Where do you fit?Contribute to our task here to earn Yupies and help us validate!   The Co-creator   Pain Points The user does not have the right product, there is always something missing (There is always some pain point not addressed). The user is stifled as the startup who created the product does not gather feedback from their user base.   Goals Wants to be an innovator and experiment with upcoming products. Wants to have a product that solves their specific problems.   Tasks and Behaviours Tries new innovative products and services regularly, likes to be an early adopter. Often tries emerging products and services before they are polished so are more forgiving. Is aware of what needs they need addressing from a product.   The Expert   Pain points Bored in their job, as they are doing the same tasks all the time. Caring about a specific industry and lacks the channels to contribute. Not able to help companies that they care about.   Goals Wants to get more experience. Wants to learn new skills. Wants to offer quality work. Wants to offer their expertise to companies and causes they care about.   Tasks and Behaviours Helps companies with their expertise, either by offering opinions and/or using their skills to produce pieces of work for startups (eg, a logo). One they get passionate about something, they dive deep. Self-actualisation.   The Wantrepreneur   Pain Points Does not have (m)any entrepreneurs or people who started their own ventures in their inner circle. Lacks motivation and struggling to find real information on how to build a startup. Does not know where to start with their business.   Goals Wants to see the processes within the startup and learn from it. Wants to be inspired and motivated by seeing the ups and downs of start-ups / launch of the product. Wants to be exposed to the startup ecosystem. Wants to learn from others.   Tasks and Behaviours Needs external stimuli to take risks. Wants to get information and learn from other people.   The Investor   Pain Points Not able to transparently see the way business makes decisions, what their struggles are and how they are thinking.  Finding interesting startups with evident dedication and customer-focus.   Goals Wants to see the processes in the startup and how they deal with struggles / make decisions. Wants to be exposed to customer-focused startups. Find good startups to invest into.   Tasks and Behaviours Usually busy and prefers to get quality information in small doses. Aware of time constraints.   The Bounty Hunter   Pain Points Getting cryptocurrency is an expensive investment.  Does not want to invest hard-earned fiat into cryptocurrencies.   Goals Earn some crypto.   Tasks and Behaviours Will do an array of tasks to get hold of some cryptocurrency.   Make sure to join our Telegram chat, and join our community at Crowdholding.com.

We are delighted to announce that SmartCash has joined forces with Crowdholding and will be on our platform from today.   SmartCash was a project born out of the desire to create a viable, fungible, fast, merchant oriented, user friendly and community driven cryptocurrency with a decentralized governance system. They aim to create the most nimble and fast growing cryptocurrency by aggressively prioritizing block rewards to growing their community, hiring developers, gaining merchant acceptance and via grassroots community outreach efforts and established marketing methods.   SmartCash is a cryptocurrency forked from the zcoin project and is growing a cryptocurrency blockchain / mining and wallet economy through a community. This project has a lot of very interesting innovative ideas, one of those is Smart Hive.    With Smart Hive, anyone holding coins may vote on suggestions submitted by the neighborhood with every SmartCash Token being valued at 1 vote. Furthermore, it will allow anybody to get involved and submit proposals and therefore helping to generate organic growth at a grassroots level and thus developing a bottom-up management arrangement.    If you wish to find out more about SmartCash’s platform, their token and what they are creating you can find all their information here.   You can keep up to date with what is happening at Crowdholding by following us at Facebook, or chatting with us on telegram.

We are happy to announce that Bitcoen.io has joined forces with Crowdholding and will be on our platform soon.   Bitcoen is the first “kosher” official crypto token, business platform and system of services, created for interaction between representatives of the communities around the world. They are creating a completely legal blockchain ecosystem with accordance on to the laws of most countries. They will also have a loyalty system which can be spend wherever BitCoen is accepted as a payment.   They are currently in the middle of their Token sale, where they have raised over $2 million. If you wish to find out more about Bitcoen’s platform, their token and what they are creating you can find all their information here.    You can keep up to date with what is happening at Crowdholding by following us at Facebook, or chatting with us on telegram.

Here at Crowdholding, we will be launching our new smart contract very soon, which brings up the topic for any newbies wanting to get into the world of crypto “what is a Smart Contract?”.   The term and ideology of “smart contracts” was first conceived by computer scientist and cryptographer Nick Szabo back in 1993. He introduced the concept of how users could input data or a value, and receive a finite item from a machine, such as a snack of soft drink.    The issue was that back in 1993, the technology wasn’t there to allow smart contracts to thrive until the explosion of blockchain technology. This is because blockchains are a decentralized system that exists between all permitted parties and no need to have middlemen that can slow down a system and cause conflicts, instead you have smart contracts.      A smart contract in basic terms enforces terms of agreement with a cryptographic code (rather than a standard contract that has to be browsed through to find the correct terms).The simplistic way to describe the difference is to compare it to vending machine (a smart contract) against a shop assistant (standard contract).    Although smart contracts are still in their infancy, there are a lot of industries that could implement them in their current procedures.   A potential future use for smart contracts could be in world of insurance. Smart contracts are extremely useful in the cases when a process takes a significant amount of time, which is a typical problem with insurance policies. The work involves many manual operations and requires a lot of human action and time to validate. For a customer, the longer it takes, the more stress / additional costs. With a smart contract, it could have measurable parameters such as flood levels, earthquake magnitude or a variety of different variants. When there’s an insured event, the input conditions of a smart contract will be changed accordingly. As a result, the claims process will be triggered immediately, and the financial payout can be delivered to a customer without any delays. The need of human-driven intervention is reduced which would reduce costs and allow the insurance holder to start to rebuild.   The added beauty of smart contracts as well is you can have multiple and they can collaborate between each other to make the correct decision, eliminating human error, corruption and also having set standards that everyone agrees to.    The world of smart contracts has not breached into industries that govern our society, but we are seeing more and more investment into blockchain technologies and this will continue into the future.    You can keep up to date with what is happening at Crowdholding by following us on Facebook, or talk with us on telegram.    

ICO’s are storming the world of cryptocurrency, every week there is a new Initial Coin Offering that gives investors the opportunity to become involved in the crypto world. But what if you are startup who wants to create an ICO? Don’t worry, here at Crowdholding, we have created a step by step guide on how to create your own ICO so you can also immerse yourself in the growing eco-system of cryptocurrencies.   This step by step guide will break down all the parts that are needed for a Initial Coin Offering. This part will focus on the marketing aspect of an ICO. If you haven’t read our first part you can click here, or find out about how to create a white paper and website by clicking on our second part.     Marketing is a vital tool for any business and this is no different when it comes to ICO’s. Without any marketing input your ICO will not be seen by potential investors which means that you will not reach any of your projected goals, regardless if your concept is solid and you have a great development team behind you. The majority of your marketing will be online due to the fact that you are marketing a digital currency, but there is also some marketing that will take place offline.   Forums       The crypto community is global and so cryptocurrency forums are vital, therefore you need have your project in these forums. It is impossible to estable a strong relationship with your key audience without doing this. In these forums potential investors are able to review, ask questions and debate your project (you will get some bad feedback as well as positive). You are able to dispel any issues they have, showcase your team and communicate with people who are genuinely interested in cryptocurrencies. There are numerous forums each and in a perfect world you would have someone who can oversee them all, but if not we suggest you focus on bitcointalk.   Bitcointalk.org Allcryptotalk.com Bitcoinforum.com Cryptocurrencytalk.com   Simply create a thread on the announcement section with images and descriptions of what your project will accomplish, most threads use the images from their website as ICO websites usually contain all the relevant information on their main page. The way the forum works is the most recently active threads go to the first page, so keeping your thread active by responding to questions and showing your progress not only builds a trust but also your thread will get more views.   For an example you can have a look at Crowholding’s thread by clicking here.   Social media / Blog / Messaging apps     Recent studies suggest that around 40% of the world’s population uses some sort of social media, meaning that social media is a huge audience for businesses of all shapes and sizes to tap into. A decent ICO campaign requires administration of a wide variety of social networks (The more networks the better, as you can connect more people). On your social media networks you should cover any news, announcements, appearances at events, blog posts or any important information regarding your ICO. If you wish to attract more people, you can use social media advertising to grow your community. The most important thing is if you start a detailed and strong social media campaign, stick with it.   Creating a blog is also a great tool. It allows you to showcase your ICO, give readers valuable information and insights all while building a relationship. Crowdholding uses Medium as the main blogging platform as it is a great platform, allows users to instantly share your articles and is simple to use, but there are numerous platforms.   The most common messaging apps adopted by ICO’s are Slack and Telegram. These chat apps allow potential investors to communicate with the project founders, team members and other potential investors. It is a great way to answer specific questions from individuals. Because of this, these channels need to be monitored on a regular basis. Not replying to messages will harm your reputation as there could be people guessing information about your prject. Use this channel to dispel erroneous claims and create confidence. Everyone likes to be able to speak to the owner of a company, so embrace this.   Public relations (PR) / Events       Advertising for an ICO is not solely online, It is important to cover the ICO campaign in the media as much as possible, this includes a mixture of articles written, interviews and attending events / networking. A PR campaign can take months before you see a tangible impact, so we suggest that you start this process 3 months before the ICO launch. If you do not have 3 months to create working relationships with reporters / bloggers / event cordinantors then corportating through commercial terms is a viable way.   Going on the road, attending events / presenting at events  is also important as it allows people who are interested in the crypto scene to see the visionary / team behind the concept. It is also a great place to meet other startups to collaborate with.   ICO listing websites / bounty campaigns       Because of the boom in ICO’s there has been a sharp increase in the amount of ICO listing websites. These websites list all the upcoming / current / completed ICO’s and can bring a large amount of traffic to your website. Some of these sites are free / low fees to list your ICO. You can also pay to be reviewed on some of these sites. Regardless of your budget, you should consider listing your ICO on as many ICO listing websites as possible. The more websites you are located on, the more likely people are to find your ICO.   Bounty campaigns are also a great way to build a community. The way bounty campaigns work is by offering your token as a reward to people in exchange for various promotional activities, this could be a signature in a cryptocurrency forum to someone writing an article about your ICO. Utilizing bounties can spread your ICO further through people who like your concept. Below is a link to Crowdholding’s bounty campaign, so you can see how a bounty campaign is created.   https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2097228.40   If you include all these marketing tools into your marketing campaign, then it should boost the amount of potential investors to visit your website, communicate about your ICO and potentially create numerous investments from people who find your project interesting and worthy of venture.   For more information about Crowdholding and our ICO click here or follow us on Facebook or Telegram.  

ICO’s are storming the world of cryptocurrency, every week there is a new Initial Coin Offering that gives investors the opportunity to become involved in the crypto world. But what if you are startup who wants to create an ICO? Don’t worry here at Crowdholding, we have created a step by step guide on how to create your own ICO so you can also immerse yourself in the growing eco-system of cryptocurrencies.   This step by step guide will break down all the parts that are needed for a Initial Coin Offering. Our second part will focus on creating the website and the White Paper. If you haven’t read our first part you can click here, as the first part discusses the theory behind an ICO and asks if you need an ICO.   The first “W” - The Website   As with any business nowadays, a website is vital as it allows potential customers / investors to browse your product with the touch of a button wherever they are located in the world. ICO’s are no different, a website is the most important communication tool. Potential investors will not invest into an ICO that does not have a website / a poorly designed website.   Therefore it is essential that you have a visually appealing website and it contains all the information that visitors are looking for. ICO websites follow this chronological guideline as listed below.   Site menu - Your website will need to have translations, as ICO’s are a global phenomenon, only having English will limit the amount of people you can reach. We suggest that you have Russian and Chinese translations. You also want to have your biggest social media channels so people can follow / get in contact with you. You can also have links to certain parts of your website such as “team” or “documents”   The Homepage - ICO’s follow the format or a long landing page with all the information available by scrolling down. You can separate these into other pages, but 99% of ICO pages prefer to have all the information on one page. Before the ICO launch, this section should contain a countdown timer to the ICO launch and a form of subscription for news about the project. After the ICO has launched, the timer is replaced with the "Join ICO" button and a bar with how much you have currently raised. Showing how much you have raised is important, as it shows potential investors that others also are investing into the project.   The Project Section -  This section must show detailed information about the project, technology features, current status and development plans / roadmap. This section shows the investors what they are investing in, the benefits to your project and what you plan to do with their investment. We suggest using an array of pictures / infographics rather than large amount of text.   The ICO and the Token - The fourth segment of your website should describe your ICO and your token in detail. The information that is needed in this section can be seen below:-   Here is an example from our website of the ICO section.   The Team Section - Here is where you list all the team members, with photos and links to their LinkedIn profile (if possible) the team is important because it is one of the main factors that investors look into in regards to the validity of the project. Just below this section, add your advisors in a similar fashion.   Documents / legal / social media channels - Lastly there should be links to your documents such as your white paper and smart contract information. Because these are larger, full of text and more in-depth, it is better to have links rather than have these on your main page. There should also be a link that takes you to the terms and agreements in regards to people investing. This is needed from a legal standpoint and should be carefully considered as this will be different for every ICO. Lastly include all your social media links, as people can browse through them and follow your project / get in contact with you through their favourite social media channel.   Additional items that should be considered are:-   Web based chat application - So anyone visiting your website can immediately as you questions. This requires someone to be on the website at all times though, so you will need to structure this. Website that is adapted to mobile devices - Most people now browse on their mobile devices, make sure your website is responsive to this. News / blog - A nice way to keep people coming back to your website, although you can have this on a blogging platform instead such as Medium or Blogger or listing articles that have been written about you from media outlets. Email / sign up page - There needs to be a process for anyone that decides to join your email newsletter list. This will have to include a retrieve password, terms and conditions etc. Design - On top of having all the relevant information, do not forget to make the website look appealing. Research - Look around at what other websites are including that is effective.   You can visit our ICO website to see what the completed example looks like by clicking here.   The second “W” - The White Paper   (If you do not know what a white paper is, we suggest you read this article. It is important that you have an understanding of what a White Paper is as it is long and in-depth)   White Papers are a key mechanism in the world of fintech and more importantly in the ICO ecosystem. This document outlines the technical features of the project in quite substantial detail. White Papers are aimed at experts, opinion leaders and professionals that can understand the technical essence of your project. The white paper doesn’t heavily focus on marketing in a conventional way and is more of a educational document / manual, so it is very important that you have thought out your concept, project and how it works before trying to write a white paper.   The information provided in the White Paper should be divided into sections. A White Paper must contain the following descriptions: essence of the project, prospects and roadmap. relevance of the project and the market it operates on. Team and advisors. economics of the project and token. There are certain guidelines as well such as :- Most White Papers start with the problem that their project solves, showing stats and figures and infographics to back up the problem. After the current issues, the product description section starts.  A white Paper is structured, linear and clean. It does not need to colourful or contain too many buzzwords. As stated above, this document is for experts rather than the general public and therefore does not need to have slogans or logos as a marketing campaign. Instead of selling your product, think of it more as an educational document explaining what your product does and how it works. Do research and see what other ICO’s are including in their WP. If a section appears in multiple good White Papers consider adding it to yours. The average length is around 20 pages, the idea is that once a potential investor reads through your whole document they will understand the issue, how your product works, where you are going with your project and how people can benefit from your solution.   If you wish to look at our whitepaper for an example you can click here. Crowdholding is launching our own ICO on the 1st of November, for more information click here or follow us on Facebook or Telegram.  

ICO’s are storming the world of cryptocurrency, every week there is a new Initial Coin Offering that gives investors the opportunity to become involved in the crypto world. But what if you are startup who wants to create an ICO? Don’t worry here at Crowdholding, we have created a step by step guide on how to create your own ICO so you can also immerse yourself in the growing eco-system of cryptocurrencies.   This step by step guide will break down all the parts that are needed for a initial coin offering. This first part will focus on the very beginning, the actual theory behind ICO’s and whether your startup is suitable for an initial coin offering.     What is an ICO? ICO’s have been in the spotlight this year due to the amount of capital they are raising, as recently as last month Filecoin raised over $250 million and the other top 3 have raised over $150 million each.   An ICO is a fundraising mechanism, where your future cryptocurrency is sold for current cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. If you want more information about ICO’s and what they are you can look at our article called “What is an ICO?”     Theory behind the token Once you know what an ICO is, you need to know if this is applicable to your startup. Some CEO’s seem to think that launching an ICO is a tool for any project, that allows the startups to raise money and to bypass the long, tiresome and costly process of registering for an IPO. This is no longer the case, as standards are starting to quickly appear. There are now informal standards / requirements in having a successful campaign.   To make your token popular with investors during your ICO, you need to have the token fully integrated into the core structure of the startup. Investors should be able to plainly see how the token will gain value as you startup starts to flourish. If you need to research about the potential that blockchain technology can offer to you startup, you can read our blockchain article here.   Because of this you should be able to answer these questions that a potential investor could ask you about your token:-   Why do you need blockchain tokens in your startup? What is the goal of your startup? What advantages does blockchain technology give your project? What is the link the blockchain technology and your product? Why is your token of interest to potential investors? What laws does it bend / break? Data protection etc. What benefits / drawbacks are there on going on a crypto-exchange? Do you have competitors? Are they other ICO’s?   Secondly you need authenticity and transparency. The cryptocurrency community is booming and there are a lot of ICO’s. One vital factor is to show that you are legitimate and not creating a ICO for the sole purpose of becoming wealthy at the expense of the investors. Your token should contribute / solve an issue and have clear goals that benefit everyone involved.   Lastly you need to think if you have the capable team to pull of an ICO. One of the main deciding factors for investors is the team behind the project. If the team lacks experience, capabilities or are untrustworthy investors are unlikely to put money down on your project.   You will need a pretty large team to pull off an ICO. You will need content specialists, editors, PR, SMM, community managers, designers, UX / UI and programmers to get the ICO off the ground. Another consideration is languages. ICO’s are a global phenomenon so having multiple languages in your team will also be a huge advantage.   So when deciding on launching an ICO, you will have to take into consideration payment for these staff members. We suggest starting to create your ICO 3 month prior to the launch of your pre-ICO which means you will need at least a 6 month runway.   Once you have figured out how to implement a token / blockchain system into your startup, your goals and if you have a capable team you can move onto the the next stage. The second part of our guide will show you how to create a wallet and how to start to package your product with a white paper and a website.   Crowdholding is launching our own ICO on the 1st of November, for more information click here or follow us on Facebook or Telegram.  

The famous saying that “time is money” is well known but it should only be considered a metaphor and not followed word for word. In modern day culture, we are constantly equating “work” with “time”, which connects “time” with “money”. It is normal practice for employees to be paid an hourly wage, or professionals to work with billable hours, for hotels and car parking spaces to be charged based on time. Because of this we are pushed to think of time this way, even if you are conscious of this fact. We associate time as a commodity or a resource, even in our language we use expressions such as:- Your mistake cost the business 2 hours Last week’s date was a waste of my time How did you spend your time? These sayings highlight what we fundamentally think about time, but the average person says these phrases without thinking about the core value those words hold. Time isn’t really money, there are critical differences between the two. Unlike money if you spend on your time on something that isn’t connected with your life’s purposes or passions, you can’t refund it or earn it back by picking up another job. You can’t save time and watch the savings grow. If a person gives you a lot of their time, you can’t give them that time back. When we act as time is a resource or a commodity that we can use, save or harvest we miss one very vital realization. In choosing to do one activity, you are also choosing not to spend time on others that could be beneficial for your personal or professional development. Although one aspect that should be adopted, is investing. If you see time as a tool to invest in yourself and your own personal / professional development instead of just a commodity that should be traded for money. You will start to prioritize what is important to you whether that is learning a new skill, playing an instrument, learning a language or following your entrepreneurial dreams in creating a startup. Here at Crowdholding, we are creating an eco-system that enables anyone from around the globe to invest time into a project. One day you can be helping broaden a project’s marketing potential, the next day giving feedback on a logo for a startup or developing code for a new website. We want to harness the power of the crowd to allow both startups and co-creators to flourish. We differ from the other popular freelancer websites like Upwork and Mechnical Turk, on our platform you would earn YUPIES for your co-creation, you will have the ability to invest them back into the project you love, hence investing your time into perfecting your skills and potentially investing back into the startup you want to see develop. Crowdholding is there as well for the budding entrepreneur who has or wants to create a startup. Imagine if you could get feedback and validation on your project or product by thousands of users? Crowdholding enables the crowd to validate the product, become customers and share awareness about the product or service. The public, or the ‘crowd’ is not only able to contribute to startup, but there’s an opportunity for a mutually beneficial scenario, where both the public and the business can work together. Businesses will be able to give back to the crowd via our YUPIE token. As Eric Schmidt says, the next $100 billion companies will be those who can learn from the crowd. We are currently in the process of launching our ICO on the 1st of November. If you want to find out more information, you can find all the information here.

Many aspiring entrepreneurs have a innovative idea / concept for their startup but lack the funding to get the idea off the ground. Brand new businesses are often turned down when applying for bank loans due to banks not seeing it as a lucrative venture. Even if you manage to establish your business, finding capital can still be hard to secure. Before you look into the different types of financing, you should read our previous article about the concept of alternative finance for small businesses to educate yourself on the basics so you can really grasp these different types of financing. So what are your options left after the traditional bank loan? Here at Crowdholding, we have gathered 5 of the newest alternative finance options that could allow your startup to not just be a pipe dream but a reality. ICO (inital Coin Offering)   Initial Coin Offerings (ICO’s) are the newest way to raise capital for startups, This year alone technological based startup companies have raised nearly 1.3 billion dollars this year alone through ICO’s, Bancor managed to raise $153 million alone. ICO’s are a mixture of an IPO (Initial Public Offering) and Crowdfunding. The only drawback is that it is for startups who are looking to create a cryptocurrency, so if your company is not involved in that sphere it is better to look for another alternative. If you wish to know more about ICO’s, we recently wrote an article about ICO’s and if you should invest. Peer to Peer lending Another reasonably new way to secure finance is through Peer to Peer lending. P2P companies started around 12 years ago and now have broken into the many industries such as journalism, the fashion industry and even into the financial sector. The general concept is that everyone gets a better deal compared to a traditional bank loan, lenders get a higher rate of interest compared to a savings account in a bank and borrowers pay less than they would on a bank loan. There are many big websites such as Funding Circle, Lending club and Streetshares. This way is also advantageous because you can receive the financial backing in a shorter time without having to fill out a mountain of paperwork. Crowdfunding The concept of Crowdfunding is also one of the buzzwords for raising capital such sites as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. This works by promoting your product / concept and allowing anyone to invest. This could be thousands of people all pledging 10 dollars each. This type of fund raising is better for a new product / idea than a second or third round of investment. The main advantage is that these sites are very popular, and instead of searching for that one large investment you have multiple sources who actually are interested in your product. Make sure to read all the details though as different crowdfunding websites have different payment processing fees to require the business to reach their goal before they can receive any of the money raised. Here is a link with some great tips on how to make a successful Crowdfunding campaign. Angel Investors If you are willing to sacrifice some equity in your startup, angel investors could be the source of income for you. There have been numerous success stories from angel investing such as Whatsapp, Uber and Facebook. Angel Investors invest in the early stages of a startup in exchange for a percentage of your company. The one main advantage (apart from the cash of course) is that usually angel investors are passionate about your project and may have some insight into your industry field, making them a powerful ally. Also if the investor is a well renowned professional in his / her field it can add credibility to your startup. Venture capitals   Venture capital are similar to angel investors, but they are an institution (a group of investors) rather than a single one. They fund that startups that are considered have high risk potential and a high growth rate. The main advantage to this source of financing is similar to Angel investors, they usually focus on certain industries meaning that you can receive a wealth of knowledge and experience as well as capital. The downside is that usually they will expect a large percent of equity, usually around 25–30%. All of these alternative ways of financing can be extremely fruitful, but it is about finding the right one for your company. Click on our article about “raising capital, and preserving equity” if you need more ideas on which direction to go.

In recent times, the world’s tech media has been reporting into the exponential growth in cryptocurrencies, the evolution of the market, new digital currencies and the step away from more traditional methods of raising capital such as initial public offerings (IPO’s), crowdfunding or seeking out venture capitalists. According to an article from The Financial Times, a report from Autonomous found that technological based startup companies have raised nearly 1.3 billion dollars this year alone through ICO’s, compared $222 million the previous year. One company called Bancor managed to raise $153 million, making it the most lucrative ICO in history (based solely on the amount raised) In this article we will be focusing on the what are ICO’s are and why ICO’s are disrupting the typical way startups raise finance and whether you should invest. What is an ICO? Initial coin offerings (ICO) is not a new concept, and the first successful ICO was back in 2013 by Mastercoin, but the arguably the most successful ICO that started the wave of this new concept was Ethereum who managed to raise over 18 million dollars in 42 days. A definition is hard to come by, but the most precise one around is “An unregulated mean by which capital is raised for a new cryptocurrency venture. It is used by startups to bypass the conventional fund raising process (such as venture capitalists or banks). In an ICO campaign, a percentage of the cryptocurrency is sold to early backers of the currency in exchange for legal tender or another cryptocurrency (usually BitCoin or Ethereum) In the most simple terms a initial coin offering is in between an initial public offering (IPO) and Crowdfunding. Why such the sudden boom?   For the startup, it is a way of raising capital without having to jump through all the rigorous legal loopholes that come with the other forms of financing your new idea / concept. Sometimes, a CEO just cannot convince venture capitalist to invest into his company, or simply want too much equity for his startup meaning that he loses all his control of his creation. For investors it can also be a fruitful venture. BitCoin used to own the vast majority of the market cap in cryptocurrencies. In a recent article from Forbes, it was stated that BitCoin had dropped to owning half of the market. New and innovative currencies are getting created and if they were to rise at the velocity of BitCoin in the last few years, a small investment could be a return substantial wealth. Although it needs to be stated that investing into ICO’s is not similar to buying stocks in Wall Street, you are simply buying the currency not shares of the company. Also because ICO’s are the all the rage and more and more startups are taking this route, there are sadly more scam artists out there. That said if these 4 items are in place, it could be worth investing. You have read the white paper in detail and it makes sense as a business There is a demonstrated demand for the product The business needs a cryptocurrency / token system to perform You can commit funds without any suffering in your life In conclusion, initial coin offerings are becoming a more frequently used tool for startups and they will not be going away anytime soon. They open up the possibilities that were not open to innovative startups, and with more money flowing around the ecosystem it can only benefit the future industry of cryptocurrencies.

The world is starting to wake up to cryptocurrencies, nowadays if you ask most people about Bitcoin, they will have an answer for you. But the term “Blockchain” is still unknown to the general public as a whole. Blockchain isn’t a in-your-face innovation that you can see and touch such as a smartphone. But with the world continually progressing to online applications and transactions, blockchain is the answer to the question that has plagued skeptics since the birth of the internet: How can we collectively trust what happens online? In this article, Crowdholding will look into blockchain technology and how blockchain technology is revolutionizing businesses. What is a blockchain? A blockchain fundamentally is an extremely simple concept. Think of it as a record book that everyone can see and no one can alter. This simple idea has the potential to completely change the processes in numerous huge industries from the financial sector to governmental procedures. It’s simplicity is the reason why it is huge unrivaled potential. Photo credit FT. How does Blockchain work ? A blockchain as a distributed database that controls a shared list of records. These records are referred to as a block, and each block is encrypted. These blocks contain a history of every block that came before it with the transaction data time stamped to the second, therefore connecting these blocks together (or creating a chain), hence why the name blockchain is so fitting. So why is it so revolutionary? This is down to the two main primary components: a decentralized network and the transaction ledger the network maintains. Everyone connected to the network can see the shared transaction ledger, but there is no single point of failure from where the records or the digital assets can be hacked or corrupted. Also because of the decentralization of the system, there is not one single organisation or entity controlling the data. This is completely the opposite to a bank or a large tech company, where they will store their data in a certain location / locations. The future of Blockchain Blockchain technology was first thrown into the public eye when a still elusive Satoshi Nakamoto published his famous white paper back in 2008. The white paper introduced the concept of a peer-to-peer electronic cash system which was named Bitcoin. The blockchain for bitcoin was launched 3 months later in January 2009. Blockchain is the structure that allows Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to thrive, although blockchain can be used for more than just cryptocurrencies. So what is the future? Recently we have seen a shift towards blockchain from large banks and tech giants. Recently The Royal Bank of Canada has started to experiment with blockchain technologies for payments. Martin Wildberger who is the executive vice president for innovation and technology stated this in regards to the announcement:- “Everybody recognizes blockchain will be transformative and critical” Companies such as Microsoft and IBM are implementing the option to build custom blockchains for customers as well. At the same time dozens of startups are appearing using blockchain technology for everything from healthcare, voting to even the legal marijiana industry.Here at Crowdholding, we are adopting the use of blockchain technology as well to revolutionize co-creation between startups and co-creators from all over the globe. The potential is so vast because when it comes down to any business or industry that uses some kind of digital asset or needs to make use of a transaction system, blockchain can be implemented to vastly improve and increase the overall security of the process. Blockchain is only starting to be used in a number of businesses and there are some economic, technology and regulatory hurdles that must be jumped to see the widespread adoption of this technology, but in the upcoming years blockchain will change the way your digital life is protected and shared, right under your nose.

Crowdholding is a co-creation platform startup that is registered in the UK. We are aiming to allow both startups and the crowd to mutual prosper through co-creation and blockchain technology. On Sunday the 17th of September, Crowdholding concluded their pre-sale ICO, after 32 days, Crowdholding raised 514 Ethereum tokens, decimating our target of 200. We would firstly like to thank everyone who helped us achieve this target. This article will be a case study on how we went about implementing our pre-sale and what we have learnt to improve on for our ICO, which will launch on the 1st of November. Crowdholding Crowdholding was first conceived back in January 2016 between the three co-founders of the startup, from then on the startup has grown its product and size of its team. A working Beta was created back March 2017 and we have over 1200 users on the platform. Crowdholding moved towards a Initial coin offering as it was an opportunity to show the power of the crowd, receive feedback to improve user experience and keep control of our concept. Breakdown Our ICO starts on the 1st of November where 44% of the 631 million tokens will be on sale to the public, during the pre-sale 0.8% of all the tokens created were available for purchase. We set a goal of raising 200 Ethereum, and we were more than successful as we managed to raise over 500 in that period. The breakdown of the other token percentages can be found in the white paper here. Reason for our success There are a few reasons for our success during the pre-sale that will be implemented during the ICO. Strong organic marketing — Most of our marketing power was not spent on ads or paying for articles, but rather through content marketing, growth hacking and connecting with people who would be interested in our ideology. We made sure that we had all forms of communication. Social media channels and we were constantly pushing out new content. Strong customer service — We made sure that any curious visitor to the website were greeted with someone from Crowdholding. If they had any doubts, questions or comments we were there to receive them and to reply back. This grows a strong relationship, and shows that we are here to advise and help. Use of Bounties — We made sure to use the public who would be interested in our concept / cryptocurrencies. Crowdholding used our own platform to structure bounties. Once this was created, the general public started to share and post to increase the visibility of Crowdholding. Improve through feedback — During the whole pre-sale we were constantly improving our website, whitepaper and presentations from feedback from the crowd. We cannot have an ideology praising the power of the crowd, if we do not utilize it as well. We value the crowd’s power so much we had bounty systems for feedback on our website and our whitepaper. Tracking what was successful and what wasn’t — ICO’s are still a new concept in investment and with any new investment idea, it can be difficult to market. We consistently looked at what channels worked and what channels were not as effective, which channels need more focus and which channels are growing so much, that they are sustaining themselves. What we learnt There were also some concepts we learnt and will add to make our ICO more successful: ICO’s are a global phenomenon and although China has recently banned ICO’s there is still a lot of different nations who are interested in ICO’s. We were a little late in getting translations and we will have more translations when the ICO comes around with research to back those markets. Connecting / networking — Because we were so focused on marketing and making sure we are connecting with people who visited our website, we didn’t have too many chances to get our ideology into events and network with cryptocurrency / blockchain enthusiasts face to face. We are now focusing on growing our team and networking so when it comes around to the 1st of November we will have a wider network to connect. We cannot wait for our ICO on the 1st of November, if you want to read more about our pre-sale and our concept, click here to read more.

ICO. If you do not know how to create a wallet or purchase Ethereum, please go back to part 1 (how to create a wallet) and part 2 (how to purchase ETH and transfer it to your wallet). If you wish to learn more about our company or our ICO click here. During the Crowdholding pre-sale, which starts on Tuesday, 15th of August at 10AM (GMT +2) you will be able to exchange your Ethereum for YUPIES at a special bonus rate. Once the pre-sale finishes the price will return to it’s original value. Step 1 To become a Crowdholding supporter, you will have to log into your wallet. Because in this guide we created the wallet with myetherwallet, this guide will use this wallet as an example. Other wallets work in a very similar way, so this guide will still be useful if you have a wallet with a different application. So log into your wallet on MyEtherWallet, and start a new transaction by going to the “Send Ether & Tokens” tab. You will need to unlock your wallet first by entering your Keystore FIle and your password.   Once you have logged into your wallet, go to our website https://ico.crowdholding.com/, where after 10AM (GMT +2) on the 15th you will see our public address. An example is below.     Copy this public address (the ox number) and go back to your wallet. Since you have already unlocked you will be presented a page where you can copy and paste an address in the “To address” box.   Select the amount of ETH you wish to exchange. In the “Gas Limit” field enter 400,000 gas (this is a small fee needed by Ethereum to process your transaction) Once you have double checked the public address and the amount, click the “Generate Transaction” button. Once you click the “Generate Transaction” button, another button will appear, click on the “Send Transaction” if you are ready to complete the exchange.   Congratulations! You have just become a Crowdholder supporter! Step 2 After you have completed the transaction, you can check to see if the transaction was successful. You can use the service Etherscan to check your wallet’s transaction history. On MyEtherWallet, you can find the link to your Etherscan page under “Transaction history” on the left of the page. Part 3 Below are some instructions on how to view the YUPIE token in your ERC20-compatible wallet of choice. The YUPIE token contract has the following attributes: Contract address: 0x0F33bb20a282A7649C7B3AFf644F084a9348e933 Token name: YUPIE Token symbol: YUP Decimals: 18 Exodus Download your private key on exodus (they have a video to show you how to do this), and then go to myetherwallet, view wallet info, put in your private key. Then go to add custom token, and put in for the address 0x1F573D6Fb3F13d689FF844B4cE37794d79a7FF1C with the token name (BNC) and 18 decimals and you should be able to see your BNT. Jaxx Wallet Civic tokens will load automatically once Jaxx fully integrates the token which is expected to take place during the week of July 17th. MyEtherWallet Click Add Custom Token, then fill in the following details: Contract address: 0x0F33bb20a282A7649C7B3AFf644F084a9348e933 Token symbol: YUPIE Decimals: 18 Mist After you login to Ethereum Wallet / Mist, select the CONTRACTS tab and click WATCH TOKEN to open the Add token window. CONTRACT ADDRESS: 0x0F33bb20a282A7649C7B3AFf644F084a9348e933. Then, Enter/check the details of the token: Token name: YUPIE Token Symbol: YUP Decimal places: 18 imToken mToken is expected to integrate YUPIE tokens in the near future. Once it happens, the tokens will load automatically. In the meantime, you can use the private keys of imToken to access myetherwallet.com. When you created imToken wallet, you should have saved the 12 seed words or the mnemonic phrase. Go to https://www.myetherwallet.com/#send-transaction, and after you click on Mnemonic Phrase, enter the 12 seed phrase. This way you will have unlocked your imToken wallet via a myetherwallet account. Click Add Custom Token, then fill in the following details: Contract address: 0x0F33bb20a282A7649C7B3AFf644F084a9348e933 Token symbol: YUPIE Decimals: 18 If you have any additional questions, do not hesitate to contact us on our public Slack / Telegram.

Yesterday the Dragon took a huge bite out of the cryptocurrency world, but what are the implications? All over of the world, the continuing hype around ICO’s is skyrocketing, even celebrities are getting involved with the Paris Hilton the latest in endorsing new digital currencies. Major news outlets such as CNBC are offering advice to viewers on how to create their own “cryptocurrency portfolio”. In China though, it is a completely different outlook. On Monday China cracked down on individuals and firms that raise funds through ICO’s. In this article Crowdholding will look into the sanction and the implications of this swift banning. (If you want to learn what an ICO is you can read our article by clicking here) Yesterday’s’ ruling came from China’s central bank, which released a statement criticizing ICO’s for “disrupting” the country’s financial order. The statement describes ICO’s (Initial coin offerings) as a source of “unapproved illegal public financing” and raises suspicions. They also went on to state that it could be used for “fraud and criminal activity.” ICO’s by nature are a relatively new concept and they have become popular not just in China but worldwide. According to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, close to $395 million has been raised from investors in China alone. China makes up over 25% of the worldwide investments in ICO’s (This year Coindesk suggested that more than $1.5 billion has been raised through ICO’s, a $256 million increase from the previous year. Implications? The first major implication of the ban was a global one, all major cryptocurrencies took a hit. Bitcoin tumbled as much as 11%, the most since July and Ethereum decreased by 16% according to Coindesk. Since then both of them have slowly started to increase again. Below is a graph of the price of Bitcoin (the top graph) and Ethereum (bottom on) over the last 7 days. On a national level,Chinese startups planning to start an ICO or are in the process of their ICO are expected to halt their plans. As part of the ban, Chinese authorities have called on individuals and organisations to refund investors for any amount raised through ICOs. It is worth taking note that the policy only affects raising capital through ICO’s and is not a ban on cryptocurrencies. It is no surprise that risk averse China has decided to ban this new type of capital raising before it “disrupts their social order” as stated by the Chinese Central Bank. But there are other countries who are looking into sanctioning ICO’s, The United States and Singapore have also stated their desire to regulate them. But it is not all doom and gloom. ICO’s are very much still alive. The fact that after what could be considered the “biggest hit” against cryptocurrencies since their inception, they are still increasing in price the day after the hit. Also with increasing publicity around cryptocurrencies (Thanks Paris) more and more people are discovering them and are able to invest due to the drop in price, just like in the stock market where the concept of “buying the dips”. This concept is based on the price dropping, more people investing and the price increasing back up once again. There are also countries who are going the completely opposite direction to China and embracing cryptocurrencies. Estonia is looking into the possibility of having it’s own national cryptocurrency and in Moscow you can trade cryptocurrencies on their stock exchange. Regulations are not something that should be feared in the crypto world. In the long run more competitive and sustainable coins / tokens will survive. an analogy to explain this would be the nature sieving by a river, the stronger larger rocks will be left behind, while the the small ones will be washed away. Regulations will force startups to do more than create a website and a white paper and protect investors from flimsy companies, poor business concepts or con artists. The dragon may have taken a bite out of the cryptocurrency, but it is still standing strong and will come back stronger. We would like to leave you with some words from Fred Wilson who is a VC investor who has had his hand in Twitter, Tumblr, Foursqaure, Zenga and now Coinbase. If you would like to learn more about Crowdholding, our vision or our pre-sale click here.

Note: This is a step by step guide on how to buy Ethereum on Coinbase so you can get ready to become a Crowdholding supporter during our Pre-ICO / ICO. If you already know how to purchase Ethereum, you can move on to step three, on how to purchase YUPIES. If you wish to learn more about our company or our ICO click here. In this article we will focus on how to purchase Ethereum (ETH) on Coinbase. If you are at this stage you have already created your wallet. We decided to use Coinbase because it is quick, simple and has great customer support, but there are multiple exchange websites you can purchase cryptocurrencies from (such as Poloniex or Kraken). It is worth checking to see if the website supports the country you are residing in, if not you cannot use Coinbase, you can use Poloniex or Kraken as they follow a very similar procedure. Please also note that due to the rapidly increasing interest in digital currency trading, the exchanges could be temporarily unavailable on some days. Do not worry if this happens, your money is still safe even if the website is unavailable. Also the verification process can take a few days so please be patient, this is down to the ever increasing interest around cryptocurrencies. Step 1 Firstly we will need to create an account on Coinbase and verify your account. To start this process, go the website https://www.coinbase.com/ and enter a email address you want the account to be connected to, after entering your email address click “get started”.   Once you have clicked “get started” you will taken to the page that is below, enter your details, and click “create account” to proceed. Once you click “create account” an email will be sent to your address which needs to be opened to verify your email address.     Once you have verified your email address, you will have to verify your account. It is a simple procedure, but it can be time consuming. For this you will have verify your phone number, provide an ID and send a send a confirmation payment. It is not uncommon to have a few issues during this process, this is due to high level security and wanting to make sure that your account is secure. If your ID gets rejected, use a different ID. One of the reasons we picked this site was because of the great customer service they provide. If you have any issues you can go Coinbase support portal or get in contact with them. Depending on what country you are situated it, you can buy digital currency using either a credit card or a bank account transfer. Using a credit card is faster, but here at Crowdholding we suggest adding a bank account, so can buy a larger amount and also withdraw your funds to your bank account in your local currency. For this guide, we will focus on a bank account transfer. Step 2 Once your account has been verified you are ready to purchase some Ethereum! To get started you will need to fill your local currency wallet, which will appear under your account if you have added a bank account from a supported country. Sign in to Coinbase, click on the “Accounts” tab and look for “USD Wallet” or “EUR Wallet”. Select either your USD or EUR wallet, and on the next page click the icon “Deposit” that is located on the right side of the wallet. When you click this, a pop up will appear and will show you all the details of your Coinbase account (this is where you will be depositing your local currency, so you can purchase a digital currency). Once you confirm this and you bank process your transaction, you are ready to purchase! Once your wallet has been filled with your deposit, click the “Buy/Sell” tab. Choose Ethereum as the currency you wish to purchase, choose your wallet as the payment type, and then select the amount of ETH you wish to purchase. Once you have selected all the correct items, click on the “Buy Ethereum Instantly” button and confirm your order on the next page.   Step 3 Once you have purchased some Ethereum in your Coinbase account, it is time to send your digital currency to your own Ethereum wallet. Click on the “Send / Receive” tab open a pop up form allowing you to send funds. On this pop up, copy your public account address from your personal Ethereum wallet. In the amount section, enter the amount you wish to transfer from your Coinbase account to your wallet. We would suggest that you double check that you have the correct public address, as it is a long line of random numbers and letters, and getting this wrong will send it to another account or it will not work. When the transaction is completed, your purchased Ethereum will appear in your wallet. If you followed our first part and created a wallet on MyEtherWallet, you can check your balance by clicking on “View Wallet Info”. You will have to unlock your wallet again by typing in your Keystore file and password. Well done! You now have some Ethereum in your created wallet and you will be able to use your new digital currency to become a Crowdholdingsupporter! In our next step, we will be showing you how to change your Ethereum into YUPIES. If you have any issues regarding any of the steps, please feel free to contact us on our public slack / telegram channel.

Our vision at Crowdholding is to unite global businesses and the public on a mutual co-creation platform to ensure prosperity for both. We are aiming to create a platform that will revolutionize how startups connect with the general public to allow them to flourish. After the completion of our ICO, we will be funding up to 500,000 USD to the top 10 startups on our application to sign up your startup for the chance to receive this funding, please apply through the link below. https://www.f6s.com/crowdholdingaccelerator/about Because of this recent announcement in this article we will show you how to to create a task on the Crowdholding Platform. This is part 2 of our guide, If you wish to see part 1 (how to create a project) you can click here. Creating a task allows you to ask the crowd to help you in whatever your startup needs. Do you need help selecting a target market? Maybe you need some help with a logo / slogan? Whatever your needs are of your startup, allow the crowd to assist you! Step 1 Go to the Crowdholding website at https://www.crowdholding.com/ where you will be greeted with the homepage. Once you are here, log in to our system. You can do this by clicking “Sign in / up” in the top right hand corner of screen. You should already have an account as you have already created a project on the platform. You cannot create a task without first creating a project. Click here if you want to learn how to create a project. Once you have logged in, go to your project page. In this example we will use Crowdholding’s project page. In the project page you will see your logo, information about your startup and the previous task you have already created. To the right of the project board, you will see a red button saying “add new”. Click on this button to start creating your task! Step 2 Once you have clicked on the “add new” button you will be taken to a new page. This is where you will put in all the information about the task. Type — This is the type of post you want to make, you are able to make more types (news — an announcement you want to share, discussion — You want to create a discussion with the crowd or task — create a task for the crowd). For this tutorial we will select “task” as we are wanting to create a task. Title — What the task will be called, it is a good idea to include what you want i.e. marketing, feedback etc Image — A picture connected with the task. Description — This is where you write the bulk of the text describing what you want the crowd to help you with. Difficulty — This is how difficult the task is. If it is just feedback about a design, then this is an easy task, creating a marketing strategy would be a more challenging task and therefore deserves more of a reward. YUPIES vesting period — How long you wish to be on Crowdholding’s platform. Costing projections — This is a system that will show how much you will be giving back to the crowd. Once you have filled out all the information, click the “submit task” at the bottom of the page. Once our admins have had a look at the task and given it the green light it will be uploaded onto the platform. You have now created a task on your project page, Congratulations! You are about to unlock the power of the crowd. Also if you are interested in cryptocurrencies have a look at our pre-sale to invest in Crowdholding by clicking on https://ico.crowdholding.com/. And if you wish to follow our story on social media or just get in touch with us click on the links below. Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/Crowdholding Twitter — https://twitter.com/crowdholding Telegram — https://t.me/Crowdholding

Note: This is a step by step guide on how to create a Ethereum wallet so you can get ready to become a Crowdholding supporter during our Pre-ICO / ICO. If you already have a wallet, you can move on to step two, on how to purchase Ethereum (ETH) and moving your ETH to your wallet. If you wish to learn more about our company or our ICO click here. If you wish to learn how to purchase Ethereum click here, or if you want to learn how to exchange Ethereum for Yupies click here. In this step by step guide, we will show you how to create a new Ethereum wallet. You will need a wallet to participate in the ICO and if you want to know more about what a wallet is or how it works, You can click here for a beginners guide into wallets. Also it is not essential that you make a wallet created through MyEtherWallet, as long as it is ERC20 compatiable (such as Mist or Metamask). If you are not sure, contact us on our slack channel and we will work it out together! The reason we decided to use MyEtherWallet in this guide is because it’s very quick, easy and free. So let’s begin! Step 1 To start the process of creating a wallet, go to the websitehttps://www.myetherwallet.com/ , where you will be greeted with the landing page. Once you are on this page, it is time to create a password. We suggest that you pick a reasonably long password (at least 20 characters). Once you have done this click on the button “Create New Wallet” Step 2 Once you have created your password, it will ask you to download your KeyStore file. This file is very important, so make sure to the save the file somewhere safe and also to back it up in another location (we suggest not on the same computer, or writing it down and storing it somewhere). The file will start with a UTC — 2017 (the year it was created) and will have a long string of numbers and letters. Step 3 After saving the keystore file, click on the “I understand continue” button underneath where you can download your keystore file. The following page will show your private key information. The private key can unlock your wallet if you forget your password.It is vital that you store this information, if you lose access to your private key you will not be able to access your tokens. For this reason, we suggest printing out the key so you have it in paper form which you can easily do by clicking the print button. Also do not share this information with anyone! Whoever has your private key will have complete access to your wallet. Once you have printed the private key, click on the save address button. Congratulations are in order! You have just finished creating a wallet. Accessing your wallet Wherever you want to access your wallet, simply come back to this page and you will be greeted with the options to unlock your wallet. If you ever want to access your wallet, you will need to unlock it first. To unlock your wallet, you will need the keystore file you previously downloaded at the start of the tutorial. Simply choose “Keystone File (UTC / JSON)” from the list of options. In the middle column, you will see “SELECT WALLET FILE”. Click on that button and upload the keystone file you downloaded. Once this has been selected, you have to enter your password (The one you created at the very start) If the data matches, the unlock button will appear To check your balance, you will have to select “View Wallet Info” on the top scrollbar, you will have to re-enter your information (safety first!), from there you can see all your information and what your balance is. The “ox” number is your public address and works similarly to a bank account number. Therefore it is okay for other people to know this address, as they will need to to send ETH or tokens to your account. A quick reminder, DO NOT give out your keystore file, private key or your password. If any transactions need completing, they only need you public address (number starting with ox). In our next part, we will be focusing on how to fill your wallet with ETH and the process of transactions. Thank you for reading.

Our vision at Crowdholding is to unite global businesses and the public on a mutual co-creation platform to ensure prosperity for both. After the completion of our ICO, we will be funding up to 500,000 USD to the top 10 most promising startups on our application to sign up your startup for the chance to receive this funding, please apply through the link below. https://www.f6s.com/crowdholdingaccelerator/about Because of this recent announcement we have created an article on how to to create a project on the Crowdholding Platform. Creating a project will allow you to utilize the power of the crowd and allow your startup to receive feedback on your concept, ask the crowd how to accomplish challenging task, find staff members to co-create with or even investors to allow your startup to grow. So let’s begin! Step 1 Go to the Crowdholding website at https://www.crowdholding.com/ where you will be greeted with the homepage. Once you are here, log into our system for free. You can do this by clicking “Sign in / up” in the top right hand corner of screen. Once you have clicked on “Sign in / up” a popup will appear asking you to log in with your Facebook or google account, both options are fine. If you have a gmail email address then you automatically have a google profile. We would suggest Facebook as most people use their Facebook account more actively than their google account. We would also like to make you aware that we will not post anything on any of your accounts. Once you clicked your option, you are logged in! See, wasn’t that easy? Step 2 Congratulations! You are now an official Crowdholder! Once you are here you  can look at other projects, tasks and co-create with other startups. But in this tutorial we are focusing on creating a project. You will notice that the “Sign in / up” icon has changed to your name and your picture from your Facebook profile / Google account. Click on the arrow next to your name and a drop down menu will appear. Click on “launch project”. Once you have selected “launch project” you will be taken to another screen where you can start creating your project page. Here you will need to add the information about your project. Title — The name of your project. Icon — Your picture that will appear on the website whenever your comment. Image — Your main page image, whenever anyone clicks on your page, they will see this image. Video — A link to a youtube video about your project (If you have one). Description — A general description of your project, what you are trying to achieve, how you started and what your concepts are. Project users — This is who will be able to access your project and make changes or create tasks. You should set this as yourself or someone else in your company who will create tasks and respond to comments. YUPIES vesting period — How long you wish to be on Crowdholding’s platform. Costing projections — This is a system that will show how much you will be giving back to the crowd. Once you have filled out all the information, click the “submit project” at the bottom of the page. Once our admins have had a look at the project and given it the green light it will be uploaded onto the platform. And you have now created your project page. In the next tutorial, we will show you how to create a task so you can unleash the power of the crowd. Also if you are interested in cryptocurrencies have a look at our pre-sale to invest in Crowdholding by clicking on https://ico.crowdholding.com/. And if you wish to follow our story on social media or just get in touch with us click on the links below. Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/Crowdholding Twitter — https://twitter.com/crowdholding Telegram — https://t.me/Crowdholding

Recently the world’s media has started to report heavily on Bitcoin, which is no surprise as last week Bitcoin spiked to over $4,000 dollars for one coin (dropped to 3,900 as of today) and it only took 60 days of the digital currency to jump from $3,000 to $4,000 a few months ago. There are stories that if you invested $5 in Bitcoin back when it was opened to the public in 2009 it now would be worth $4.4 million. But how did this digital currency space evolve? Here at Crowdholding we have looked into the history of cryptocurrency and why cryptocurrencies are so valuable.   History of the cryptocurrency Cryptocurrencies have a longer, deeper history than the creation of Bitcoin. The origins of cryptocurrencies were born back in the 1980’s when a cryptographer called David Chaum created a secure algorithm that allowed encryption required electronic fund transfers. Chaum’s “blinding signature” laid the foundations for the future development of every type of digitalised currency transaction, whether that be a digitalised cash transfer or an alternative currency such as Ethereum. From 1980’s through to the early 2000’s there were numerous virtual currencies, most notably was e-gold. e-gold was created in Florida and functioned as a digital gold buyer. It’s users would send in their old jewelry, coins and trinkets to e-gold and in exchange they would receive digital “e-gold” which was based on the ounces of gold. E-gold users could cash out for physical gold, trade their holding with other users or exchange their e-gold for dollars. Fast forward to 2008, when the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto released a whitepaper which detailed what is widely regarded as the first modern cryptocurrency. The whitepaper showed a concept of combining anonymity, finite supply, blockchain technology and decentralisation which we all know now as Bitcoin. Bitcoin started to be considered a proper currency after companies such as WordPress, Microsoft and Expedia started to accept it as a mode of payment back in 2010. Now in 2017 cryptocurrencies are booming, according to CoinMarketCap, there are over 1,000 different listed cryptocurrencies that are in circulation. And in July 2017 the cryptocurrency market was valued at over $95 billion. It has not just increased in value and the quantity of different digital currencies, but also in it’s use in society. Now there is numerous courses are emerging at colleges and you can even pay for your tuition in bitcoin. Different ways of raising capital has also been impacted by cryptocurrencies. The birth of the Initial Coin Offering is a way cryptocurrency startups can raise capital without investments or having to give up equity in their business. Why are cryptocurrencies so valuable? There are numerous reasons why cryptocurrencies are valuable as a commodity here we have listed some of the main benefits. Protection against fraud — Individual cryptocurrencies are digital and cannot be counterfeited due to the technology that is implemented. Also they can’t be reversed by the sender, such as credit card charge backs. Open to anyone — Approximately there are around 2.2 billion people with access to a mobile phone or the internet who do not currently have access to a traditional exchange service. Cryptocurrencies can alleviate that issue and allow everyone regardless of their location to become involved. Lower transaction fees — There aren’t usually transaction fees for cryptocurrency exchanges because the miners are compensated by the network. Compared to the average bank transfers. Currently the average price for a outgoing international wire transfer in the US is over 40 dollars. Decentralisation — Instead of having one main network hosted in one location, cryptocurrencies use a global network of computers using blockchain technology. This database records all the transactions, this is an advantage because there is no one central authority that can be hacked or be manipulated. Protection against identity theft — When you purchase something with a credit card, you give the merchant access to your full credit line regardless of the size of the transaction. Credit cards work on a “pull” basis where the service starts the payment and takes out the amount. Cryptocurrencies use a “push” mechanism that allows the user to send the exact amount without giving access to their information. International recognition — Since cryptocurrencies are not bound by exchange rates, interest rates and any other charges it can be used on a global scale. This can save money and time from the business or the individual aspect. The future looks very bright for cryptocurrencies and the industry is continuing to grow. If you wish to learn more about Crowdholding’s pre-sale ICO click here and dive into the world of cryptocurrencies. We also have a step by step guides on how to create a wallet, purchase Ethereum and exchange it for YUPIES.

Our vision at Crowdholding is to unite global businesses and the public on a mutual co-creation platform to ensure prosperity for both. Current landscape in co-creation, marketing and investments in Startups Currently in 2017, more than 90% of startups will fail due to entirely solvable issues (Forbes). Sadly this is not a new trend, there are countless essays from founders who feel the need to write about how their company slipped away into nothing. Over 29% of founders who participated in failed startups attribute it to lack of capital (Fortune). Although there is an ever increasing amount of ways to finance your business (see our recent article on alternative ways of financing for more information), there are many pitfalls. In regards to marketing, there is still a large distance between companies and their customer base. A recent study from HBR found that even large companies they are detached from their customers. 85% of c-level executives from 91 companies spreading across 17 countries agree that their companies were bad at problem diagnosis, due to a lack of an outside perspective. There is a enormous untapped co-creation potential, which with the right tools can benefit both the general public as well as startups. The Solution This is where Crowdholding comes in. We are aiming to facilitate the world’s potential through co-creation. With 80% of the developed world going online, online communities are providing an astonishing way for people to interact with each other, learn new skills, solve issues and discuss and debate. In regards to capital raising according to the World Bank, by 2025 crowdfunding will reach $93 billion. Since July 2016 we have been working hard to build the perfect co-creation platform, we have attracted hundreds of co-creators and dozens of interesting startups who aim to become leaders in their fields. Crowdholding enables the crowd to validate the product, become customers and share awareness about the product or service. 74% of consumers make a purchasing decision from a recommendation from a friend, family member or reviews and is still the most effective way to communicate your product to potential buyers (Google). The public, or the ‘crowd’ is not only able to contribute to businesses in a cognitive or financial sense, but there’s an opportunity for a mutually beneficial scenario, where both the public and the business can work together. Crowdholding is the go-to place for anyone to co-create with a business, and the edge we have is that businesses will be able to give back to the crowd via our YUPIE token. As Eric Schmidt says, “the next $100 billion companies will be those who can learn from the crowd”. This is a better system, as word of mouth marketing is far more effective than spending large sums of capital on paid ads. Crowdholding is also aiming to change how businesses generate finances. With the exceptional growth of crowdsales it makes it harder for the community to support the right projects. It’s unthinkable to make an informed decision based on a single landing page, but many do participate in this kind of a gamble. With so many upcoming ICOs, Crowdholding.com wants companies to increase transparency, validate products and build a community on the DOI (Decentralised Open Innovation) platform before launching an ICO on the DOF (Distributed Online Funding) platform. The DOI & DOF Platforms Development Process Step 1: Bounty System From the total amount of tokens issued, 5% will be awarded to the first 10 startups. This will ignite the usage of YUPIES soon after ICO (February 2018) to create engagement with our ICO investors and supporters. In order to remove the threat of bot scammers all users must sign up via our crypto wallet (embedded). Amount of tokens issued will last 6 months according to our calculations. Below is a chart showing how the bounty model works. The basic bounty system, where businesses acquire YUPIES (either from Crowdholding or directly from the market). Then the supporters are paid in YUPIES for commenting in tasks issued by businesses. Later YUPIES can be exchanged to the preferred currency. Step 2: Crowdholding Market System The Crowdholding Market System allows businesses to award YUPIES for support and supporters to invest YUPIES in businesses to help them succeed. Awarding and investing features will be implemented by July 2018. Thus, Step 1: Bounty System will last 6 months and Step 2: Crowdholding Market System shown below will be completed by July 2016. Raising funds with the ICO token crowdsale model is notably superior to the traditional funding methods, especially for the Pre-Seed and Seed stages.   In our independent system, businesses share part of their revenue with the supporters who in return receives YUPIES. Supporters can then use earned YUPIES to invest back to the businesses or exchange it to other currency. Step 3: Selling of Products By July 2018 both selling and awarding YUPIES are launched. As mentioned in the target group section, we will attract e-commerce businesses that already accept cryptocurrency as a payment. We partner with e-commerce businesses to sell products receiving YUPIES as a method of payment, thus completing the Crowdholding ecosystem.   In fully established Crowdholding market system, businesses have part of their revenue in YUPIES, since people can directly buy products and services. Businesses offer solutions to other businesses and to Crowdholding. All the payments are done in YUPIES. User can buy products, services, invest and earn YUPIES, that do not depend on any traditional institution and are as strong as the community. For more information, visit our website or if you have questions, do not hesitate to contact us on our Slack or Telegram channels.  

White papers are becoming more and more common in the business world, but what are they? In this article, Crowdholding will look into what a whitepaper is, what are the reasons to have one in your company, and some guidelines on how to start writing one. What is a white paper? The term whitepaper was first coined in British politics back in the 20th century, originally white papers were a legislative document explaining governmental proposals for new policies. They were structured in a way that explained an issue, the proposal and the expected outcomes. Although, since the early 1990’s they have become another tool for businesses especially for business to business companies (B2B). Due to their success they have been implemented into a variety of different industries from IT companies to banking and any other organisations focused on selling to other companies. Recently with the boom of ICO’s, white papers are coming back with vengeance. Every cryptocurrency / blockchain company will produce a white paper for investors. A white paper essentially is a report / informational document that is produced by a company to promote or highlight the features of a solution, product or service. Although this does differ depending on the industry. Why do you need one? There are multiple important reasons why you should consider creating a white paper for your startup / company. The first is the popularity of the white paper. According to a study from The Content Marketing Institute back in 2013, sixty one percent of businesses involved in B2B marketing already use white papers. Even in 2017, they play an important role especially as white papers are implemented in more industries. Another study by the same company listed white papers in the top five strategies for marketing. Secondly, they can be extremely influential as a marketing tool to investors or potential buyers of your product / service. White papers by their very nature are extremely detailed and can go into great depth that a ad or a blog post might not be able to achieve. IDG’s 2011 survey of IT professionals stated that 72% of respondents stated that they found that white papers were extremely useful in their decision making process. Only 1% thought it wasn’t useful. On top of that, snippets of the white paper can be used as a great marketing source, you can create more articles from a great in depth white paper and so can be recycled into a marketing strategy. Thirdly, it gives your business an authority in your industry. It is very simple, if your business knows what it is doing / talking about, the more likely customers will trust you and purchase your product / service. A lack of trust usually means that clients are less likely to part with their hard earned income. A well written white paper solves this issue. White paper do’s and don’t’s Although there are no set rules because white papers vary depending on their industry, there are a set of guidelines that will steer you in the right direction. Do follow a linear, logical structure — A white paper should be educational and not focused solely on selling. It is to educate readers of an issue and how your idea will elevate that issue. Don’t scrimp on the length — Although there is no set word count, a white paper should be at least 6/7 pages. Remember it is an in-depth analysis of your concept and how it solves an issue. Do keep the layout simple — A white paper does not need to be full of pictures, backgrounds and bright colours. The reader is supposed to focus on the text. Graphs and flowcharts are fine, as long as they serve a purpose. Don’t try to be comical / gripping — A white paper will entice its audience due to the fact they have an general interest in that industry. Although it is a marketing tool, it is a serious document that should be in depth and full of articulate / industry based language, but keep the puns or symbolism out of your white paper. Do use stats and figures to back up your claims — Showing clear knowledge and research of your industry is a great way to show you are a industry leader, meaning that readers are more likely to gain trust. There is no point claiming something if you cannot back it up. Don’t have a generic title — Because white papers have become universal, a different title can make your white paper stand out. Also avoid using jargon / other company names in the title. If you follow these guidelines, you should be able to create a decent white paper, another point is to have people critique your white paper. Does it read well? Is it too complex? Feedback is vital. If you would like to see an example of a full white paper, click here to read Crowdholding’s white paper.

  Although athletes and entrepreneurs / CEO’s have a large amount of differences, entrepreneurs can learn a great deal from the world of sport, especially from professional athletes themselves. Athletes are in constant competition with their rivals, and constantly strive daily to better themselves in every single way. Those concepts are also applicable in the world of business. Both also motivate people and strive for success. Here at Crowdholding, we have listed 5 concepts that athletes adhere to and why you should adopt them to become more successful.     1. Athletes train and train hard     Regardless if it is the off season for their sport, or a few weeks before a large competition athletes are in constant training and conditioning. Whether it is exercises for strength, endurance or to stretch out the muscles they are constantly striving to better their physique. Athletes continue this throughout the whole of their career to ensure they are ready to compete at any sporting event. The most successful people in business replicate this type of behavior. Instead of training their body to compete, they train their mind. This is done by constantly studying new business concepts, new innovative ideas and technologies, by planning and analyzing their market. A entrepreneur / CEO that is always striving to better their mind and knowledge of business will always be ready to “compete” against other companies.   2. Athletes listen to coaches     One of the strongest relationships in the world of sports is the one between a world class athlete and their coaching staff. Coaches provide knowledge, a different viewpoint, context, discipline and experience and without a coach, even the most gifted athlete may not reach their true potential. This can also be applied to the business world. The most successful entrepreneurs seek out mentors to give provide them with a direction, clarity and feedback. There is no shame in looking for someone who has vastly more years in the industry.   3. Athletes relish teamwork     “A boat doesn’t go forward if each one is rowing their own way” Swahili proverb “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” Aristotle “Many of us are more capable than some of us, but none of us is as capable as all of us” Tom Wilson There are many examples of great athletes who do not compete in team sports, but entrepreneurs should focus on team sports for this point. Although every championship winning team does have game changing athletes in their team, It is the overall teamwork that allows them to win competitions. Individuals can add an extra little special ability or leadership, but even the greatest athletes need their team around them to succeed. This is the same in the world of business. The company could have an all star entrepreneur or CEO, but companies rarely survive without a great supporting team around them.   4. Athletes focus on their goal (or the goal)     When a football player is getting ready to take a penalty kick, watching the ball and looking up at the goalkeeper, everyone can see the intense concentration on the player’s face. In business we rarely have to take penalty kicks to win a world cup, but the concept of concentration on one item is something that can be emulated. Entrepreneurs constantly have 100 different issues, decisions and thoughts thrown at them on a daily basis. Learning to focus on the most important thing, “scoring that goal” that allows the business to thrive.   5. Athletes strive to win     Accepting defeat isn’t in the athlete’s vocabulary, athletes sheer drive and determination to win, regardless of their previous losses is paramount. On top of that, they never want to stop winning, one trophy or medal is not the end, but instead is only the beginning. In business it is just as important; not in the sense of defeating their competition, but in the sense of dominating their industry. Entrepreneurs aspire to win, succeed and grow. If you never stop aiming to win, recognition and accomplishment will follow.

There are numerous innovative ways for coming up with a business idea. If you are still in the stage of creating your business idea or asking yourself should I start a business, we recommend you read our first two parts, where we discussed why you would want to start a business and how to create your business idea. After reading through our previous articles, you can move onto stage 3 which is validating your business idea.   If you still reading, then you believe in your opinion that you have a great idea / concept for a business, or maybe you are already starting the preparations to get the idea off the ground. However, like many other novice businessmen validating your idea is critical. Is the concept of your business going to attract an audience? or investors? Is it the right time for this product? These are some examples of vital questions that need to be answered, as more than a great idea is needed to allow your company to flourish.    Here at Crowdholding, we have listed 6 methods for validating your business idea. These are fairly well known concepts that are tried and tested. So let’s begin!   The Crowdholding way     Various validating methods require adequate financial clout, but you can overcome these issues by directly involving your targeted loyal customers to help tailor your ideas to solve specific customer needs. Crowdholding connects the crowd with entrepreneurs, allowing you to receive ideas and feedback in exchange for future revenue.   The involvement of targeted customers or consumers in the product development process would immensely help with the formulation of the final product or service and position it to be customer-centric. Hence, it would have a better chance of projecting its advantages than a product that has not had customer inputs in it’s development.   As a business owner, you would spend less on market research with the positive help from your customers who co-create the product and eventually becoming the end user. This innovative way of validating ideas and involving the crowd has produced a creative way for small businesses to stand a chance against big organizations.   The way of Thomas Edison     The world renowned inventor Thomas Edison had several different ways of validating his ideas.   Firstly, Edison focused on quantity. He understood that the more different variants of the same invention created, the sooner he would find the result he was looking for. On top of this, he would push his co-workers into inventing one small device every 10 days and one large one every 6 months. Although this may seem aggressive, it allowed inventors to generate ideas at a very rapid rate and from this Edison could make several inventions in a short time period.   Secondly, he was constantly experimenting with his developments. Many people know that for the creation of the final version of the bulb, Edison ran more than 9,000 tests. But not everyone knows that he created more than 50,000 tests to create a battery.   Thirdly, he never stopped once he had completed an invention. At the same time, he continued to modify existing inventions. This is the same model modern manufacturers adhere to as they are constantly striving to improve the quality of their own products.   Walt Disney Testing     The great Walt Disney created his own way of checking his creations and he coined the term “Imagineering”. This is clearly a combination of the two words imagination and engineering, and this technique was used to transform the most outlandish ideas from a creative person into something real and understandable to the general public.   In this concept there were 3 different parts / perspectives that all his creations were subjected to. It involved the “dreamer” creating a substantial amount of ideas. The “realist” considers those ideas from a cold, ordinary logical standpoint. Lastly, the “Critic” discovers and outlines all the shortcomings of the idea.   At Disney’s studio this method was actually physically put in practice as each of the different perspectives were separated by rooms. Once a idea was created in the first room (the creative room), it would move to the second room (The realist room) where the actual sketches were created. Lastly it would go to the final room (the critique room) where the project had to stand up to criticism. If the project received heavy criticism, it would return to either the first or second room. If the project did not get one comment, it means the creation was successful.   Eric Rice’s Lean Methodology     Eric Rice outlines his “lean method” of validating ideas in his book “The Lean Startup”. The main concept of his method is that the product shouldn’t just be intriguing for your customers, but they should be willing to buy your idea / concept / product using their own funds.   This concept requires you to create the ability to pre-order your idea before you even launch it. For example, once you have created a simple landing page with a small bio and images of your product, track the users that are willing to pre purchase it.    Eric Rice simply states “First ask, later do it.”   From this, you can can easily see what percentage of the people visiting your page are potential buyers. Therefore not only just validating your concept, but this also gives you a good representation of how well your creation will do in the market place.    The method of validating ideas of Scott Anthony     Scott Anthony devised his validation technique in his book “The First Mile” It divides the entire testing process into 5 successive steps.   The first step is to analyse your competitors, their experience, the success of their companies, etc.   The second step is to mentally imagine what issues could arise if you were to get into the market. This is simply done in a question and answer session. For example “How will my product impact society?”, “what would happen if the price of our raw materials drastically increased?”. Following this step will show how sustainable your product is and if it is high / low risk.   The third step is similar but is connected with capital. It is worth analyzing the size of the audience, its solvency, the likely methods of lowering costs and rising prices, the payback period of the project are some examples.   The forth step is calling suitors for your idea. Test your idea on a suitable person. Repeat this step a few times, as frequent critiquing will show you whether this is a great idea or there is no hope for your idea.   The fifth and final step is obtaining confirmation of the viability of the idea. The most common method is a coffee test. You invite friends in a cafe, pay their coffee, and they, in return, they will share their views on your future product or service. This test allows you to quickly realize what the general public likes or dislikes about your idea, what should be changed, and what should be abandoned.   Ten-second test by Janet Kraus     Janet Kraus, senior lecturer at Havard University offers another way to validate business ideas on it’s strength. Her test is called the “10-second test”. And it consists of asking yourself one single question — “Is your idea Oxygen, Aspirin or Jewelry for potential buyers?”.   Oxygen — It is something that we need to exist, it is as simple as that. Aspirin — This is a product that is not vital, but is an item that solves an serious issue, i.e. physical pain. Jewelry — Is a product that causes positive emotions, gives pleasure and satisfaction.   For your business idea to be 100% viable, it is necessary to ensure that your product or service is solving a real customer problem.

Most people live in fear of making mistakes at their workplace — not the average human mistakes that everyone makes time to time, but the big, noticeable errors that ends up making everyone notice you and could cause a disciplinary notice or maybe even being let go from the company.   A sensational and highly visible error could draw a lot of attention, but thanks to the systems put in place in most workplaces, they are usually rare.   The mistakes you should be more apprehensive about are the ones that move at a much slower pace. But have no fear! here at Crowdholding we have compiled the top 10 worst mistakes, so you can be aware of them and avoid them.   1. Coasting through your job role     Perhaps you have been employed at your company for a few years and you feel rather comfortable in your role. This is not a bad thing at all, unless you stop making an conscious effort. You may think none of your work colleagues or supervisors are aware, but they are. Make sure you are constantly pushing yourself on a day to day basis. It is better to be noticed for putting in the effort rather than putting in no effort at all.   2. Allowing your skills to become obsolete     Technology is advancing at such a rapid rate, it is vital to stay on top of your area and not allow your skill set to become outdated. This is even more applicable as you get older and the industry continues to evolve. Learn new techniques, broaden your knowledge or even break into a different areas that is interconnected with your own role. Do whatever it takes to stay current and on top of the market, and you will be rewarded for it.    3. Burning all your bridges       At some time in your life, things will go wrong. Whether this is in your personal life or your professional one. When this happens, initially it can be very tempting to walk away from the situation. The issue is this can come back to haunt you in the end. It is far better to have a reputation as someone who stays and fights to correct the issue than to be seen as someone who jumps ship at the first sign of trouble.    4. Losing sight of the big picture       Even the busiest and most ambitious employees can get lost in their own plans, projects or their specific area of expertise. Focus on a single task can be a great trait to have, but if you focus too much you can become bogged down in the smaller details instead of looking at the bigger picture. Why are you doing this specific task? what benefits will it have to the company? Sometimes stepping back and looking at the bigger picture will show you the way to go, and allow you to avoid wasting time and effort on the wrong task.    5. Not believing in yourself       “Believe you can and you’re halfway there” is a famous quote from Theodore Roosevelt and explains this next point perfectly. If you do not believe in your own abilities, how can you expect anyone else to believe in them? Remind yourself of your talents and that there is a reason they employed you in the first place. On the other hand over-confidence / arrogance can be a negative, so keep it in balance.    6. Always seeing the glass as half empty     All businesses whether it is a startup or a billion dollar company don’t have much room for pessimistic employees who point out when something isn’t working. This does not mean you should ignore when things that are going wrong, but instead of offering criticism, try to come up with solutions.     7. Assuming the grass is greener     It is human nature to constantly look for better prospects, but sometimes assuming that another job / industry is more beneficial can be a negative. The issue here is that it is the unknown, and consistent job hopping never looks good on a CV or in an interview. If you truly want to move industries, research thoroughly and weigh up the pros and cons and if you are suitable for the role.   8. Not trusting your own intuitions      Richard Branson who is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time stated “ “I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics.” We are not saying avoid information and data to back up your arguments, but ignoring your gut instincts cuts out a amazing source of creativity and innovation.      9. Damaging your own reputation      This is a no brainer really. Avoid doing any behaviour that will make anyone see you in a negative light. Some actions that will not be appreciated could be:-   Looking for a new job while at work — This can be done at home in your own privacy, you can be caught out very easily through online history, a employer calling you up while at work, or a work colleague simply catching a glimpse at your screen while walking by.   Office gossip — Gossip is called gossip for a reason, without knowing any of the actual information and making opinions on people without any facts. This will make you look bad, damage relationships with colleagues and alienate you.    Lying — Lying is looked down upon in all parts of society, so why would it be acceptable in the workplace? If you make a mistake, own up to it do not try to cover it up as trust can be broken very easily and can take a very long time to be rebuilt.     10. Assuming your job will last forever     Sadly any job can come to an end at any point, and there are plenty of reasons why that are completely unrelated to your performance / work ethic. Simply give your job the best of your ability and be prepared to move to a new opportunity if you are forced to due to reasons out of your control.    Avoid these ten points and you will have a great and successful career! Some of these points can also apply in your social life as well.

  The term Collaborative Consumption or Sharing Economy was first coined in 1978. However, it didn’t really become a well known term until 1995, as eBay was launched.   The uprise of eBay led to strong foundation of the sharing economy that would eventually shape the global markets two decades later. From the inception of eBay till now, sharing economy has penetrated various sectors such as transportation, property, fashion, education, healthcare and now consumer goods.   While sharing economy is still in its infancy, the journey has been a promising one, so far. With multiple global players stomping their authority and many others emerging as national winners, here at Crowdholding we dissect and pinpoint the reasons below for the up rise of the sharing economy concept.     1. Increasing accessibility to self-employment opportunities     Collaborative consumption offers economical benefits for everyone involved. With the proliferation of online jobs and ride-hailing providers such as Ola, Rapido, Quickride and others, people can now work from the comfort of their home and use their owned vehicle to generate an extra source of income. People can also sell unwanted pre-owned items on portals such as OLX and eBay. This enables the seller to make some money on commodities that were otherwise futile.      2. Embeds a sense of trust in the community     Sharing economy’s contribution to societal concerns isn’t just restricted to the environment. One very important aspect of sharing economy is instilling trust amongst community members. Earlier the apprehensions of having unfamiliar faces as guests soon were overcome by strong driving principles that led to the creation of the Airbnb community. Many sharing economy platforms, such as ridesharing apps and Airbnb, have built-in ratings and reviews that help keep providers and consumers honest. And some platforms use their influence — and the shared resources of their participants — to help those in need. These trust-building efforts help sharing economy participants see one another as equals, building constructive relationships where none existed before.     3. Higher savings with the same lifestyle     This isn’t rocket science, is it? The Sharing economy has provided means to have a desired lifestyle without burning a hole in your pocket. So, if you are looking to make your apartment a home, startups like GrabOnRent is your Santa Claus, providing a wide selection of home furnishings and appliances on rent. Having the desire to wear designer clothing, Flyrobe can be your personal designer, or the adrenaline rush of cruising on a Ducati around the city can be realised through ride sharing. Sharing economy has seen a hike in more and more platforms providing rental options to users without sacrificing on quality.     4. More business opportunities     Are you serious? It would never work.” Those were the words when I had first come across Airbnb, an idea that sounded ridiculous, superfluous and that was destined to crash and burn. Years later it’s dominating the travel industry with more and more people choosing homestay over the luxuries of a hotel. Another startup allows its users to preserve their umbilical cord stem cells that can be used by the donor, his/her family and the community (MIND = BLOWN!). Despite its increased prominence and continued growth, sharing economy won’t completely displace traditional economic networks anytime soon. It’s more likely to force existing industries to become more like collaborative platforms that challenge them with potential benefits for everyone involved.     5. Lower ownership     Not too long ago ownership was seen as a status symbol. The more assets one owned, the more wealthy one seemed. All that seemed to change after the economic depression of 2008. Assets became a liability and ownership became scarier. Today, if you can get more of what you need through the sharing economy, you may be able to live a leaner existence that requires fewer valuable possessions — and fewer worries. For instance, if you live in a city and you only need to drive a few times per month, a car may be unnecessary. Not having to deal with car loans, insurance, maintenance issues, and potential thieves could be a big benefit. Likewise, if you can rent or share expensive tools or equipment that you only use for special projects, your tool shed or garage won’t be such an attractive target for thieves.     6. Easier access to capital     For any business, getting access to traditional means of financing is not just a hassle but an obstacle too. Most banks often find startups and small businesses as risky. But with the increasing adaptation of sharing economy, crowdfunding became an easy and convenient way of raising funds by connecting people in need of money with those willing to give. For creative types, using a crowdfunding platform like Zetto and Faircent is less time-consuming — and offers a better shot at success — than applying for grants through government or non-profit arts organisations. And for those who contribute funds, the rewards can range from the emotional satisfaction of supporting something they care about, to an equity stake in a potentially successful venture.   While these are still early days in the sharing economy and it is still forming, the potential it holds is second to none. As technology takes giant strides forward reducing processing time, increasing capacity and a wider interconnected network, it’s only fair to assume it would add on to empowering communities as a whole with sharing economy at its centre. The only constant is change and we are at the forefront of witnessing the greatest change in consumer trends.

  In the first part of the article “How to start my own business?” We talked about five simple rules that can help you decide whether you need your own business. The most important thing in a business is always an innovative idea. Crowdholding will talk about how and where to find a business idea in the following article.   Also read our article on how idea innovations and co-creation are linked.   An idea in business is not the same as, for example, an idea in philosophy. A business idea is a direction of movement. At the end of this direction is the “Mission of the Firm” that is raised proudly. Henry Ford’s idea of giving every American a personal car. The vision of ​​J. Eastman (Kodak) on the dry photoplate and the mission “Photography available to everyone”. The higher and nobler the company’s mission is, the more chances of success it has in the long run.   How to find an idea? Simply, a business idea is always connected with some type of problem and the solution for it. A mission is an ideal (global) solution to this problem. That is: first find a problem of people, help them and build the solution together on Crowdholding — they will pay you for it. That’s the essence of any business in one sentence.   Sometimes you are offered a false solution to the problem. A typical example is some dandruff shampoos. It is known that dandruff is a symptom of a fungal disease. Instead of treatment, it is suggested to use shampoos every day with an exfoliating effect. However, once someone stopped the using shampoo the dandruff appeared again. The client, as they say, is “on the needle.” Anyway, the correct sequence looks like this: The problem — An idea of ​​a solution — The implementation plan — The execution of the solution.   Finding the problem is much easier than the idea. Problems are on the surface. Unsolved problems (such as a cure for AIDS) are easy to find, but the solution is difficult. If you find a solution to such a problem, you’ll get rich! Although, it is possible and in another ways. In our crazy age it is enough to offer a solution to the problem of “saving” in comparison with solutions already available on the market. Saving time, money, nerves, effort. For saving resources — people will pay you. The bistro network, payment machines, delivery of everything-all at home, ordering everything — all over the telephone-Internet-businesses saving time. As the saying goes “Time is Money”. Discounts, sales, discount systems — saving money. Lawyers, insurance business, tax consulting — saving nerves.   A good tool is the Maslow’s pyramid of needs. In the pyramid, the needs of people, or, in other words, their pressing problems, are determined in a row. We use this pyramid rather originally: the height of the client on the pyramid makes the average higher, the width of the line is the volume of the market (the number of potential customers). It is about the approximate percentage. If your business operates at the lowest level of needs (physiological: food, sleep, sex, clothing, etc.) — you can count on a broad market, but relatively small margins because there are a lot of competitors. But in the upper part of the pyramid (self-expression) business is only just emerging. Example: have you watched the movie “Shall We Dance?” with Richard Gere? Do we have many similar clubs where we learn to dance, sing, and draw that is not for children, but rather for adults? The need for self-expression is all. If your business captures two lines of the pyramid and more, you can count on a steady profit.           Just to disappoint you, even the greatest idea does not guarantee the success of the business. It’s all about implementation. Firstly, the most groundbreaking idea / concept might not be able to implemented. This could be down to many different reasons such as a high cost level or incorrect timing. Moreover, sometimes the idea is just not implemented correctly. Over the past five years, we have watched how two dozen of our ideas were embodied by someone quite successfully. Why not us? There was no money, time, desire, and someone had it all. Research and you will find your idea.   There are interesting areas that you should pay attention to: Crowdholding — receiving feedback and ideas from the crowd to produce innovative solutions to problems. Vending (shopping and payment machines), the higher the rent and salaries in your region — the more attractive is such a business. It is a modern and fast-growing sector. Non-profit organizations (sports clubs, various circles of interests, etc., although non-profit organizations — you can earn on them very well). Small household services. Or for those which provide such services. The firm “Husband for an Hour” is a good example. Any types of business related to the processing of information. Help services with telephone / Internet access. Consulting of all kinds (tax, economic, legal, psychotherapeutic). Information is always expensive. Seasonal business. Making candy gifts for New Year easily brings $10,000 for a month, in the summer selling ice cream and soft drinks in the right places (beaches, parks) — 150% of profits or more. Religious organizations. Oh, these earn simply huge money! Organize your following if you are not afraid of the Last Judgment. This is a joke. Internet projects. The Internet is a great place to start! Website “School of Life” — is it not an example? We hope you have not forgotten the formula of business survivability? Only 10% of firms exist two years after the start.   So, you saw the problem, you are ready to offer the original solution. How to present the idea and will the idea find its buyer? We need to validate your idea! At the stage of the business plan, many ideas are dismissed, as unrealistic or low-profit margins. But this is already the topic covered by Crowdholding of the next part. Be resourceful! And good luck with your business!

Startup Promotion and Content Marketing Strategy The major thing a young startup should protect itself from - statistics of failed projects. These vary, but almost all of them are capable of causing a light attack of depression in very enthusiastic entrepreneurs. It is possible that this is the first trial, the start-up initiation, which filters those with enough determination. In the first three years 44% of start-ups close. Such disappointing data assembled the University of Tennessee in 2015 study year. And this is the "good" stats that we found. Why startups close down operations? The reasons are many. For example, a young entrepreneur comes up with an excellent (so it seems) idea, which is not "fitted" into a business. Such examples are many. The idea fascinated the creator so much that he did not see the obvious: the inability to implement the business model in the current market environment. "It must work!" - he desperately convinces himself, and sometimes investors. The project is launched, but the money does not come. "However, now he has experience!" - the thing to say after the closure of the project? It happens that someone, inspired by successful cases of foreign (mostly) companies, creates something similar, mistakenly believing that "it is all about the idea." At the same time, overlooking the amount of development work, marketing efforts, call center services and other "underwater stones", not to mention the characteristics of the market. These common mistakes are seen by experienced investors at the pitch stage. There are methods for hypothesis testing, a number of market research papers and many articles written on this subject, but not all can be taken into consideration. Organizational and managerial problems, lack of managerial training, sub-optimal teams - that is, perhaps, the most common cause of failure. A startup is like a minefield where without a map there is the constant risk of explosion. Especially loud blasts happen usually in the marketing territory. Strategy The creator of the new internet project is part of the environment (market), which are to be exploited. To do this, you need to understand what you will offer and to whom. Don’t be in a rush to say "Thank you, Cap!". For all the time working with startups, we have seen unusual situations where the company's founder and marketing director had different views regarding what’s the main product. The worst thing is that the sales department was trying to sell something else at the same time! It is interesting that in this sequence the startup’s product materialized from an abstraction (we sell freedom!) to a particular "piece of iron" in a beautiful package. It's an interesting moment to reflect on, considering at what level of management are ideas turned in revenues and why sales and marketing are not always collaborating. But let’s not get distracted! The marketing strategy should be clearly spelled out in a document that can be edited in the future, but it should be a document, at least, a reminder that we all create and for whom. This is a map indicates the progress of the company at different stages of development. In this document, among other things, there must be: A clear understanding of the description of the product formulation and its unique characteristics; The company's objectives; Positioning; Audience and its segments. Only after studying the fundamentals, you can choose which channels you use, what budget will be needed, etc. etc. In accordance with the model of Stven Blanc from his book "Four steps to enlightenment", a stage of consumer verification, when all marketing strategy hypotheses are tested, is a must in the development of a start-up. At this stage, you can get the first customers, and you can go back to the development of a marketing plan. But if we can plan some marketing activities in advance? Content marketing The concept of "start-up" has many definitions, we like the one from Eric Rice: "Startup - an organization creating a new product or service under conditions of high uncertainty." Usually, we have a new product on the Internet, high risks, and incomprehensible market. In these conditions of content marketing - the channel, but rather an approach that can be called universal, and is needed even without calculating the normal parameters (channel depth, visitor value & conversion). "Startup - an organization creating a new product or service in high uncertainty environments." Content marketing - is the creation and distribution of useful & valuable content to the desired audience. In order to enjoy something new and incomprehensible (from the consumer's point of view - any startup), you must: Be interested in it; Know how to use it. The first point relates to the birth of a marketing funnel (increase knowledge about the product), which gradually navigates away from your consumer purchases. The second point - it's educational materials that are packaged in the most interesting and unobtrusive form for the audience. Both requests are met with the help of content marketing - the correct decision to promote new or complex products. Email-marketing In the broadest sense, the scope of content marketing includes a variety of self-promotion tools, including email marketing. Automatic series of educational messages, which get new users, after registering with the service or mailing trigger - this is also content marketing, which can be called a mandatory program of any Internet service. On the Internet there are many companies, which are very efficient and nice to communicate with the user by means of newsletters. Email-Marketing in the future will ensure your customer returns, but that is another topic. Publications Of course, important publications on websites with a predominance of the target audience, training videos and other materials that make life easier for future customers at different stages of the sales funnel. Publications attract attention, raise awareness, provide the necessary level of communication with the market and the consumer and are the most important element of SEO, etc. The list of advantages of publications is big, but the disadvantage - one. It should be of a very high quality. It's not so much about the ideal text in terms of grammar, spelling and even style. Good publication within content marketing is the ability to write without advertising, to understand the general problem and have a good understanding of the product specificity. In this sense, one can understand why founders of complex services are hesitant to work with freelancers or content agencies. But then, we must recognize that all the articles should be written exclusively by startups. To avoid this problem, a conversation interview with the author of the publication and a man who at least knows the marketing strategy (see. Above). For example, we, at Crowdholding always ask for a part of this strategy, which becomes the basis for the strategy of content marketing. Blog and social We unite these two channels intentionally here because in a startup, as they say in romantic films, it’s better to be together. Company blog - another opportunity to be of interest to your audience, and thus to attract it and build loyalty. At the same time, a blog allows you to use the technical marketing opportunities, such as remarketing, promotion newsletter, content optimization for search engines, etc. The connection of the blog and social media works for example in this way: You publish a post on the topic, interesting to your consumers and associated with the product. Link to a post placed in social media, and, in various iterations (text on Facebook, Infographics, Pinterest, Instagram Photos...). The same link is sent in the weekly newsletter. During the entire time, you collect visitor data, which you can use to create personalized advertising on social networks. As a result, you increase traffic from social networks and turn readers into subscribers and boost the credibility of the brand as an expert. Conclusions Any startup - a story about the business. End of the story can be happy and not so much. Minimize risks is possible, having the right information about the market, intelligent team and sufficient resources. Startup Marketing involves strict adherence to strategy, but even at an early stage, it can be a solid base to start strong. If some of the channels and tools, you can select, count and predict only after the creation of strategies and testing, content marketing - is a universal approach crucial for every startup. The content strategy you can create in parallel with the product and it will be its first engine on the market.  

So, you think that you are ready for your own business. Or - not yet thinking about it, but you did start reading this article? Then you already have a chance to become a businessman. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," as Lao Tzu said. Having opened this article, you took such a step. Is it enough to keep you going? In this article, Crowdholding presents 5 rules that you must take into account before starting a business. So, where does any business start? Not a chance that you’ll guess ... With a desire, of course! But, as you know, the devil is in the details. If you only want to improve your financial situation, then don’t necessarily need a business. For example, any of the "trader" on the market is a businessman, like grandmothers who sell sunflower seeds. But this alone does not make a person rich. On the other hand, being employed can get you a very good salary. One of our friends, a young man, had a monthly salary of 240,000$. Moreover, business trips abroad, expensive hotels, company car ... Does he need his own business, with its headaches and risks? We believe not. Try to make a career in a large corporation, but also consider reading our 30 reasons to be an entrepreneur. The first rule that must be firmly remembered: "Being wealthy does not equal owning a business ." Haven’t changed your mind yet? Then we’ll continue. There is a harsh statistics that claims that two-thirds of companies close operations in the first year of work, of those who survive - in the next year, two-thirds are closed. That is, the chances of surviving in two years - only 10% of firms as advocated in this article. Of course, there are firms that open only to close immediately. Another statistic: before you find a profitable business, you will have to try on average five to seven times. Be prepared for repeated defeats. Worse, the most profitable projects hold serious risk. Less risk - less margin. The second rule: "My business is always a risk, but not always a success." If you are not afraid yet, then you need to decide on a project. The main thing in a project is the idea. Any successful business is always an idea that distinguishes it from others. Of course, you can open a kiosk at a stop and trade, like hundreds of others, with chocolates and beer, but you will not succeed in life like this. You can not go to business in the tail! If you see an innovation that can bring money - cling to it. Study it, explore it! Good advice: an innovation in your city is sometimes something that in another city is a long-known affair. Almost everything new is a forgotten old (or just little-known). Study business in other cities (countries), pay special attention to what is not in your city yet. This is even more simple because the idea has already proved the right to exist. No interesting idea - do not even bother. Read about how collaboration with the crowd leads to unprecedented innovation in our blog. Ideological competitors, you just eat. The third rule: "Successful business is always an innovation!" If you think that we try to dissuade you, then you think wrong. We'll sweeten the deal. There is an opinion that a good start-up capital is always needed for one's business. In most situations, this is not the case. If, of course, you want to open a restaurant - yes, money is needed and considerable. But we would not advise you to start with a restaurant. Most of the world-famous businesses started literally from cents. Examples: Microsoft, Macintosh business, Coca-Cola, Kodak, Google and many others. Read the story of startups that launch products with minimum-low investments  If you start the right business, then it starts to feed itself soon enough. Your task is to hold out for a short period of time, two or three months, on a starvation ration. As a rule, in a quarter it will be already known whether there is a prospect, and whether it is worth continuing the business, or whether it is necessary to cover it. The fourth rule: "For the starting a business you need minimal money, but efforts invested - as much as possible." Well, if the circumstances have developed in such a way that you need money, you can always find them. The standard search scheme is FFF, that is, family, friends or fools. If none of the FFF methods worked, maybe you are on the wrong path? If friends do not just want to lend money, offer them a joint venture. If it didn’t work out that way, if we would be in your place, we’d had seconds thoughts about whether you need a business at all. But, there are exceptions. If you consider yourself a genius - take a loan from the bank, now it's easier than ever. Only take a loan that is the RIGHT one. This means that you should not pay an annuity (monthly), but at the end of the period. Only monthly interest is paid, and the effective rate should rise above 20%. There are such loans (although it is not easy to take them), ask in banks. You can still win a city or regional competition and get a solid tranche from the authorities. But here you need the ability to write business plans, and not everyone can do it. You can just come to a rich entrepreneur with the idea of investing, our friend got a lot of money and successfully works for the second year. Although your idea may be intercepted by others, we warned you about the risk - remember? The fifth rule: "If you need money for the business - they will certainly be found!" Everything you read should help you just decide whether to go into business. It is clear that this is a story, but the stories are necessary. Success stories are born on Crowdholding where your can launch your startup and collaborate with the crowd. In our time, we were also tormented by doubts, and we made our choice. But we know one thing, employment is not for us. Even for big money. And, finally, the most important thing ... Good luck in business!

The year is 1916. A man named Henry Ford attempted something that had never been done before. Sharing his profits to the people most important to him. His customers and employees. I’m sure you have heard this mission statement plenty of times, “Our mission is to maximize profits for our shareholders.” — Very inspiring— but all jokes aside, this is very common goal in the corporate world. Quarterly profits become more important than long term vision or value of a company. The good news. This is changing. And it’s because something that Henry Ford attempted back in 1916, is resurfacing again. Ford Co. received 40 million in dividends that were intended for their shareholders. But this year Ford wanted to make a change. During his annual shareholder meeting, he announced that the companies dividends would be reinvested back to his employees and reduce the price of his cars for his customers, claiming it would increase the value of his company. However, this was not taken lightly by his shareholders and the Dodge Brothers who was angered by it, sued. In court, Ford preached that not only was this an ethical approach to society, his employees would in fact buy his cars. And by reducing the price of the vehicles, more customers could afford to own one. This would in fact increase the stock value of his company more than the shareholders yearly bonus. Unfortunately, giving back was not in the best interest of his shareholders, even to the judge, and his vision was never materialized.                                     In 2016, 8 of the richest people represented 1/2 of humanities wealth   Now lets fast forward to 2010. Where we saw the 43 richest people in the world represent half of humanities wealth. In 2016, the number went down to single digits of just 8. It’s predicted to be 1 within a year. Why such an extreme gap? Well it turns out industries are using technology to automate and reduce jobs. While this continues at such a rapid rate, there will come a time where the general public, won’t have a salary to purchase the products the elite business owners make. It’s only a matter of time this system collapses. In fact, two decades from now it’s predicted 1 out of 2 jobs will be automated in the U.S alone. This is why my team and I are developing Crowdholding.com, which allows businesses to share future revenue to the public for feedback and ideas. An eco-system that enables the customer to choose who they want to help and co-create with in return for shares we call crowdshares. We are giving the opportunity for people to invest time instead of money. I see a future where anyone can work from anywhere and choose who they work for, not the other way around. You can learn more here. Follow me, Ethan Clime and join me in the revolution. We need to encourage open innovation that will in fact create a better society now and in the foreseeable future.

The billionaire also predicted "decades of pain" caused by the impact of new technologies on traditional business. Alibaba founder Jack Ma, spoke at a meeting of Chinese Businessmen's Club, predicting the emergence of CEO robots in the next 30 years and "decades of pain" from the impact of new technologies on traditional business, reports The Fortune. Chairman Alibaba noted that in 30 years the robot could be on the cover of Time magazine as the General Director. "In 30 years on the cover of Time as the best CEO of the year, we will probably see a robot. He remembers better than us, he considers us better than us and will not argue with his competitors, "said Ma. The billionaire reminded that he warned hundreds of times about the influence of e-commerce and the Internet on traditional business 15 years ago, but then no one listened to him. Any business that is not connected to the Internet can suffer in the future, the businessman concluded. Ma points out that artificial intelligence technologies are essential for humanity, but machines should not replace people. According to the entrepreneur, the technological community should come up with how to make the robots do only what people can’t do. Thus, robots can become "human partners", not opponents. In October last year, the businessman made a similar statement, but without a negative assessment of future changes. "In the course of history, technological revolutions were similar: 20 years of breakthroughs, and after - 30 years of rapid change in connection with the introduction of new technologies in society," Ma said, emphasizing that Alibaba will benefit from these changes. Among the specific technologies that will lead to a revolution in traditional industries, the billionaire called the growth of computing power and large data. The founder of Alibaba predicted that in 30 years retail, financial services, production, and entertainment spheres would change. This will happen against the backdrop of growing computing power as a new "technological breakthrough" and data as a new "natural resource," Ma said. Crowdholding aims to raise awareness about job automation and also provides the solution by connecting businesses and people to work together and share revenue.

More often than not you hinder the development of your business not because you lack money, experience or knowledge. Why is it important that you as a novice businessman change the format of your thinking? For the past five years I have been supporting beginner entrepreneurs, that is, I help everyone who wants to transition their business from the offline to the online world, desires to launch their e-commerce business or begin providing services online. During this time, over 500 projects have passed through online and offline consultations and workshops with useful information about business processes in startups. Last year we launched the first crowdholding platform in the world. Summing up all this experience, I realized that entrepreneurs are not hindered by the lack of experience, knowledge and even money. Often we do not have enough understanding of the essence of the business or the entrepreneur's thinking. During last year’s Atlanta Business Forum, Raj Sisoid's speech about conscious capitalism highlighted the need for every business to have social utility, which changed my attitude to business and entrepreneurship. Without being sure of your attitude and belief that small businesses are the driving force of the planet, it is difficult to be a successful entrepreneur. This is mainly because once there is a systemic crisis, you do not understand the meaning and reasons behind it. Therefore, I gradually began to search for meaning, before the system crashes. Entrepreneurship  - an increase in social welfare Somehow this interesting thought was shared with by Michael Zelman - businessman and restaurateur (founder of the network Goodman, owner of the international restaurant chain Burger & Lobster). What does it mean? - I thought. And only studying patterns in business models, concentration enhancers and debates with other people gave me the answer. All technological start-ups know that in the first place you need to check - what problem is solved by your business, or if there is any such problem at all. To validate your business idea in advance use Crowdholding. To rephrase, a problem looks like this: A person is missing something, he does not feel 100% happy, and is looking for ways to solve this problem. Your business has done something to solve a person's problem. A person is willing to pay in exchange for solving his problem. Not in exchange for a product, but in exchange for raising his level of happiness. You got money that allows the company to develop (you are happy, you grow), pay a decent salary (which means your employees are happy and happy), you yourself now want to go to a spa hotel in Africa, for example, or buy a bike for a triathlon. If somewhere in this chain someone is not happy, the business collapses. A simple example: you pay your employees too little. They will be grumpy and naturally not too happy, working with a sad face and without a hurry, investors and guests will see that the team spirit is down, revenue numbers will decrease, the business ends up on the verge of collapse. So, the conclusion: business is about the increase in social welfare, not a redistribution or even a balance, but a constant build-up, and this is its essence. As an excellent student who graduated from a technical university, I like very much this logical explanation of the business mission. Entrepreneurship - a means of increasing self-esteem I have a personal hypothesis that entrepreneurs around the world lack self-confidence. When they come to me for advice on launching a new start-up, it quickly becomes clear that people do not want the startup so much, as much as they just desire a change in their life, and if it's even easier - just to be happy. The startup is the means for achieving happiness. And if you summarize popular articles about the meaning of life in short - a person wants to feel happy, he lacks something for this, he tries to understand himself better, comprehends what he lacks, does some steps and gets it. In this chain, there are several complex links: how to understand what you really want? How to start doing? Solving the first task is very important, no business will take off without it. Success in solving the second task depends on self-confidence, and it is your business that helps to achieve this goal most successfully. I’ve seen the eyes of "marketing directors" who sold their first products on the market. Buyers did not know their status, income, what they are respected for or who they are, the most important thing is whether it was making them happier or not. At this point, the paradigm is broken. A person begins to evaluate himself in a different way, appreciates his work, appreciates the labor of others. Entrepreneurship - the realization of oneself There is a misconception among start-up entrepreneurs: "I want to start my small business so that it gives a stable income, and I will do what I want." The fact is that business is not a means, it is the realization of oneself, to some extent activity and pastime. Someone expresses himself as a singer, someone as a marketing director, and someone as an entrepreneur. Private business is not about stability. Stability is when everything is clear, predictable, expected - the salary of a hired employee, for example. And business is creation, the creation of something new out of chaos, from nothing. If you think about the meaning of the word business, it becomes clear that this is about employment, about your own status (compare with loneliness, mindfulness). And the entrepreneur is the one who undertakes and acts. Development and generation of "profit" are laid in the logic of business. Even that figure can not be called at once, where is the stability here? Stability can be achieved, but it will be as temporary as any stage in the development of a person as an individual. Every time you think "no, entrepreneurship is not for me", what if you paraphrase "Entrepreneurship helps me to discover myself in a new way?". I would even say that entrepreneurship is the path of human development. A pie can save the world   I travel a lot and in each country, I hear the same talks about the economy and the expected support of the state. Over time, I began to understand that unfortunately, not always the state can help, and there can be quite logical explanations for this. Also what to do then? How can each individual build his life without relying on the help of others? So far I have found only one solution - entrepreneurship, in all its forms: from homemade pies baked by my grandmother, to farms and factories. You will say that not everyone can do business. Everyone can. But how do you find clients for your product? You must first find the customer and then make the product. It is necessary to find out what people want, what they need. And if you know this and do what they need, it turns into a business. But to find out, we need to start talking with people, and we must sincerely wish to help them. Start a conversation with potential customers from around the world on Crowdholding, understand whether your idea is solving a problem and turn it into a business. Obviously, entrepreneurship develops your attention and respect for others, gives you a sense of usefulness and a meaning in life. In my opinion, entrepreneurship is the same path of spiritual development as monasteries, yoga, and reading.  

The founders of Smeat share why it is impossible to blindly copy Western business ideas. Can you copy a business idea from the west and implement it in another country? Of course, you can. Most of the newly emerging projects follow exactly this path, inspired by the example of Oscar Hartmann. His main ideology is copying projects from Western markets. Often, the fabulous brilliance of successful entrepreneurs overshadows the vision of the young and daring. As a result, rushing to newfangled phrases - "lean start up", "agile" and so on - ignoring such commonplace things as market analysis and hypothesis testing. And Smeat founders stepped on these rakes. In addition, their ambitious enterprise unexpectedly faced the total hegemony of "His Majesty - Marketing". The founders saw the idea in the US, where in the early 2000s the market for jerky (dried and dried meat), amounting to $2 billion, stagnated. Four manufacturers, not any different in their marketing efforts, controlled a share of 85% and fully covered the Americans' needs for the product - a developed, serious market with an established culture of consumption. It seemed that enough passive players could interfere with the dimensional existence. And then, in 2011, a young company appeared - Krave Jerky, who managed to differentiate from competitors due to a combination of three main advantages: The company positioned jerky snacks as healthy and useful. Running marathons in the US at that time were at the peak of their popularity, and Krave Jerky skillfully used this trend. For example, the main brand ambassador of the company was the winner of the Boston Marathon and the silver medalist of the Olympic Games. The company emphasized the use of 100% natural ingredients and high-quality raw materials instead of chemical additives and low-grade meat. The third advantage was the range. Instead of a boring set of flavors, salt/pepper or "with smoke," the company has released a whole line of various flavors, such as chili-lime or sweet chipotle. As a result, for several years the company increased its revenue to $ 35 million and was sold for $ 250 million to the confectionery giant Hershey. Inspired by such a stunning success and enchanting M&A deal, founders of Smeat fell in love with the idea of creating a similar company in Russia. Of course, having read many reports of respected consulting agencies, they collected some data on the market: volumes, growth rates, key players and so on. Time has shown that the investment banking approach of "top-down" analysis does not quite work for entrepreneurs. When creating the Smeat brand, they did not take into account some important features of both the Russian market in general and the specific category of snacks from meat. At the very beginning of the journey, by analogy with Krave Jerky, they decided to promote the product as an ideal snack for athletes. And although Smeat, thanks to the high protein content and natural ingredients, could be so positioned, the audience absolutely did not take the product. The fact is that dried or jerky has a strong reputation for snacks for beer. As a result, the consumer has a dissonance - how can you call it useful that everyone is used to drinking beer? They did not take into account this cultural specificity. The next omission is connected to their competitors - large meat-processing enterprises that produce different types of dried/dried meat exclusively for "assortment" or to provide a higher capacity load. Few of them conduct active marketing campaigns or participate in brand promotion in any way. As a result - a fairly low turnover in comparison with other goods in a similar category. Because of this, this group of meat was not taken seriously, adding it to "the assortment." Sales of Smeat to one SKU are several times higher than those of competitors, however, they had to constantly struggle with low interest, proving to partners that it is possible to earn good money on the product. A consequence of the previous problem is the relative underdevelopment of the Russian market of meat snacks, because of this retailers do not separately distinguish this category in their product matrix. "And where should I put you?" - the first question that they heard from representatives of outlets. There are groups of crackers, potato chips and fish snacks for beer (squid and stuff). Naturally, they did not want to get up in any of these categories for two reasons: association with beer and price competition is not in they favor - Smeat is more expensive than any product from these groups. At first, they were positioned in places they wanted the least, however, as a mentor on the Forbes billionaire School project, Vladimir Gurdus said - "What's the difference, where and why do they buy?" The main thing is to buy! ". Such is the "market heritage", but because of  all complexities you get a deep understanding of the industry. This knowledge allows to correctly build a competitive advantage for any company. Probably, Krave Jerky also faced various difficulties - we see only the tip of the iceberg, colorfully described in the media. And by the way, Oscar Hartmann always says that any copied business models need to be adapted to the national peculiarities of the market. Experienced entrepreneurs do this in advance, and young and bold - by trial and error. You may also be interested in: 30 reasons why to be an entrepreneur? 10 reasons to join Crowdholding if you are a student  

Headphones for horses, a special aircraft for athletes, a very smart bracelet and other vigorous ideas for sports Among the tens of thousands of new projects, each year promising to change the world, a small portion are aiming at stadiums, teams and fans. 9 out of 10 business venture attempts, according to the American Forbes (Read more why 75% of startups fail), end in failure, but selecting the most promising even from the remaining 10% is not simple. Below is the subjective rating of sports startups, which, if lucky, will be in demand around the world in 2017. Company: "Sukhoi Civil Aircraft" What does it offer: a plane for transportation of professional athletes How much does it cost: more than $35 million Famous mainly for its fighters, bombers and stormtroopers, the Sukhoi brand offers a product on the market that, unlike the "Superjet 100", can be called unique. The world's first airplane, designed to carry athletes around the world, is equipped not only with seats that monitor the condition of athletes and inform the physicians about it, but also a separate "zone for healing procedures and rehabilitation" (Turkish baths, unfortunately no, but there are exercise bikes), a diagnostic complex and equipment for physiotherapy. The trainers are promised a separate zone for the analysis of matches and theoretical training. In the summer SportJet was presented at the Olympics in Brazil, but there is no other news from them since then. The catalog price of the usual "Superjet" is about $35 million, that is, the sport version will certainly cost more. However, if we assume that it is supposed to carry athletes who, together with their talents, often are much more expensive, then, the investment justifies itself. Company: WHOOP What it offers: smart bracelet How much is it: $ 500 On the one hand, WHOOP is yet another smart fitness tracker in a world full with dozens of the same, on the other hand - few of their competitors were lucky to be worn on the wrists by players of the NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA and the English Premier League. In basketball it even came to a small scandal: one of the players, "Cleveland" received a warning from the league because of the use of WHOOP. In the summer of 2016, 20 American Olympians also used the bracelet, including the disgraced swimmer Ryan Lochte (proving that the WHOOP knows a lot, but it is not almighty. The system, developed by Harvard graduates, analyzes the heart and skin condition of the athlete around the clock, can very accurately determine the levels of stress and fatigue, and with them the time required for recovery. In general, this is a diagnostician who is always there. Since November 2016, the bracelet can also be bought by amateurs, but so far only in the US. Company: NIX What it offers: a biosensor for athletes and not only How much is it: unknown The Boston company is working on a solution that is not the biggest, but certainly an important problem: NIX develops a sensor that can analyze the sweat and determine the level of hydration of the body. It is assumed that a disposable device that does not require power sources will help not only athletes, but also, for example, soldiers, as well as those who work in conditions involving the possibility of dehydration and the following problems: low blood pressure, rapid heart rate, Etc. Company: Trainerbot What does it offer: a 24-hour ping-pong partner How much is it: $ 379 The project of the brothers Alexander and Harrison Chenov, who, according to legends, spent their childhood at the tennis table - a small (fits into a backpack) robot that can play ping-pong. More precisely, Trainerbot can only serve, but not return balls, but that was enough to make the project hit Kickstarter tcollect $258,000. The first commercial samples are promised to be distributed to customers in May 2017. Company: Interprokom What it offers: analytics for yachtsmen How much does it cost: from € 1000 Information-analytical system "Regattaskop" (and by name it is immediately clear that the product is Russian) is the essence of a tracker for sailboats that can build 3D models of ships' movement in real time and analyze them on the fly. Perhaps not the most unique idea,but supported by the talents and competences of the creators (a former top manager of IBM and SAP); secondly, it has already been successfully tested in large competitions, and third, it aims at a very niche and understandable market . Company: Dugout What it offers: exclusive content for football fans How much is it: free of charge A cheerful English startup - a platform that even before the launch was able to agree on cooperation with a couple of dozen of the world's largest clubs, including Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester United and others. There are two conditions: first, Dugout publishes unique content (preferably with a viral potential), created by players, secondly, advertising revenues are divided in half. The project started in November, it's too early to give estimates, but several funny videos on Dugout have really appeared. Company: Horsecom What it offers: headphones for horses How much is it: $ 149 Hardly many people guessed this, but horses are able, firstly, to listen and hear music, and secondly, to react to it. Using this knowledge, Horsecom has developed a set of two devices: a device for a rider and a device for a horse. It is assumed that during the arrival they will both be able to hear the same melodies and interact via microphone (unsurprisingly, only the rider has it). Complete with a set of devices is an application that allows you to access a special horse soundtrack (eight new tunes every month) and lessons on dressage and handling of animals. Company: Fuse Mobile What it offers: an app for football referees and Apple Watch How much is it: free of charge Sensors for professional players, tablets for coaches - these are no longer news, but from all technologies in the past few years judges only got a foam, which draws the boundaries for the wall for a free-kick (and this is not always successful). Fuse Mobile decided to intervene and released an application for Apple Watch called GOREF, through which referees can measure the time and carry out the protocol of the match. In addition to the fact that such an idea exists nowhere else, the product turned out so beautiful that it was awarded the App Design Award 2016. Company: Rent-a-ref What it does Uber offer for judges How much does it cost: price on request Another referee service that solves an equally obvious problem: Rent-a-ref allows you to find and invite qualified referees to play and immediately pay for (in a good sense) his services. So far, the service is available only in the US, but the problem exists in other countries, and hence the solution can also be in demand. Company: lettrs What it offers: virtual autographs How much is it: from $ 10 for signature Created by a veteran of the first campaign in Iraq, Drew Bartkiewicz, the project is a story about how an idea of ordinary letters can be claimed in the world of short texts. Lettrs helps users to exchange meaningful messages and receive customized messages from stars with virtual autographs (look like real ones, but on the screen). In some sports, for example in baseball, memorials (that is, everything that the signature of a famous person is bearing) is the subject of a separate cult, and only the digital part of this market, experts say, will reach $ 3 billion in 5 years. The agreement between lettrs And MLB (the main US baseball league) has already been signed. Selling air has never been so profitable

I never thought I would become an online entrepreneur, but now that I am, it's hard for me to imagine returning to normal work. There are many reasons why I like this kind of work and I decided to create my own list of the advantages, which we will consider in this article. If you are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, starting your own business, I hope that reading this article will inspire you to take a decisive step. Even if you already have your own business, I think that this article will remind you that you have already achieved a lot, for which you should be thankful in particular to yourself. № 1 Work in pajamas. Yes, working for yourself is really convenient, your business, your rules. Online entrepreneurs do not need to get to work, you can wear sandals, sweat pants and even pajamas. Read also: 11 to do to become a millionaire by 30 № 2 Small risk. "If you start from scratch without investing, then there is nothing to lose except time". - Michael Dunlop. This article also explains how to start a business with no money. Fifteen years ago, if you wanted to sell a product, you would need a store. Or if you were offering a service, office space was needed. To promote the business, you would have to pay for advertising space. Starting a business was an expensive pleasure and therefore risky. However, the Internet has changed a lot of things. Instead of paying tens of thousands of dollars a year for real estate, you can pay less than $100 a year for a domain name and hosting. Instead of paying huge amounts of money for advertising, you can begin to implement your marketing strategy on social media platforms for free. All this does not guarantee you much success but does not mean that you will lose much if you use these means. № 3 The business belongs only to you - the online entrepreneur. When you work for some company, all efforts are made to help develop a business that does not belong to you. While acting as an entrepreneur, all efforts in work & development will aim to increase the value of the business as a whole, which you own directly. Getting a stable monthly salary is a big plus, but a short-term solution to financial problems, compared to a developing asset that can bring you a lot of money year after year. Read also: 7 Entrepreneurs from Shark Tank Share Tips № 4 In business, it's never boring. Usually, firms hire people to perform a specific role, like workers, to do the same thing very well. Yes, you can get a considerable salary along with the surcharges, that can effectively influence your budget, but personally, in my opinion, that is boring and nothing more. Beginning entrepreneurs, instead of performing one role, one usually has to work as a designer, a writer, a programmer, a salesman, and perhaps even a janitor (someone should clean up), but believe it is precisely those things that make the business fascinating. You are becoming you who want to be as described by Entrepreneur magazine. № 5 Something new every day. Here is another advantage of having a variety of online entrepreneur duties: to work in order to learn more. Even if one day you could find out all the ways of earning money on the Internet, you still need to wake up the next day early to learn further. For online entrepreneurs, continuous independent training will help keep up with modern technologies, methods, trends, to become even more successful. Personally, I like to comprehend, get to the essence of the information received and draw appropriate conclusions, especially if I have learned a valuable new concept, news or business system. I believe that it is necessary to keep your mind sharp, fast-acting and thinking effectively. No. 6 Seeking a true calling. Most people know how to make money quickly and easily, as well as what they want to achieve over a certain period of time, while others are the other way around. If you are looking for some clarity on this issue, then it's just necessary to become an entrepreneur, since this is a self-directed career. Personally, in my opinion, starting a business is a good way to find your true vocation. № 7 Exclusion of hitting in rush hour. Spending time in rush hours on the way to work is a big waste of time, gasoline, and your patience. As for the online entrepreneur, your working day begins with a trip from the bedroom to the office. If you do not work at home, you can still avoid a peak, going to work an hour earlier or later. No. 8 More homemade food. Usually, workers do not prepare a lot of food during the lunch break. It is most practical to go for lunch in a cafe or it bring from home. But, as an online entrepreneur, you can work without leaving home, and therefore, have more tasty, useful meals on your desk. No. 9 More sunlight. Spending long hours in the office means you are missing out on that crucial Vitamin D supply. Sometimes, it’s nice to take a walk, go do sports outside and come back to work when you feel like it. No. 10 It helps build your network. The difference between achieving even the most daring dream and contentment with what you have is not as great as it seems and much depends on you. Entrepreneurship involves meeting a lot of new people with similar interests that may turn out to be potential clients, investors or good partners in the future. Together, you can build a whole network of companies and always move your business further. № 11 The Internet continues to grow. As of December 2016, only 40% of the world's population had access to the Internet. Thinking clearly, in the next decade this number will rise steadily, as more and more people gain access. Meanwhile, these two billion+ of us who are already connected to the Internet are likely to use it constantly. In other words, the Internet is a healthy growing industry. If you start a business on the Internet today, you will enjoy the benefits of this growth. Forget your degree, start a business. № 12 We are in a period of a transition economy. Over the past two decades, we have witnessed a dramatic increase in digital technology and global trade. This shocked the world economy and left many industries exhausted. But of course, also, new profitable opportunities for business and online entrepreneurs have been created. While large, old companies are struggling to adapt to these changes, starting a business from scratch can be successful on the first attempt. An excellent example of this is Green-back Notebooks, which turns profit into a completely new industry (computer recycling). № 13 The employer's market. The unemployment rate is high all over the world, and this is bad news for employees who are looking to work in a more competitive niche or already have lower wages. But this is good news for entrepreneurs who can benefit from hiring an affordable workforce that can help develop their business. № 14 Creating jobs. If your business becomes successful, it becomes necessary to hire a few more employees. The larger your company becomes, the more people you need. For example, Google was launched when there were only two people in its staff, but now it employs more than 50,000 people. What would these 50,000 people do if not for Google? № 15 The Internet, as a production habit. If you have already managed to finish reading this point, I assume that you are ready to spend a lot of time on the Internet. When you do online business, the Internet becomes a part of your work: you will benefit from reading relevant articles, communicating with people in your industry, sharing experiences. Spend time on the Internet with benefit, and this will definitely affect your success. № 16 Do what you like. Most likely this is one of the best reasons to become an online entrepreneur. Instead of having plans appointed by the employer, entrepreneurs can effectively create their own plans for work and do what they consider necessary. №17 Obtaining additional earnings. Passive income is money that you earn on a regular basis but without special efforts to maintain it. One example of additional income will be the monthly rent to the landlord. Almost everyone likes the idea of passive income because you can make money by doing what you like, and even while you sleep. A good website can earn money without much maintenance, Internet entrepreneurs have a good opportunity to earn passive income. One of the easiest ways is to advertise on your sites or give feedback and ideas for future revenue on Crowdholding. No. 18 There are no bosses. A good boss is a leader, mentor, and friend. Bad boss equals hell on earth. If you do not want to get under the hot hand of your boss, why not try to become one yourself? Here there will be no responsibility for subordinates, reports to authorities about the work done, now you are your own master. No. 19 Your cut. One of the most terrible things for an employee, learn about your own reduction, demotion, and dismissal. I think it's clear that many companies are constantly looking for ways to reduce costs, in particular, it affects the wages of employees. Any day, you can go to work with promising career growth and return home unemployed. As an entrepreneur, you can lose customers, visitors or followers, but you can never lose your job. Your future is in your hands. № 20 Working day - online entrepreneur. Earning money online usually does not happen immediately. It takes the time to develop a website, product or something else. Even in the world the most successful Internet businessmen (I think Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, you can add Pavel Durov) did not make money on their sites for many years. Thus, by becoming an online entrepreneur, you can allocate your time as you like. № 21 Full-time work. At some point, the business on the Internet can become so profitable that your constant offline work is simply not profitable and takes a lot of time. At this time, you begin working more closely on your business. Entrepreneurship does not always require a permanent job. № 22 Business will teach self-discipline. Entrepreneurs should consider themselves responsible. This is a challenge, but also a great opportunity to demonstrate your willpower. To be your own boss, in practice means to motivate yourself every day to achieve your goals. Self-discipline with time becomes a habit. Practicing it daily, it makes you feel more confident that the business of production as a whole is well formed on the success. № 23 Ability to travel the world. If your office is on the network, you can work from almost anywhere. Some entrepreneurs (like Cody McKibben) have long enjoyed this. Many such people are called "digital nomads". In general, the world is much more beautiful and interesting than it seems, and business on the Internet gives you a chance to see it yourself. № 24 Biological clock. We all have a unique biological clock that plays a big role in our mood and energy for the whole day. Personally, for me every night at midnight, as if the switch is clicking in my brain, thereby I become extremely focused and creative and productive. This is the time of the night when, as a rule, I do my best work. If I were a typical worker, then this productive window would be wasted. Here you also have one of the biggest advantages of an Internet entrepreneur, the ability to listen to your body, that would solve all problems without problems and stresses. № 25 Four-hour working week. How to use things like outsourcing, internet marketing tools, drop shipping, and Google Adsense to automate your business and only work four hours a week. This is one of the most desired entrepreneurial fantasies: to build a business so that it would work without you. Of course, you can not start a completely new business and work on it for several hours a week, while expecting that you can live at the expense of its income. The road to a four-hour work week is often paved from 50 and even 60 hours of work for half a year. № 26 Efficiency in any business. Another way to work fewer hours a week is to work more efficiently. The earlier you get the project with the desired results, the faster you can relax. But also one nuance, for example, working in a company, hourly wages can on the contrary force you not to rush to do your job, because knowing that the more time you will perform the task, the more money you will receive. Personally, I prefer to use the incentive of efficiency in online entrepreneurship. No. 27 A sense of satisfaction. It is difficult to determine what gives a sense of satisfaction, but we know when we feel it. In my experience, many entrepreneurs are happy with any, even the smallest successes and I think this is right, you need to settle for any small thing, naturally to strive for more, because these are the fruits of your labors, extracted by your own ways and forces. № 28 Unlimited opportunities for growth. Taking the example of traditional work, where you constantly need to move along the career ladder. But, unfortunately, I'm not very sure that even a couple of us will grow from the secretary to CEO in one week. Entrepreneurs, however, can experience great breakthroughs and sudden leaps in success. You can make $100 for one week and $10,000 for the next. Forget about the fears of failure, because knowing that your own business can explode at any time is an indisputable interest in online entrepreneurship. № 29 Influence on the world. As an employee, you can easily feel like you are only a means of obtaining results for the company. Entrepreneurs build enterprises, own production, which reflects their goals and values. Their business brings entertainment, information, and help to people, while they are the ones who form the world. No. 30 Money in life, a good inheritance, and capitals. I do not know the meaning of life, but I guess that many of us want and that plays an important role. To feed a family and leave a good inheritance it is not necessary to start your own business, but if you really want to "lay a difference in the universe", then you just need to become an entrepreneur; Steve Jobs changed our view of technology. Bill Gates helped and gave the opportunity to live fully to many people (through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). Simply put, an own business is a powerful thing. When you create one, you create an opportunity to provide great value to people around the planet. Create such a business that it would gain even more momentum even after you left. What are your thoughts? Have any of these 30 reasons answered the question: "Is that why I decided to become an entrepreneur?" Or did I miss something? In any case, please reply in the comments below. And if you are not an entrepreneur, I will give you another reason to become one: You can start right now!  

With the modern furious pace of life and busy schedules, we are increasingly confronted with such a problem as the lack of time for personal life. And the matter, of course, is not in time itself, but in the vital question: where to meet the "right" person? How to make the first step to getting to know the guy you like, without risking getting into an embarrassing situation? What if you work or study in a purely female team? Today, "real" romantic dating - in the metro, in parks and concerts - more and more go into oblivion. If you still doubt whether it's worth to try it out and register on any dating site, then we responsibly declare: yes, it's worth it! The main thing is to pay attention to choosing the right service. Nowadays, on the "dating market," there are many different sites and applications that help single people find each other. Editors at Crowdholding undertook to test the most popular ones. And that's what we got: Mamba The year of Mamba's foundation was 2003. By the end of 2004, the number of active users of the site was more than one million, and the number of new registered users was more than seven thousand per day. Today Mamba is an international dating service, represented in foreign markets and having a base of more than 14 million active users. One of the exclusive functions of the portal - the ability to indicate their sexual preferences, and also to create an account solely for the search for a partner for sex. In practice: The undisputed plus of the site is a truly huge number of registered users. That is, something, and there is a wide choice there. But this plus, unfortunately, easily turns into a minus: placing more than a modest picture of a girl in a business suit, in the first hour we received more than three hundred messages with a variety of proposals. Letters from intelligent and interesting men in this stream undoubtedly met. But are you ready to spend a few hours a day on "filtering" the responses? Tinder The application for mobile platforms Android and iOS appeared on the market in September 2012. According to statistical data, Tinder is used daily by more than 10 million people all over the world. In practice: A distinctive feature of this application is a truly worthy and intelligent public, as well as the opportunity to get acquainted with those users who are in close proximity to you (for example, at a neighboring table in a restaurant). However, in this application, we found a minor disadvantage: limiting free "likes". If you intend to become an active user of Tinder, you will have to spend a little Vene The most innovative dating app Vene is helping single individuals to break the ice by changing the way of communication. The application is very simple, not time-consuming and chatting itself is fun. It was launched in London, nowadays mainly targeting the Dutch market with interest to expand to other nearby locations. In Practice: Using Vene for finding friends or meeting singles, either way, it is an easy experience. When you match with someone an automatic ice breaker is sent out. Basically, the app gives three predetermined messages that can be selected and sent to people you matched with. Here are some samples of predetermined messages: What would you do if you were trapped amongst a group of monkeys inside a forest? Coke or Pepsi? Do you have a map? The same options are available to the addressee; he/she has three options for replying your question. After chatting, if both parts are confident enough they can unlock the open chat, which is the normal chat option. Probably everyone will agree that the app like Vene gives the possibility to its users for a great and comfortable start for a funny chatting. So why to lose time, download Vene app today and enjoy your chat. For the more information visit getvene.com Vene joined Crowdholding to create a superior app for all of us. Crowdholding connects the crowd and entrepreneurs to collaborate and share future revenue. Give ideas and feedback on about their app on our platform. We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch via our website. Watch 1-minute Intro video Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.  

An unusual new trend has appeared in the field of creative marketing and innovative management. This thought-provoking marketing methodology called co-creative marketing is defined as the interaction of the firm and customers, during which the participants’ resources are consolidated to jointly create additional value. We, at Crowdholding, have identified in this article 5 key success factors for outstanding co-creation marketing strategy. Read also: Why Co-create: Benefits for small businesses Marketing through co-creation (co-creative marketing) is one of the new trends in marketing and innovative management. In a broad sense, a client is not only a direct user but also a group, community or society as a whole. Crowdholding represents the companies a forum where the exchange and consolidation of opinions, ideas, knowledge, product development, and design, etc. take place. Examples of "co-creative" marketing are found everywhere: it’s possible to order a pizza with personalized original filling, buy a T-shirt with a customized inscription. We increasingly encounter such appeals to clients: "Develop your tariff plan" (mobile operators) or "Make your credit plan" (banks). The site of Mercedes-Benz contains a car configurator which enables potential customers to independently compile a car by themselves and find out its value without leaving home. The potential customer has the opportunity to choose from his personal computer the options he needs, for example, the body type, the number of doors, the engine, etc., to get acquainted with the price offers, detailed photos of the selected car modification, ask questions to the specialist. A classic example of joint co-creative marketing is software products with the so-called open source code: Linux, Mozilla Firefox. The higher quality of these software products in comparison with their "closed" closest competitors is universally recognized. Technologies of joint co-creative marketing essentially differ from traditional marketing, which builds on the type of "active company" - "passive consumer". Co-creation involves the client and they become an active party, making suggestions on the characteristics of the goods. In some cases, the customer independently puts forward the terms of the transaction relating to the consumer properties of the goods (for example, the equipment of the car) and even its price. Realizing that no one is better at using the goods than the consumer himself, companies try to involve the consumer in "co-creation". The authors of the concept of marketing joint creativity Prahalad and Ramaswami noted that the consumer has special knowledge and experience that companies can’t track, but sometimes even can’t understand. So, managers need to first attract and retain customer data, and then create a creative and open environment, a space for communication. In such an environment, consumers will be able to apply and implement their knowledge benefiting all participants. 5 key success factors in joint co-creative marketing Experts of the consulting company Fronteer Strategy believe that for the success of a project it is necessary to adhere to the following principles. Joint co-creative marketing - key success factors Involve and stimulate participants Select the best ideas and contributors Establish a creative environment Share the results Continue to co-create 1. Involve and stimulate participants. It is necessary to encourage people to join the project, to open and explain its content. Consumers either be interested in your proposal if it is interesting or for some reason worries them. There are three things to do: Tell about and show the content of the project; Explain why consumer assistance and participation is needed; Show what results will be obtained. Example. Involvement of clients in co-creation. Consider this company's project. This open innovation project provides two directions for attracting participants: "inside" and "outside." The "inward" direction offers to solve the most important internal tasks of the company and become a developer of new products, packaging, business models. More than 50% of innovations in the company's products are obtained from external sources. The direction "outside" suggests to become a business partner of the company and use its available assets (trademarks, technologies, methods of market research) on the basis of licensing agreements. To date, the company has concluded more than 1,000 such agreements. 2. Select ideas and contributors. Among the many ideas and proposals, companies need to select the best which is a time-consuming matter. We, at Crowdholding, allow participants to choose the best ideas via online voting. You can use the traditional methods of dropping ideas and projects that are traditionally used in the development of new products and described in all textbooks. You should also choose the best amongst participants. Here are some requirements you can consider: past experience, competence, creativity, communication skills. Companies very often clearly announce in advance the requirements for participants and their development. If a team is being formed, its members, in order to complement each other, can include representatives of different regions, ages, spheres of activity, etc. In some cases, companies deal with the problem of solving inventive problems in professional communities. So, the Crowdholding platform (www.crowdholding.com) is a professional community that brings together leading researchers and professionals to solve the problems that you as a company may face. 3. Establish a creative atmosphere. Co-creative marketing works successfully when the "co" becomes a noun. To attract people is one thing, but it is necessary to combine their efforts with the maximum benefit. Synchronization of participants is what is needed to implement the project, consultants of Fronteer Strategy believe. The task of the initiator is to unlock the potential of the participants. Bridging the gap between the initiator and the participants is the basis of interaction. So, the company "Lego" was able to combine the potential of its users to improve the line of toy robots Mindstorms. In many countries, there is widespread training in schools and colleges using LEGO Mindstorms. 4. Share the results. It is very important to communicate the results of a project to all participants. However, it's more important to do it right. The results of the project for its participants can be very diverse. New products can be launched, new enterprises opened, social problems solved. But they should show the benefits for participants: monetary, material, copyrights. Such a reward as recognition, popularity for many can be more significant than material prizes. In any case, the initiatives of the participants should not be forgotten, they should be noted publicly. Apple iPhone App store is a platform on which applications for Apple computers and mobile devices are created. 70% of the profits from their sale are paid by Apple to the developers, and 30% is left to themselves. 5. Continue to co-create.  Co-creation marketing is a long-term activity that must be made part of a more general innovation process in the company. In most cases, the result of co-creation marketing is new developments that need to be introduced into production and brought to the stage of commercial implementation. In addition, activities to attract consumers to participate in joint creativity - this is not a one-time project. Specific forms, products, and composition of participants may vary, but the activity itself must be carried out on an ongoing basis. As two main prerequisites remain unchanged: the inability of the company to completely take the place of the consumer and the desire of consumers to engage in self-actualization. We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch via our website. Watch 1-minute Intro video Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.  

1. Make connections with inspirational entrepreneurs Elon Musk has over 7 million Twitter followers and while you may or may not have a hero in your life, people like Elon are definitely perceived as such. There are many more inspiring entrepreneurs you probably haven’t heard of. Connecting with inspirational entrepreneurs is something you can benefit from as you’ll get addicted to the entrepreneur’s attitude and learn from their exceptional experience. The obvious way to relate to entrepreneurs is to identify what they do and talk about it. And what an easier way to understand what entrepreneurs are involved in if not working with them on their startup? We, at Crowdholding, have made it simple for you to connect with entrepreneurs who are working on exceptional startups. 2. Be part of something new Is it worth being a trendsetter for new technologies and suppliers? Ben Huh, the founder of The Cheezburger Network, explains in this video why he always purchases every new product from Apple, Google, and Amazon. Becoming part of something new can get you the prestige of being an early adopter. You can often be the first to test the technology, and through your feedback and investments on Crowdholding, you get a product more closely tailored to your specific needs. If the technology is innovative, you may be able to recognize and take advantage of further investment opportunities and make more money. 3. Turn knowledge into action "It is necessary to combine knowledge born from study with sincere practice in our daily lives. These two must go together.” - Dalai Lama As the quote above states, you require both the knowledge and the action. You have to learn and have to do. We know from experience that this isn’t easy.  It is easy to read about almost everything, however, it’s much more difficult to actually put that information into practice. We, at Crowdholding often find ourselves wondering about the balance between the immense amount of information that we consume and actually doing the things we’re learning about. After seeing the Dalai Lama’s quote on Twitter, we started thinking about this topic more thoroughly and came up with ideas for incorporating knowledge into action… Share with someone what you’ve learned. The more you share with others, the more likely you’ll be to remember what you’ve learned. Every time you introduce other to a new topic, you’re also remembering what you’ve learned. The more you remind yourself, the bigger the chance that you’ll put the ideas into action. Combine your ideas with your routine If you want to expand your boundaries and practice some new knowledge in an action-oriented way, discover ways to incorporate it into your daily routine. If you need a little motivation, you can join others on Crowdholding to take action with you. If you continuously put knowledge into action and turn it into your routine, it’ll be easier to stick with it. Continue learning about the topic The more involved you in in a topic or projects, the more you will learn about a subject as we’ve seen from our experience. Therefore, it’s best to continue learning about what you want to be aware of. The more you learn, the more you’ll remember and then put into action. 4. Be useful You probably want to be useful to others in some way. You all desire to feel needed, capable - like you’re making a difference, in some small way. There is this lifehack article that we really like about how to make oneself useful. What makes someone extremely useful is their attitude and not their communication skills, network or competence. Here are a few things that you can do on Crowdholding to make yourself extremely useful: Share your knowledge: Tell the world about the things you know how to do. Not sharing your knowledge is the same as not knowing it at all. Whatever it is that you can do, if nobody else knows about your skills, they won’t ask you when things need to get done. Solve the current issues: Help entrepreneurs with their immediate problems by lending your efforts to resolving the crisis. Satisfy your own curiosity:  Take each chance to help out as those are opportunities to learn something new, to increase your knowledge and abilities. 5. Work smart, not hard You have perhaps heard this a million times, “to succeed you need to work smart, not hard”. This post debates about this in more detail. How do you describe working smart? Would work less mean being smart? Do smart individuals work less hard? Confusing, right! You have to know that being smart is about making informed choices. It’s about making the appropriate decision, the fair choice or the right step. We cannot separate working smart from working hard so be thoughtful in making choices in life and work hard on fulfilling your dreams. We, at Crowdholding want to motivate you to join entrepreneurs in their pursuit of success. You can work hard all your life, but getting involved in a project gives you a chance to work smart and develop as an individual. 6. Explore your potential Very often you do not suspect what potential you have. This ignorance is costing you - you restrict yourself, your achievements and results by dozens of times. Do you want to open up your potential, become successful and easily reach the craziest goals? You are right, not everyone can do it. Doing this correctly means that you need to define goals for yourself and do your best to achieve them. After you have identified the goals, we can help you in exploring your potential and becoming the best version of yourself.   7. Learn something new No matter how busy you are, you can always find the time to learn or learn something new, says the creator and CEO of the Curious training portal Justin Kitsch. Information is power and we don’t have to remind you about one small nuance - we live in an information society and the main resource of the information society, oddly enough, is (drum roll) ... information. This resource determines destinies of entire companies. The main thing that you find on Crowdholding is information, fresh and innovative ideas are actively submitted by the crowd onto the platform. The main thing is to use it correctly, or at least to learn something new is in the spirit of the times. 8. Unleash creativity and find inspiration     You maybe literally suffering from ignorance, without an idea of how to live further. The monotonous everyday life squeezes you into boredom, literally leading to deep despair. How to release your ideas? We know that the easiest way is to get your nose out and start taking an active interest in something. Especially, in the age of knowledge, it’s as easy as finding bananas in the jungle (Find where bananas grow). We’d like to help you let loose your inspiration and creativity. Discharge all your ideas and learn something new by collaborating with entrepreneurs on Crowdholding. Find projects for the soul that will destroy your oppressive monotony. 9. Gain Experience Richard Young can safely say that he made himself: in less than a year he went from trainee to ergonomics consultant in an agricultural company to a designer with a full rate at Sony. Surely, many you may have already experienced the problem of finding a job. To get a job, you need experience and to get this experience, you need to find a job. It turns out a vicious circle. But, it turns out, it is quite possible to break it. You acquire new skills or improve your current abilities by closely collaborating with entrepreneurs on raising issues. The learning curve in a startup is exponential and you’ll go through a variety of experiences every day. That is why joining a startup is an easy way to gain experience and be able to show REAL examples of your wisdom. 10. Make an extra income Benjamin Franklin argued that “Time is Money”  and we also think the time you spend collaborating with startups creates value in the long-run. Dedicating time giving feedback and ideas to entrepreneurs on our platform earns you Crowdshares. Crowdshares represent % of future sales and they are distributed to you for 1 to 5 years or indefinitely if the contribution was crucial to the success of the startup. We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch via our website. Watch 1-minute Intro video Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.  

The author of the project Brandon Ferris wanted to find out whether it is possible to create a music piece by crowdsourcing, that is, by combining the efforts of many people with the help of information technology. Brandon himself, a programmer from the Dominican Republic, was inspired by the success of Wikipedia and Reddit. With the same idea, but better design Crowdholding connects the crowd with musicians to co-create music. In the experiment, 67,167 people from 147 countries took part. Anyone could influence the future music by voting. The first two notes were suggested by the author of the project to start the melody. Each of the followings was chosen by voting. For the verse, it was enough that the note scored 50 votes. In the choruses and the final part, the threshold was raised to 100 votes. As a result, a melody of 350 notes appeared, you can hear it on the project's website. As explained on the site, this is a kind of skeleton for further artistic interpretations. It is assumed that the performer himself can choose a rhythm, arrange accents and pauses, and also add background chords. Crowdsourcing is successfully used in the music world, however, as a rule, the final product is always evaluated by an expert. In 2013, the Swedish DJ Avicii invited Internet users to create musical excerpts, which were later included in the song X You. American composer Eric Whitacre (Eric Whitacre) directed the creation of videos with performances by various singers, which were later merged into a virtual chorus. In Detroit, Michigan, the city orchestra teamed up with composer Tod Machover to create a symphony. To participate in this project, local residents were invited, offering them to send in the project various noises, including the whistles of cars and the hiss of cans opened. Now users of the Internet are invited on Crowdholding to compose together with Marley Wildthing. The first demo track is already published here and can be voted on. About Marley I started my musical career quite late at the age of 24 with regular gigs at bars and hotels, before I was just playing for myself and afraid to walk up on stage. After amazing experiences on my travels in Central America and the Southern USA where I met musicians of all kinds, got offered multiple gigs, started recording songs and played with professionals on the streets, I decided to make my passion also my main job. And despite all the difficulties, I couldn't imagine doing anything else in my life. Marley’s Music My music can be described as a fusion between Indie, Pop, and Folk with intimate lyrics that feel like taking a look into my diary. Still, I always write my songs to be uplifting for the listener, with an exchange of catchy melodies with unexpected changes. Especially for my solo performances, I like to switch between various instruments like Bass, Bouzouki, and Ukulele, always accompanied by my suitcase kickdrum. Why is Marley on Crowdholding? I love sharing my music with others if it wasn't for the wonderful people who were encouraging and helping me on my way I wouldn't be able to sustain what I am doing. In the end, music means nothing when no one is listening to it. As I like to get feedback - praise as critics - to get better myself, it's important to have reactions on what I'm doing, and I like the idea of people not just listening, but really getting involved in my music and my work. Check out Marley on Web, Facebook, and Instagram. We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch via our website. Watch 1-minute video Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Looking for a business partner? Not only beginners in business, but also businessmen with work experience ask themselves where and how to find a reliable business partner. After all, business success largely depends on interaction with reliable people, fruitful cooperation with companies and organizations. Generally speaking, even customers are business partners. After all, they conclude a contract of sale or provision of services. Crowdholding connects the crowd with entrepreneurs, allowing them to become a business partner and share future revenue (ie. Crowdshares). Finding business partners in the crowd gives startups a head start, enhances business performance and improves the quality of contracts concluded. A classic example of business cooperation - people and companies that co-create, for example, accessories for their products or supplies, provide after-sales service. Cooperation with the crowd depends on the magnitude mutual benefit. The success of businesses depends on the number and quality of contracts concluded. Partners include suppliers, customers, distributors, advertising agents and employees of the enterprise. How to find a business partner? Where to find a business partner: Among friends and relatives who have a desire to share a business. At least, there is a possibility that such a partner will not deceive and quit the business halfway. In any case, it is worth paying attention to the competence of your partner; Branch exhibitions. Representatives of organizations interested in cooperation gather there. To participate in the exhibition you need to invest in the design of a stand and sometimes a significant cash contribution. In addition, you will have to withstand serious competition with other companies participating in the exhibition; Associations and associations. Often businessmen unite in non-profit associations to defend their interests and support cooperation. Such associations can be sought both within the industry and in related industries; Placement of information about yourself in business directories. This is called passive search, when, in fact, one is looking for the one who posted the information. The method is good in that it does not require significant effort, but results may be delayed; The Internet. For a long time already there are specialized resources designed just to find business partners. Great partners are needed at the start and finding them on Crowdholding is as easy as riding a bike. Undoubtedly, to make your search more efficient, it makes sense to use several or even all methods at once. What are the pros and cons of business partnerships? + – Intellectual fund. It is more difficult to make decisions. Since you are not dealing with strategic objectives on your own, there may be difficulties in reaching a common consensus with partners. Allocation of duties. Stress. We will have to get along with our partners every day. Strength in quantity. Your organization will be more seriously perceived by customers, given the greater number of employees. A responsibility. It is necessary to be responsible for your own actions before partners. Support. You can always rely on associates willing to share the difficulties that arise. Control. You will not be in full control over your business, you need to learn to trust your partners. Loyalty of banks.   How to organize a business partnership? Step by step guide follows: Step 1 Make sure that you need a business partner. Determine what exactly you expect to get from a partner in view of strengthening your market positions.  Consider some of the following questions: Direction of the company's development Direction you want to see; Competitive advantages of your organization; What is missing in the company. It is necessary to indicate the answers to these questions in general terms. Once the goal is formulated, it is necessary to assess the possibilities of the organization to achieve it. Analyze the list of your strengths and weaknesses. The organization has the resources and experience to achieve business success; What resources or knowledge can you acquire by hiring employees? What of the above can be purchased only through business partnership? If you can meet the needs with internal resources, there is no need for business partnership. In the case of a financial problem, one should look for an investor, not a partner of the organization. But if all this does not allow you to get the necessary conditions (knowledge for development, management skills) - you need to look for a business partner with such resources. Step 2. Identify a suitable business partner profile. An ideal partner does not exist. However, for some qualities, you can identify a partner that is close to the ideal. Among such qualities are responsibility, level of professionalism, reliability, perseverance, diligence, openness, trust, independence and decency. How to make the right decision in a difficult situation It is possible to supplement this list with other characteristics and qualities, but these points are basic and decisive. An important quality lies in the dedication of the organization and the business idea into which the partners' financial resources and efforts are jointly invested. Also, a significant factor is the financial strength of the partner, the possibility to bring creative approaches and ideas in dealing with situations, psychological stability and healthy ambition. It should be understood that any business is waiting for failure if it does not rely on mutual trust and commitment, common goals, financial incentives. An important factor in the partnership is the complementarity of partners, meaning implies the following - one will complement the other. Step 3. Starting to look for a business partner. Today, there is practically no limit to the possibilities for finding business partners. An excellent place for this is the Crowhdolding. Various Internet tools allow you to find any partner using the appropriate methods: website; Blogs; Bulletin boards; mailing lists; work with specialized sites, forums; Dating in a business environment. Such simple tools allow finding the most worthy business partner, although this requires certain expenditure of money and time. Skeptical people often look for partners among friends or on recommendations. Each of these methods has individual advantages. Although not devoid of certain shortcomings. Also, we should not forget about newspaper ads, stickers of ads, flyers with the announcement. All means are good for finding a worthy business partner, everyone chooses the right variant for themselves Step 4. Careful analysis of all applicants for partnerships. Choosing a business partner is an important and responsible task, which largely determines the success of business undertakings. A competent choice of a business partner will allow the business to achieve new opportunities and prospects. What should be taken into account when selecting the applicant primarily: General objectives. Leadership skills. However, the initiative of the partner should be under control. After all, reputational consequences for business can become consequence of excessive activity. Determination. Clearly set the framework for cooperation and issues, decisions on which will be taken by the partner independently. Appearance. After all, it is important to remember - the partner is the face of business. If something disturbs you in your behavior or irritates you, it's better to refuse cooperation. Remember - this person will have to spend a lot of time. Intuition will help to make the right decision. Tatyana Drusinova, senior managing partner of the company "Autograph", Moscow Intuition, professional, life experience become important helpers in making the right decision. But there are some factors that violate the reliability of the assessment. Among the main among them, one should note the time deficit, and, although very surprising, the commitment, concentration on the business problem. Of course, contact with the partner is extremely important. However, such contact should not be considered an end in itself, it should be considered as a condition for achieving a strategic goal. As a result, it is necessary to encounter a dealer - I want to believe that it is partnership with this person that will allow achieving the implementation of the planned result, however, there are significant objective concerns. After all, the psychological basis in a successful alliance is trust. There is trust between the parties, if you have an identification with another person, with the identification of something close to him. With this identification, even the most incredulous skeptics often say - "he is the same as me." Step 5. Evaluate the potential partner. One will have to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the partner in question with an honest and open discussion of all points for which special attention is required. Make a preliminary agreement indicating the strengths of each partner in the partnership, which can bring to the partnership process. Is the compatibility and complementarity of the skills of each party possible? Does the partner have sufficient financial resources? Does the partner have satisfactory quality management resources to supplement resources, manage its part of the alliance? Do you have enough powerful leverage to eliminate the partner's ability to insist on higher requirements than those originally specified? It is necessary to clearly, directly discuss the long-term strategic goals of the partnership. Do you know the actual reason for your partner's interest in your project? What place does the proposed project take in the long-term strategy of the partner? How important is the partner to your cooperation? Are the terms for achieving the goals acceptable to the partner? What resources is your partner ready to sacrifice for the sake of joint cooperation? Is the expected size of profit clearly specified? Importance is given to taking measures to exclude the possibility of alienating your know-how. When evaluating a potential partner, it is necessary to take into account a number of such qualities: Tendency to base negotiations on financial aspects only; Inability to honor one's promises; Preferably the attitude towards the achievement of short-term plans, the main stake is not a long-term partnership; Inability to collaborate; Inclination to treat personal relationships only on the business side; When there are problems, the tendency to punish responsible persons, and not to find a solution; Reluctance to share information; The propensity to make contracts that exclude the possibility of a change in the future; Doubtful business reputation. If one of these characteristics is identified, it is better to think about partnership with another person. Step 6. Conducting negotiations with a potential partner. It is during the negotiations that a structure of further interaction is created. Negotiations are open, honest. But even with trust, doubts or complex questions can not be ignored. We can not neglect corporate security issues. Indicate the intentions of each party, the terms of confidentiality, the scope of cooperation. It is on the clarity and clarity of relations that trust is built between the parties. Personal negotiations are also necessary. For most important transactions, significant time is wasted - more than originally planned. Decide what needs to be discussed, should be based on the goals of each partner, as well as the means proposed for achieving them. A number of factors need to be discussed: ownership structure and assessment of each partner's contribution; Management, adoption, control decisions; Distribution of income, if the partnership is focused on the sale of goods produced by one of the partners; The process of eliminating partnerships; The process of withdrawing from a partnership; Work with staff, hiring new staff; Details about the ownership of technology, the trademark, the list of buyers. The probability of taking all these factors into account in the initial agreement is rather low. One of the goals in business partnership ultimately becomes the possibility of working with rapidly changing circumstances and conditions. The art of negotiation: how to achieve a profitable result. The success of any partnership depends on the partnership's compliance with the goals of each party. To ensure successful work, you need to make full clarity about the objectives of the company and partner. It is not necessary that the partners are guided by the same goal. Preferably, if their goals complement each other, forming a joint strategy. Make sure that the goals of both parties are clearly reflected in the partnership agreement. Step 7. If you have chosen a business partner, conclude a contract. If you have an equitable distribution of shares and incomes in business, the best option is to create a legal entity. If partners are not ready to register a legal entity, a banal registration of an individual entrepreneur is possible. However, registration of a PI implies a person's responsibility with all his property. Relations of business partners: allies or rivals If such an option does not suit, and partners plan to conduct business as individuals, an agreement is recommended between them, it will also be useful to notarize it. You can insure yourself by specifying the amount of money contributed by each partner in the joint business, as well as the conditions for redistributing income from profits, the partner's share in withdrawing from the partnership. This will be a useful condition for the registration of partners as individual entrepreneurs. Conclusion Remember that on Crowholding a business partner can be anyone: A customer or a consumer; Executor (contractor) or supplier; Intermediary in the general sales chain (in particular, the distributor or regional representative); Manufacturer of complementary services and products   We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch via our website. Watch 1-minute Intro video Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Collaboration has already become a common model in the classrooms, but teachers still occupy most of their activities in isolation. For example, is it worth planning another lesson on the Civil War, when many such lessons were already prepared? It is not very clear why those teachers have to prepare curricula and lessons that have already been prepared before them. This article outlines the possible prospects for crowdsourcing in solving problems in education. The tradition of using textbooks is still preserved, and this becomes a problem. The United States spends almost $9 billion annually on textbooks that have become obsolete at the time of their acquisition. On the other hand, there are many free and available online courses. But the problem, in this case, is the impossibility of testing the quality and complexity of their implementation in classes. Crowdsourcing has spread in many areas, but in education not used widely enough. Here are some principles of how to use crowdsourcing for education projects. 11 principles of crowdsourcing in education The success of crowdsourcing in other areas. Crowdsourcing is developed in many areas, but in education, it still has to occupy its niche; General educational materials. There is no need for teachers to create the same lessons and courses over and over again; National standards of education. With the transition to the Common Core, the exchange of best practices and teaching methods between teachers has become institutionalized; Avoiding textbooks. Textbooks are fragmentary, outdated and do not satisfy the needs of many; Changing courses. Teachers select quality, proven material; The district infrastructure. Qualitative teaching materials are selected in local centers; Transparency and responsibility. Crowdsourcing provides transparency and responsibility in the creation of training materials; Collaboration. Moreover, the creation of materials is a common work; Potential for innovation. Schoolchildren can receive better education; Support of teachers. When schoolchildren have trained teachers, they are more likely to succeed; Continuous improvement of the curriculum. The results of schoolchildren are higher, teachers can highlight methods that are successful, and these methods can be reproduced anywhere. Since knowledge and experience are important in any profession, it's time to start using crowdsourcing in education - with it you can solve many existing problems, thereby improving schooling. The newest platform of Crowdholding enables most of the educational establishments to improve their quality of service through feedbacks. In particular, Crowdholding helps individuals to state their opinions and giving feedbacks, therefore co-creating final product or service for educative projects. Almost all countries offer various types of English language courses to its citizens. Nowadays English learning became very important due to the reasons like; building an international career, for communication with foreigners, traveling abroad, international relations, service needs or just for the social communications. But many think that learning a foreign language is very time-consuming, difficult process and costly, therefore due to those reasons, many people cannot afford proper English learning for them. English learning is provided by a various way and methods; however, Angloville offers to English language learners rare and new method of learning which includes various types of programs. Angloville is the largest provider of English immersion programs which operates in Poland, Hungary, Romania and Czech Republic. Apart of that Angloville offers to its customer's multiple types of English learning programs such as: Angloville Angloville Junior Angloville kids Tandem House Angloville weekend Angloville International All of those English learning programs have one thing in common: spending a week, or weekends in 4 different countries (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Romania), in countryside hotels with English learning enthusiasts, Native English speakers and English Language specialist. Angloville is not following the traditional ways of teaching English, learning in Angloville is more about conversation based and it's more on a cultural exchange program where both native English speakers and locals benefit from it. The philosophy and the idea are more about conversations, all participants will have the possibility to get closer and exchange linguistic, cultural values to each other by the different type of games, group activates, entertainment performances, sporting, negotiations and during a stroll. This method of learning is highly effective not only in terms of language, but it also gives participants opportunity to meet new friends from foreign countries with different cultural background and profession. So, don’t miss a chance and become a part of Angloville’s community, give feedback and make angloville life with crowdholding.com   We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch via our website. Watch 1-minute Intro video Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.  

Do you know what Hollywood movie was shot with a smartphone? And it is not just some kind of movie, but a real feature film "Olive," which director Human Khalili shot on a Nokia smartphone. https://youtu.be/VV97uzlUQjA The creators of the movie "Olive" believe that this film can change the entire film industry because smartphones today give everyone the opportunity to shoot high-quality video. And this is not the only example of a video masterpiece shot by a smartphone. Proof of this is numerous festivals of short films made by a mobile phone. How to create a real movie from your smartphone? Inspiring ideas for the phone in your pocket or purse not only as a means of communication but also as an exclusive tool for creativity.  I found my new favorite application - Reelly!  Now you can demonstrate your creativity by making a video collage with this beautiful application. Reelly is now sharing revenue with supporters on Crowdholding who give ideas and feedback on how to improve the app. With Reelly you can even mix your video collage with photos. If you are in the group of people who like to shoot a lot of videos and you do not really like filling out your newsletter, then this application is really for you. Can I make movies on my own? Certainly! Don’t forget to use the fastest and easiest way to create video and photo movies - Reelly. Also, here I present to your attention 15 tips for shooting the best video on your smartphone. The first and most important rule of shooting on a smartphone is to keep your device HORIZONTAL. Many mistakenly keep the smartphone in its natural position (vertical) but forget that the screens of TVs, computers we have in a horizontal position. To feel the difference between video taken on a smartphone in a horizontal position and video taken in the vertical position of the smartphone, you can watch the video on your home computer or a plasma TV screen. You will see instead of a large video clip a thin strip of your video with black giant stripes on the edges. More tips here. If you have planned a dialogue, monolog in the frame, pause. I called this the "rule of five." After pressing the "Record" button, count to yourself to five and nod to the person to start talking. Do not rush off the camera and after he has finished his speech. Count to five to yourself and then turn off the "Record" button. If you are shooting a scheduled speech or an interview, choose a quiet place. It should not be a street with a noisy road or a cafe with background music. Since you are writing a sound to a smartphone (without a microphone, a buttonhole), your voice will be too quiet and it will be difficult to extend it at the editing, as extraneous sounds can cover your voice. And do not forget to speak louder! More tips about shooting a video here. Try not to shake the camera. If your hands are shaking, find support. It can be a back of a chair or a table. In addition, now for smartphones, there are many devices that will help make shooting quality. Shoot your video in parts. Do not record a video file lasting an hour. Firstly, it will be difficult for you to download it anywhere on the Internet. Secondly, it is inconvenient to view it. Thirdly, it is not convenient for him to work on editing. Do not shoot the same event the same way. Try to move the camera and look for interesting perspectives. Come closer, sit down, remove from the bottom, side, improvise. Do not be afraid to get on your knees, get on the table, lie down on the floor. Read other tips. Do not try to move the camera frequently and transfer from one object to another. Focus on each one separately. To each object, take time, when the object could be just in the frame of the static camera. If you still follow your running object, try to act smoothly and not too fast. Those. Transferring from one object to another object or from the point of movement of the object to the next point. If the object moves too fast, it is better to make a general plan (remote), as wide as possible, so that you can see the whole space wherever it falls. Do not remove the light. If the sun shines in the eye, try to change your position. If you shoot against the light, your object or object will be dark. Or generally, it will be ironed like a shadow. Choose a bright room with good lighting, if it comes to the planned shooting. Good lighting in many ways affects the quality of the picture. Do not use the zoom during shooting. If you want to shoot your object with different plans (closer, farther away) better approach the object. Always keep track of what's in your picture. It can be extra items, sockets, garbage or something else that is superfluous. It can spoil the frame, it's more accurate to make it just not so expressive, not so clean and neat. Try to build a frame so that on the sides, there is always air on top (empty space). Do not cut the head of the object and the movement of the hands. Of course, this is not a complete list of tips for shooting on a smartphone. However, these tips will be useful for those who want to start shooting a home video and on camera. I invite you to watch a video with tips on shooting on a smartphone, which I prepared specifically for my clients and moms who want to shoot their kids on video. After shooting your perfect video with the tips presented above, check out Reelly which is a brand new app that allows you to easily create a reel, invite friends to contribute to your reel, and share the reel. Reelly is perfect for weddings, parties, concerts, or just day to day events. Reel it! Reelly is now sharing revenue with supporters on Crowdholding who give ideas and feedback on how to improve the app. Crowdholding connects the crowd with entrepreneurs, allowing you to give feedback and ideas in exchange for future revenue. We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the Crowdholding concept. Get in touch via our website. Watch 1-minute Intro video Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.  

Have not decided yet whether to have a light green chair in the room or an orange? You will be able to answer those simple questions in seconds through the PlanningWiz application, and you will be able to manage where to place your furniture in the room in 3D format, through our 3D planning application. Interactive online 2D and 3D floor planning platform allowing the modeling, furnishing, visualization and interactive navigation. Model, furnish and visualize your dream home interiors in the browser, in interactive and walk-through 3D on any device, whether you plan to build, buy or rent a property or simply redecorate or change your furniture. PlanningWiz room planner application has far more functionality, benefits and also every single individual can take part in co-creation of this amazing tool by giving feedbacks on the Crowdholding platform. Room Planning & Design software 3D Design is known as “Additive Manufacturing Technology” or “Rapid Prototyping” is a technology in which there are three-dimensional objects, and it is created by laying the successive material layers. CAD & 3D Design plays a significant role in the 3d model maker. It was first developed by “Charles Hull” in the year 1984. He obtained the patent for this technique and named it as “Stereo lithography.” The concept of 3D Design is exciting technology. It involves a method in which 3D objects with the reasonably sized machine is connected to a computer containing blueprints for the things. The 3D Design can be made by a single process which includes output flexibility, translation of codes and material cartridges in a pattern which is visible.    There are great advantages of 3D Design can be used in the computer aided design. The main advantage is the less cost and saving savings. This technology has proven to be saving time and money and workforce as well. Furthermore, it also results in delivering a solution to the life about the competent and efficient product of technology. The layer by layer production of ED printing also gives much flexibility and innovation in the process of designing. It possesses the capability of redesigning the parts entirely and gives stronger and lighter design. Beside with advantage, there are some limitations of 3D Design as well. The limitations are in the form of expensive parts, hardware, and material used in it. Hence, affordability is the main issue of 3D Design. It also has the limitation of producing all types of methods. Hence, it is only capable of few production methods. There are different types of 3D Design, which include; Fused Deposition Modeling, Stereolithography, and Selective laser sintering. Therefore, 3D Design is an effective and efficient process, which advantages outweighs the disadvantages and it can help in creating a diversified range of designs. Home floor planner used CAD & 3D Design software for designing. The 3D technology is known as the three-dimensional technology that provides a wide array of options in near upcoming in the approximately every life’s walk and particularly in the entertainment fragment. The utilization of the 3D technology in laptops, TVs, and other devices is growing for the reason that the fundamental content needed to help such products involves movies and sports. The technology has been effectively in earning moderately a momentum as a widely, validly adopted entertainment technology. Recognize more about the three-dimensional technology’s application between various spheres. 3D technology has numerous advantages and plays a significant role in the development of the world. There is numerous floor plan software, but CAD is best for these purposes. It is clear that the 3D design is a part of our lives. The probably getting utilized to the thought of doing it to improve and innovate our work, and our daily existence. It is constantly worth to take a gander at the truth and not at the hallucination, but rather the information and the market are very clear. If you want to design and develop your apartment or your goal is to place customer satisfaction at the heart of your business,  don’t forget to check Planniwiz project on Crowdholding. PlanningWiz from Cluj, Romania and their 3D design application are actively involved in the co-creation process on crowdholding.com. In today’s hypercompetitive environment it is difficult to get a competitive advantage over huge market players. Crowdholding is becoming an extremely useful platform for small and medium size businesses as it connects the crowd and entrepreneurs to collaborate and share the future revenues. PlanningWiz has launched a project on crowdholding.com which enables you to co-create with them by giving ideas and feedback for developing theirproduct. An innovative small business such as PlannigWiz are on a continuous journey to innovate and you as a crowdholder can give ideas for a percentage of the project's’ future revenue. Read in more detail about PlanningWiz, a proud business crowdholding their business. What if could invent a revolutionary business or improve a current one? PlanningWiz, a 3D design platform, has launched a project on crowdholding.com with the goal to share future revenue with the crowd in exchange for ideas and feedback for their product: Crowdholding allows you to contribute your ideas and make changes for the better. Learn more about PlanningWiz and the 3D design industry. PlanningWiz has been launched in 2005 and now delivers the highest performance in 3D design and room planning solutions (Web solutions that are ideal for stores distributing in the fitness, medical equipment,  and furniture). We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch via our website. Watch 1-minute Intro video Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Can you create a monthly quota of useful content within a week? The annual rate? Maybe you can produce out more than 800 ideas during one brainstorming session? And, maybe, your audience itself is willing to create useful content for your company? Studies show that between 65% and 75% of new businesses are far from successful and fail within 1 year. Luck is often not on the side of the company that has decided to launch a new product or service. The #1 reason is that businesses are not really in touch with customers through deep dialogue. Crowdholding fills this gap by connecting the crowd with entrepreneurs, allowing you to give feedback and ideas in return for future revenue. How to use crowdholding in your business? Crowdholding can be used to achieve a wide variety of goals: solving a specific problem, creating content, generating new ideas, conducting peer review, etc. At the same time, the competence of the people involved in the project does not matter much. Here are just a few examples of what can be done with this tactic: Ask customers to pass a questionnaire with questions to improve your service/product. Offer them something in return, for example, a small discount or a cut of future revenue (ie Crowdshares). Invite the users of your site to participate in the contest for the best idea. Promise the winner a % of future revenue (ie Crowdshares). Ask customers to provide feedback on your product or service. The authors of the best or most creative receive the biggest cut of the future revenue (Crowdshares). Fortune 500 companies actively use the wisdom of the crowd. In 2010, the number of micro-tasks performed in this way increased by 496% and still growing. At first glance, you might think that crowdholding is too complicated to manage it as part of your marketing campaign. But once you figure out the variety of forms that it can take, you will most likely change your mind. With the help of crowdholding, you can: Strengthen the audience's commitment. The customer undertakes to accomplish a task, generates ideas, discusses them with friends, disseminates information about the company and places the result on your site on his behalf. Thus, he motivates himself to produce a high-quality result and becomes an advocate of your company. The strategy of crowdholding includes the involvement of hundreds of such performers. Improve current products and services. The information gathered within the framework of crowdholding can significantly improve your product and positively affect the growth of the whole business. Increase the overall reputation of your company. Involving a huge number of people actively involved in a project, a constant discussion of the activities of your company and your products creates a positive public response, and also draws media attention to your activities. Main benefits of Crowdholding include: Crowdholding can be used in any industry and business of any size. By requesting feedback from customers, you receive very important information for the development of your business, product or service. You receive the best ideas offered by a large number of people and do not rely on the creativity of one person or one agency. This strategy helps you to see firsthand how your customers think. How to satisfy a huge number of employees? Crowdholding campaigns are not primarily for the faint-hearted. At first, it will seem to you that you are trying to control the unmanageable. Over time, you will become stronger in this belief. Either way, you must have 2 qualities in order to succeed - total commitment to your idea and courage. The following tips will help you make this process as comfortable and effective as possible: Keep in touch with people. Most people who want to participate in such a project, like to give. Continuous contact with the audience ensures their ability to give and your ability to take. Make sure that you have a common place where the audience can meet and communicate with you and with each other, whether it's an internal corporate network or a private Facebook page. It is necessary that they feel involved. Listen. The main advantage of crowdholding is the opportunity to share ideas, but if communication is not two-way, you can be sure that your audience will be able to convey this unpleasant fact to you. Answer. Always listen before you answer. You can not claim that you are listening to an audience if it does not feel heard. If someone has a great idea, encourage the contribution of this person. If there is a problem, find the best way to solve it. Let people in your community understand that they are not a faceless mass for you. Be honest. Hiding any information will cause anger of the crowd, whether it is the removal of comments left by community members or the constantly lagging answers to current questions. Empathize. By putting yourself in their place, you can see the situation from the position of your audience. This will allow you to communicate with them more clearly and sympathetically. Crowdholding is not the most popular content marketing strategy. However, if you have enough courage to organize a similar campaign, your marketing can reach a radically new level. Maybe the future successful development of your company is already ripening in the minds of your customers, and it remains only to get in touch with them and ask the right questions?   We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch via our website. Watch 1-minute Intro video Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

You and many others who go to Crowdholding now are probably - nay, definitely - getting hired today! Did you know that 96% of businesses fail within 10 years? The #1 reason is that businesses are not really in touch with customers through deep dialogue. Crowdholding fills this gap by connecting the crowd with entrepreneurs, allowing you to give feedback and ideas in return for future revenue.   Nowadays, there is a significant abundance of skills and knowledge, and extreme poverty of innovative ideas. You as the customer hold the key to success for every venture and businesses realize they need to have a deep conversation with you to be victorious. What are you going to make out of it? By participating in startup projects you will earn future revenue (Crowdshares), will exercise your skills and expertise as well as give feedback to inspire inventions. Earn future revenue How does it work in practice? Revenue sharing takes various forms and sometimes it is used as a stimulus program - a small business owner may offer a percentage-based reward for your feedback or for referring customers, for example. The practical specifics for each type of revenue sharing method differs, however, the idea behind it is consistent: using profits to co-create and innovate with the crowd in mutually beneficial ways. It has been a popular tool within corporate governance to develop partnerships, improve sales or share costs. When the crowd and companies co-create or promote a product, a revenue-sharing system utilizing Crowdshares as currency is put in place to compensate each entity for their efforts. For example, a small restaurant with 200,000$ annual revenue joins Crowdholding to co-create a new type of burger every month. The restaurant starts with sharing 1% of the 200,000$ revenue with the crowd, that 1% of revenue equals 1,000,000 Crowdshares. In return for your feedback and ideas, you will receive Crowdshares which are distributed by the percentage of votes for each comment. Anyone who gives feedback and gets a vote automatically receives Crowdshares and starts benefiting from the revenue of the restaurant. Practice a skill or expertise Have you wondered where you can practice your skills? A place outside your university or work, where you can put to use all the knowledge gained in those small classrooms. Product and idea innovation should not be seen as something the company does on its own with its proprietary R&D resources, but as an activity, it attempts in collaboration with other stakeholders involved in its ecosystem. You are no more a mere spectator and now have the opportunity to use your skills and expertise to impact every stage of a startup’s lifecycle - in sourcing raw materials, packaging, manufacture, distribution, consumer use - crowdholding involves you in the full experience. Imagine you browse trough startup projects on Crowdholding and then find a bright idea that needs help and it's something that you can do! Apply your knowledge and skills in practice, earning you some Crowdshares (a % of future revenue). Give Feedback If your goal is to build a personal brand, position yourself as a professional and a great thought leader, get involved with startups and get your opinion to be considered as significant. When you collaborate and co-create on Crowdholding, you a acquire a constant self-education and personal brand building tool. A personal brand can be useful to anyone who wants to change the world, to better themselves and others. And...GET HIRED! Crowdholding can also be a place where you connect with a potential future employer and eventually join startups as their first employees. In order to build a reputation on Crowdholding, it is necessary on the one hand, to accumulate “proof of your personal brand” (for example, the number of project awards received, reviews and recommendations and so on) - and, on the other hand, stand out from the crowd by being unique and unusual. One smart thing to ask yourself is: How do you derive value from what companies produce? It’s also an effective way of asking: What influences a company’s business - the product or the customer? We are focused on persuading businesses to rethink their marketing and idea innovation processes because the dynamics of value-creation changed. The key point is that if value-creation is to be effective you need to get involved in a startup’s ecosystem!   We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch via our website. Watch 1-minute Intro video Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Still here? Then you are an explorer wanting to learn more. Say hi to Ben. Ben is a unique brand, one that thinks he is the hero of his time. He is 24 years old, kind of bored and a bit unhappy. Ben's parents raised Ben with a sense of optimism and unlimited possibility. That is what made him wildly ambitious and very interested in economic prosperity. Unlike his parents, Ben is not interested in having a career without feeling satisfaction from the job. And this trend is also supported by Google Ngram Viewer which is an instrument that presents how often a particular phrase appears in English print over time. The graph shows, the trend for "fulfilling career" is growing while the one for "secure career" is declining. And if you are 35 and younger most probably you are similar to Ben.  Young and enthusiastic, motivated to change the world Ben is looking for a challenge that would present him with the recognition and fulfillment he so eagerly desires. During the day he is busy with university getting that BA diploma, but Ben also has Graphic Design skills that he wants to level up. He turned to Crowdholding where startups co-create with the crowd, allowing him to submit design sketches, get feedback on his work and earn future revenue from the project.  Even if your career path is still unclear, it will work out itself  - just dive in Crowdholding to find opportunities for satisfaction and fulfillment.  Crowdholding launches on March 16 2017 and there are 3 things that Ben can do there: 1. Build a personal brand and gain recognition The notion of "personal brand" in many respects echoes the notion of "reputation". It means how other people perceive you as a businessman, representative of an organization or social movement, the bearer of certain ideas. You are a genius? Expert? Can you be trusted? Whom do you represent? What ideas do you support? What thoughts and associations do people have when they hear your name? If you own a personal brand, people will recognize your name, they know what you are working on, what you offer, what your plans are.  2. Develop a network of motivated citizens Joining startup projects and coworking with people that also crave success and economic prosperity. What better way to connect with professionals around the world then directly working with them on a common project. While contributing to a startup project of your choice, you connect with citizens from different backgrounds and enlarge your network with people with whom you have common interests.  3. Get hired and become part of a project that you've supported.  Having troubles connecting with HR representatives or getting your CV through to the right people? Spare yourself this issues by connecting and directly collaborating with startup C-level executives. What easier way to introduce yourself than to show be able to show off your skills in a real environment. If you continuously present good ideas to the table, you will get noticed and contacted by the startups proactively without you having to deal with applications!  We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch through our website or email us at hello@crowdholding.com Learn more about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video.

How co-consumption saves millions Crowdholding discusses how the economy of joint consumption will help in crisis and why, by sharing with others, any extrovert can become richer I got carried away with the idea of ​​co-consumption after watching Rachel Boatswain on TED in 2011. Before that, I heard from acquaintances how they traveled using Couchsurfing, but did not pay attention to it. In Rachel's lecture, everything was described very sensibly: from the point of view and personal interest, and the global view - this is good for the economy, humanity, it is a model of the future economy. For me, the notion of joint consumption was the answer to the question of how to deal with hyper-consumption. Everyone wants the quality of his life to be better so that he gets access to more services and opportunities - but how to do so so that this desire does not destroy nature and society? Sharing economy Girlfriends exchange shoes, dresses, handbags with each other, younger people rent a car from strangers, friends come to visit friends or rent a cottage together. This all is part of joint consumption and the millions of people who deal with it. Today we can talk about projects for joint consumption on the Internet, that this phenomenon goes beyond the boundaries of family and close friends, and begins to work among strangers personally.  Since 2011, the number of projects and people included in the economy of joint consumption has increased. This is also called “sharing economy” (from the word to share). Free space in the car, a spare room, idle equipment or tools, unlimited Wi-Fi network, startup projects - you have already paid for it, and if someone else does this, you will not lose anything. In the list of goods and services that people most often share, leaders are housing (rent, rent out, joint travel), transport (joint trips), food (joint dinners), tools, goods for tourism (joint purchases, rent from private persons), Shared Wi-Fi. Joint consumption is the economy of supply. You have something "superfluous" that you do not use, and you offer it to others. Joint consumption is an economy of abundance instead of an economy of insufficiency. All commercial advertising is built on one principle: it inspires us that something is missing (health, beauty, rest, luxury, freedom), and then offers goods to compensate for this insufficiency. The joint consumption is completely different: you understand that you have something superfluous, and you share this. From this you feel freer, happier, feel prosperity. Against the whole world   Now it is already impossible to say exactly what happened before - whether the trend of sharing started itself or companies triggered this trend. Discussions about this are similar to the age-old theme of the primacy of eggs or chicken. Another important thing here is that the trend is growing so rapidly that it causes serious fears on the part of many "traditionalists". "The level of aggressive competition among online services depends on how such a network is organized. If prices are always in sight, competition is stimulated, and then it reaches a negative level. But the competition should be focused on eliminating the intermediary. This is the essence of such services. Many people can lose their jobs because of this - by the example of Uber, against which the taxi drivers are on strike, we are already convinced of this. Agencies lose, drivers and passengers, on the contrary, win, "- says Justin Varilek. Maurice Levy, head of the media group of Publicis, in an interview for the Financial Times, said that "everyone began to be afraid of becoming assured." The thing is that before the mass verification for companies the greatest risk was companies that offered better service at a lower price. Now companies are afraid of newcomers, start-ups, realized by smart madmen with their new business models, free from outdated views on business. Last year, IBM conducted a study, "Pushing the boundaries: the results of a global survey of senior executives," which showed that one of the most common fears for company CEOs remains "verification," which destabilizes a particular industry due to the emergence of an "unobvious" competitor. "My policy is the systematic destruction of corporations. And, yes, I'm for super efficiency. I need maximum business activity at minimum prices, "Travis Kalanik said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. Apparently, the old orders will long resist progress, while their bonuses will be given to pioneers who decided to choose an uber model for their business. Of course, one can not argue that traditional business will completely withdraw from the market. Rather, it will be said that it is transformed by under the pressure of companies with an innovative business idea. Even if there are two employees in such a company. The "traditionalists" will have clients who will feel much safer at the expense of the long-established service system. We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch through our website or email us at hello@crowdholding.com Learn more about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

Any business needs a good customer base. Therefore, entrepreneurs are constantly trying various types of advertising and marketing ploys to attract new customers. But in the conditions of severe competition known methods may not be enough. Crowdholding offers a selection of effective, but not yet so popular, ways to connect with the crowd and grab their attention. Method # 1: Gamification Stimulating consumer behavior through social networks, mobile applications are good as it allows to "lure" new customers, causing positive emotions. So Alexander Golovin, the co-founder of the service for the BalaLIKEa gaming, believes: "All the existing methods of attracting customers can be called" frontal. " Different loyalty programs do not involve customers but appeal only to the monetization component. Gamification includes the emotional component. Different games increase the excitement. " Alexander Golovin gives a vivid example - an application that, say, suggests guessing three times in a row the designer of a dress, but for the fourth time it gives the user the opportunity to get a discount or a certain rank rather than a discount. In his opinion, such a game can only strengthen the customer's interest in the product. Sometimes gamification is used to promote a product and attract attention to it, carrying not only an emotional but also a "utilitarian" component. For example, the creators of the emailga.me service resort to gaming elements to make the user work more efficiently with e-mail, thereby helping him to monitor performance. The game is strictly limited time to respond to an incoming email. A person receives rewards if he can do everything on time. Method # 2: Crowdholding “Customer is always right”. This is probably the most common quotation taught to business students and that’s true. The customer is ultimate reality of any business. If a business remains in a customer-less state, owners might have to shift towards jobs to earn their bread and butter. Crowdholding supports entrepreneurs and does not allow them to fail by connecting them directly to potential customers to co-create the best products.  Keeping in view this importance of customers, many organizations are practicing a relatively new concept of marketing known as “Co-creation”. According to this concept, both customer and organization work with collaboration with one another.  Co-creation is in practice since early 90’s. But it got its fame when big organizations like Starbucks, Dell, and McDonald’s applied this to their marketing strategies. Furthermore, small organizations are also moving towards this marketing tactic to grab a large chunk of the market. Some startups have already joined Crowdholding co-create with their customers and raise awareness about their product without spending a marketing budget. A blank label is a big organization but earlier in its starting dates, it allowed a full customization option to its customers. Men can customize everything from color to fabric according to their desire. So this co-creation is capable enough to promise small organizations a long and successful future. These days organizations are paying a huge amount of attention towards co-creation. Organizations like Nikon are surviving on the basis of co-creation. According to the Global marketing manager of Nikon, they use to arrange such kind of photographic competitions where they invite photographers from all over the world to demonstrate their masterpieces. This is all a tactic for the promotion of the organization and to give a positive impression to their consumers that they are highly important for them.  Try engaging the customers in such kind of activities to gain more sales and market. Practicing the concept of co-creation at its level best. Lastly, keep in mind that co-creation is nothing without proper promotions, innovative ideas, and efficient human resource. Method # 3: Storytelling  Alexander Yanibash, a business coach, an expert in the field of preparing public speeches and storytelling, advises making a slide presentation, not in the form of an analytical document, but with elements of storytelling. "Illustrate the life of a character. Let it be similar to your client so that the client could see himself in it, - Janibash gives as an example - The character will face some problems, but at the culmination moment your company will come to the rescue and solve these problems with the help of a product or service! The same approach can be used in advertising communications, and in a network presentation. " One example of a successful presentation is You Are NOT Your Idea We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch through our website or email us at hello@crowdholding.com Learn more about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

In any government, citizens are involved in one or another way. Citizen engagement can be individual or in a group, focusing on humanitarian issues at any level related to its participation (directly or indirectly) in the development, adoption, and implementation of policy decisions or courses. Crowdholding wants you to understand what active citizen engagement is about and how it can be useful for you.  Citizen Engagement should meet the following conditions: There must be a specific political act, including verbal expression;   Participation, with rare exceptions, should be voluntary;   Engagement should not be of fictitious nature in the presence of a real choice or an alternative.   Government alone are not responsible for the development of any nation or society. Engagement of the public in governmental issues is an essential part of running a fruitful and efficient society.  Types of citizen engagement: Legitimate (elections, rallies, and demonstrations coordinated with the authorities, etc.) and illegitimate (civil disobedience, terrorism, insurrection, coup);   Institutionalized (voting, participation in party activities) and non-institutionalized (mass unrest, unrecognized groups with political goals, etc.);   Local (involving citizens in solving local problems) and nationwide (participation nationwide).   The political regime has a significant influence on the type of citizen engagement. For democratic countries, autonomous political participation is characteristic. It is based on voluntary actions and goal-oriented motivation, which is supported by developed ideas about politics. Under the totalitarian regime, mobilized participation takes place, symbolically involving the masses in political actions that imitate public support. It is achieved through manipulation or non-political motivation through coercion, violence, fear, economic and other sanctions. Types of political participation can be direct, expressed by the direct actions of the individual, and indirect, involving citizens in politics through the activities of various groups, organizations, structures.   There are different levels of political activity of the individual: 1) A citizen with little political influence and activity. He lacks a steady interest in politics (sometimes it comes to anti-politically). In this case, the person can only be an object of politics. 2) A citizen is a member of a public organization ( a group of interests) or a participant in the social movement. Inclusion in politics here is mediated by an organization. 3) A citizen is a member of a political organization (party, political union, etc.). Personality voluntarily and purposefully engaged in politics. This is a type of political activist. 4) Social and political figure. Writers, scientists, and artists because of their popularity are drawn into official politics as its adherents or opponents. 5) Professional politician. For such a person, politics is the main and only activity outside of which she does not represent herself. 6) Political leader, i.e. Organizational, ideological, formal (informal) leader. Among the forms of political activity in democratic countries, electoral behavior takes a special place. The voters' preferences are influenced by a number of factors: gender, age, social origin, confession, socialization, etc. Recently, protests as citizen engagement have acquired special significance. Political protests are an open demonstration of a negative attitude towards the political system as a whole, its individual elements, norms, values, and decisions. It happens: Conventional (legal) - rallies, demonstrations, strikes, pickets, marches, etc .;   Unconventional (illegal) - demonstrations, rallies, illegal underground political parties, political terrorism (killing politicians, kidnappings, threats, blackmail, explosions, taking hostages, buildings and organizations, provoking armed clashes, etc.) unauthorized by the authorities. ).   Most often, political protest takes place where there are ineffective strategies and technologies for exercising power. The subject has a state of discontent as a result of the discrepancy between the real (or estimated) and the expected state, which is called deprivation. When such discrepancy becomes excessive, the subject becomes motivated to participate in protest actions. In other words, the level of dissatisfaction affects the predisposition to participate in protest activities of citizen engagement. Most citizens do not have a real opportunity for permanent participation in politics. In addition, politics for many is not intrinsically attractive. For such people, politics is the sphere of ejection of negative emotions, social overexcitation, personality crisis, which provokes illegitimate forms of behavior (terrorism, corruption, etc.). They can evade participation in political life, lose interest in politics. This phenomenon is called absenteeism. One can single out the following factors that determine the individual's refusal to engage in political activity: Personal success in another area   Feeling of incompleteness   Lack of confidence and being shy   Misalignment with social groups   Socially-political factors    The growth of protests & absenteeism is an evidence of the crisis of the political system, its norms and values. Be an active citizen and collaborate with crowdholding.com to build a better tomorrow.  We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch through our website or email us at hello@crowdholding.com Learn more about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

Citizen Engagement In any government, citizens are involved in one or another way. Citizen engagement can be individual or in a group, focusing on humanitarian issues at any level related to its participation (directly or indirectly) in the development, adoption, and implementation of policy decisions or courses. Crowdholding wants you to understand what active citizen engagement is about and how it can be useful for you. Citizen Engagement should meet the following conditions: There must be a specific political act, including verbal expression; Participation, with rare exceptions, should be voluntary; Engagement should not be of fictitious nature in the presence of a real choice or an alternative. Government alone are not responsible for the development of any nation or society. Engagement of the public in governmental issues is an essential part of running a fruitful and efficient society. Types of citizen engagement: Legitimate (elections, rallies, and demonstrations coordinated with the authorities, etc.) and illegitimate (civil disobedience, terrorism, insurrection, coup); Institutionalized (voting, participation in party activities) and non-institutionalized (mass unrest, unrecognized groups with political goals, etc.); Local (involving citizens in solving local problems) and nationwide (participation nationwide). The political regime has a significant influence on the type of citizen engagement. For democratic countries, autonomous political participation is characteristic. It is based on voluntary actions and goal-oriented motivation, which is supported by developed ideas about politics. Under the totalitarian regime, mobilized participation takes place, symbolically involving the masses in political actions that imitate public support. It is achieved through manipulation or non-political motivation through coercion, violence, fear, economic and other sanctions. Types of political participation can be direct, expressed by the direct actions of the individual, and indirect, involving citizens in politics through the activities of various groups, organizations, structures. There are different levels of political activity of the individual: 1) A citizen with little political influence and activity. He lacks a steady interest in politics (sometimes it comes to anti-politically). In this case, the person can only be an object of politics. 2) A citizen is a member of a public organization ( a group of interests) or a participant in the social movement. Inclusion in politics here is mediated by an organization. 3) A citizen is a member of a political organization (party, political union, etc.). Personality voluntarily and purposefully engaged in politics. This is a type of political activist. 4) Social and political figure. Writers, scientists, and artists because of their popularity are drawn into official politics as its adherents or opponents. 5) Professional politician. For such a person, politics is the main and only activity outside of which she does not represent herself. 6) Political leader, i.e. Organizational, ideological, formal (informal) leader. Among the forms of political activity in democratic countries, electoral behavior takes a special place. The voters' preferences are influenced by a number of factors: gender, age, social origin, confession, socialization, etc. Recently, protests as citizen engagement have acquired special significance. Political protests are an open demonstration of a negative attitude towards the political system as a whole, its individual elements, norms, values, and decisions. It happens: Conventional (legal) - rallies, demonstrations, strikes, pickets, marches, etc .; Unconventional (illegal) - demonstrations, rallies, illegal underground political parties, political terrorism (killing politicians, kidnappings, threats, blackmail, explosions, taking hostages, buildings and organizations, provoking armed clashes, etc.) unauthorized by the authorities. ). Most often, political protest takes place where there are ineffective strategies and technologies for exercising power. The subject has a state of discontent as a result of the discrepancy between the real (or estimated) and the expected state, which is called deprivation. When such discrepancy becomes excessive, the subject becomes motivated to participate in protest actions. In other words, the level of dissatisfaction affects the predisposition to participate in protest activities of citizen engagement. Most citizens do not have a real opportunity for permanent participation in politics. In addition, politics for many is not intrinsically attractive. For such people, politics is the sphere of ejection of negative emotions, social overexcitation, personality crisis, which provokes illegitimate forms of behavior (terrorism, corruption, etc.). They can evade participation in political life, lose interest in politics. This phenomenon is called absenteeism. One can single out the following factors that determine the individual's refusal to engage in political activity: Personal success in another area Feeling of incompleteness Lack of confidence and being shy Misalignment with social groups Socially-political factors The growth of protests & absenteeism is an evidence of the crisis of the political system, its norms and values. Be an active citizen and collaborate with crowdholding.com to build a better tomorrow. We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch through our website or email us at hello@crowdholding.com Learn more about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video.

You can shape how the future wealth is distributed and what products or services are created. Dedicating as much time as you want to post surveys and start discussions ranging from basic tasks to solving complex problems. Then vote on community comments to promote interesting solutions or ideas thus allowing the project creator to go forward with the crowd’s best (most upvoted) proposition. In 10,080 minutes from now or on March 16th, 2017, Crowdholding will make the first step in the thousand mile journey towards bringing consumers closer to brands.  Join Crowdholding and disrupt the economy and how the corporate world currently conducts business. 🐻

Imagine the year 2020...Martians a.k.a humans covered in cooling gel and wearing Kevlar suits on the surface of Mars. This would not have been possible without the cooling gel invented by three young entrepreneurial minds back in 2017. An innovative gel solution that can protect the human body from drastic temperature changes and increased cosmic radiation. Reaching a mind-blowing success in such a short time span, however was not achieved all by themselves. They received help from the crowd who solved their problems and generated ideas while in return receiving a cut of their profits from selling the cooling gel.  The previous would have been one of the many success stories that resulted from Crowdholding, a startup created by young people with a vision for an economy where companies and the crowd co-create products and services, allowing the public to give ideas and feedback for future revenue.   You can shape how the future wealth is distributed and what products or services are created. Dedicating as much time as you want to post surveys and start discussions ranging from basic tasks to solving complex problems. Then vote on community comments to promote interesting solutions or ideas thus allowing the project creator to go forward with the crowd’s best (most upvoted) proposition. In 10,080 minutes from now or on March 16th 2017, Crowdholding will make the first step in the thousand mile journey towards bringing consumers closer to brands.  Join Crowdholding and disrupt the economy and how the corporate world currently conducts business.

Lack of money and entrepreneurship go hand in hand. There are many entrepreneurs and small companies who have great ideas that they want to implement but the issue they face is the lack of investment. You can raise capital and preserve equity on Crowdholding. Entrepreneurs do not have enough money to invest in their company but on the other hand they also do not want to hand over the control of the company to the one who considers the investment in their company So, in this article we are going to share you some ways through which you can raise capital and also preserve the control of the company. Check out the alternative finance options below: Better to bootstrap  New businesses raise funds at various stages and more than once in its lifetime. At an early stage or for smaller sums, it may be savvier to go the bootstrapping way. Bootstrappers, or business visionaries who subsidize their drive with their investment funds, can concentrate totally on their market strategy as opposed to redirecting endeavors on gathering pledges.  The source of funds that best suits your necessities will be controlled by the stage your startup is in, the related industry it operates in and the amount required for it to make the following stride. Try not to raise too little or too much of assets. Whatever be the situation, guarantee that you gain ground before you raise capital. Research, research, and research  Small businesses must continue to keep on searching for the best investors for their companies. Entrepreneurs might have to face some sleepless night because of the investors as they have to struggle hard to raise profit as to give the return to the investors for the money they have invested. Entrepreneurs must keep on finding investors that share your vision for the company. Another thing to keep in mind is even if the investor says yes, it never means he will invest. Do not stop looking to arrange meetings with more and more investors. You need to have many options on hand before you commit.  Double class possessions  A dual class possession structure can likewise be helpful to hold proprietorship. Consider having and owning an alternate class of shares that have numerous votes to each vote of the regular shares. This super voting offer ought to never be given to the speculators. When negotiating about voting rights, push for the privilege of first refusal of value to hold voting power.  Crowdholding is a great platform as it helps entrepreneurs raise funds without loss of control. Non-equity crowdfunding is also the techniques through which companies can acquire an investment for their small businesses.  SBA (Small business administration) offers many programs through which they tend to help entrepreneurs and small companies to make their ideas happen. SBA loans are provided on easy terms and conditions.  Invoice Financing and Crowdfunding are also the techniques through which the companies can find an investment. Reward-based Crowdfunding is one of the most popular ways to raise capital through many popular websites.  We hope that this article that helped you to know about how to raise capital while not handling the control of your business. Alternative finance options and non-equity crowdfunding are important topics to comprehend before looking for early-stage investors.  We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch through our website or email us at hello@crowdholding.com Learn more about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

The generation of the new millennium (so-called millennial shoppers - millennials), people aged 14 to 35, without a doubt, today are one of the most valuable and sought-after target groups in the field of commerce. Crowdholding is a great place to connect with Millennials as average crowdholder’s age is between 18 to 34 and they are also risk-takers, innovators, and co-creators.  Despite the fact that this group is only 27% of the total population of the world (as of August 2014), it has a strong consumer potential. In monetary terms, it is possible to express the amount of $600 billion annually spent on the purchase of certain goods and services. By 2020, this generation will be about half of the US working-age population and will reach 75% in 2025. It is obvious that the first business that pays attention to this category of buyers will success. However, only half of all traders use demographic targeting (ie divide all of their customers by age group) and optimize the complex marketing activities for each of the groups. Begin this work right now, and you will leave its competitors far behind. How? Read below. 1. No matter what you sell, sell it online Being online today is not just fashionable. It is also really beneficial. According to studies, 40% of men admit millennials could buy everything they need on the Internet. Among women millennials, this percentage is slightly lower (33%), but the results speak for themselves: the representatives of the group share they feel comfortable in the environment of online and are willing to spend money there. It would seem that this social demand should be an adequate response on the part of a business, but only 50.5% of firms have are on the Internet:   50.5% - have an Internet presence, 31,2% - are not present in the network, 11,8% - are exploring the benefits online, 7.5% - representation are under development. What about the others? Carrying out research in this area, engaging in the creation of resources or opportunities for growth. If you have a Landing page or online store, you already outcompete half the competitors and apply a much more successful strategy when working with millennials. If you have still no Landing page or website through which you could collect orders, you should know that certain product groups sell much better through traditional offline points: it's drugs (91%), furniture (81%), shoes (76%), jewelry (62%), clothing (74%), daily use products (62%). Even if you are selling goods in this category, you still should not put an end to online distribution. Think strategically: Build Internet representation, in addition to your offline store. 2. Streamline the buying process for any device Millennials distinguish from other age groups fairly easy: according to research, they do not limit themselves to the selection of gadgets for everyday use (30% of them use 4 or more different devices per day). Of course, smartphones are the most popular handheld device as people turn to their devices an average of 34 times per day. But even more interesting and important is the fact that 52% of respondents described that representatives of the group are actively using mobile devices while shopping on the Internet. That said, you can easily make two obvious conclusions: 1. It is necessary to optimize the shopping experience for mobile devices This means that you need to use only the big picture, configure user-friendly interface (for example, to introduce large buttons that are easy to click on mobile devices), provide high-speed loading web pages, etc. 2. The process of registration of purchase must also be optimized for all kinds of devices The traditional long-lead form simply does not fit into a whole new user experience. For customers who place orders via a mobile device is to be found another, more convenient solution. Internet publication Smashing Magazine in one of his articles drew attention to the differences between the optimized order form (left) and conventional (right). According to the data of the search engine Yahoo!, most online retailers (ie - 88%) do not optimize the purchase process for customers' experience working with the website through a mobile device. If you are looking to grow your business, you have probably realized that this fact will work for you if you prefer to optimize Web resources immediately. This will be an excellent chance to draw attention millennials on his side. 3. Aim the social trend in your direction What do you think, what is the simplest and most effective way to convince millennials to buy something from you? Do not rush to answer. It is important to understand that the technologies and techniques that produce results with representatives of the older generation, will now not work, or will work, but not with the desired effect. For example, Yahoo! mentioned in the same report that for 68% of millennials advertising would no longer give the expected results. There is no need to invest in two-step communication plans, but be out there, and it's - the output of your company in the social space. Join Crowdholding to collect a community of brand advocates and initiate a more creative approach to market to Millennials. This generation exhibits a high degree of confidence in the recommendations and reviews of other people (the so-called social proof - social proof). Social networks - a place where millennials spend a lot of time, and the fact that when choosing a product 66% of which is guided by the advice of friends and acquaintances in social media, is no surprise. In addition, 93% millennials already made purchases on the advice of friends, and 89% believe such advice and recommendations of more than statements of the brand. In turn, millennials are ready to give advice and to write these recommendations. The crowd actively participates in co-creating products with businesses on Crowdholding. According to research 59%, millennials share their impressions from buying in the social media, while 41% of them use social networks just for this. 4. Reposition your content marketing on millennials Content marketing - is a profitable and highly effective way to let them know millennials about their company and its products. According to surveys, 85% millennials before becoming a client of a firm, conducted a small preliminary study: a user collects information about the company and its products, meets customer reviews and online surveys. The information that is available on the official website of the company, are also subject to scrutiny. Consequently, the content that you post on the pages of his corporate blog, is extremely important. But it is important not only to image-information and news chronicle of all possible discounts and sales, a new line of products, etc. Do not forget that as submitted your content. millennials appreciate the information that is clearly set out and does not require additional decoding. Optimizing content for different devices is also important. Even if you are absolutely sure that the information that you have, demanded by your target audience, please note that buyers prefer to choose the channel of communication with you, which will consider the most appropriate. 5. Plan activities for the formation of loyalty to your company Discount coupons, perhaps, can be attributed to the few technologies "old school" marketing loyal, who very well able to adapt to the realities of today's business. And if you think to build a loyal customer base priority (which is necessary for the business of any level and category), you can use this tool. You can also offer Crowdshares (% of future revenue) to gather a community of brand advocates and then reward them for their loyalty.  The fact that millennials, according to authoritative online marketing resource PracticalEcommerce, do not miss a single opportunity to bargain and save money. When you give them that opportunity, that is, playing on their greed, then definitely it attracts attention to your company. Just look at the following figures: 63% millennials ready to register on the company's website, or perform any other action to receive a coupon code.   Discount of 20% is enough to convince half of all visitors to visit the point of sale.   23% of consumers react only on coupons with 50% discount, and 17% would welcome any figure with the sign "minus".   A similar situation is observed with the ratio millennials various loyalty programs: 84% of customers are willing to go on the websites of companies that implement programs to increase loyalty.   75% of customers will prefer the company that provides discounts in real-time while shopping with smartphones.   millennials 73% are ready to participate in various loyalty programs from their mobile devices.   Note: a few online retailers offer coupons and carry out actions increase online loyalty. Take this opportunity and if you pay attention to a very important target group. Conclusion Millennials - an important segment of buyers in the modern business space. And if you want to establish contact with them, then you need to learn to speak the same language. We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch through our website or email us at hello@crowdholding.com Learn more about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

Luck is often not on the side of the company that has decided to launch a new product or service. Studies show that between 65% and 75% of new proposals are far from successful. Crowdholding solves this by connecting the crowd with businesses in the initial stages of product research & development.  Losses from such statistics are HUGE:. In the US alone in 2010, they amounted to $260 billion, according to Professor Rob Adams (Rob Adams) from the University of Texas. However, these figures should not scare you, when you know the four major pitfalls you can evade to avoid failure. 1. Shock therapy, which does not help too complex productс If the product is too many "bells and whistles", it would seem quite complex. It is quite possible that customers will not want to use the new functions or to pay for them. It is worth remembering that the functional complexity increases the cost of goods, and the price, as a result, can rise up to heaven. Recall Fire Phone smartphone that the company introduced the Amazon in 2014. As the largest online retailer, Amazon has increased their annual income to $100 billion over 20 years (which is 30% more than the figures of the world's largest retailer Walmart). Amazon successfully sells a bundle of products, such as the Amazon Kindle e-book reader, etc. Only the Fire Phone was not included in their number. Assuming that this product has to compete with the most advanced offerings, developers have stuffed it with completely unnecessary features. One of them - "dynamic perspective": Pseudo-3D, allowing different content to be visible on the screen depending on the angle of view. However, this effect did not impress consumers as the associated increased battery consumption is clearly a disappointment. Another fly in the ointment is the very limited application ecosystem. If the Fire Phone offer was initially priced at $199 with a service contract or $649 without a contract, in October 2014 the price quickly dropped to 99 cents (!) For the version with the contract AT&T and $450 without a contract. But even this move did not save the smartphone complete fiasco. A set of many other products also failed in the market. This occurs most often in cases where the development team pays attention only to their offspring and forgets about the clients. To avoid this error, you need to remember the careful segmentation of the customer base (and forget about the traditional demographic targeting). Crowdholding connects the customers with businesses, allowing companies to pay attention to what version of the product can be offered to different groups of customers, whether each group is willing to pay for it and what are the expectations of consumers.  2. Minimalism, which is not justified: low expectations The second error is based on the fact that products are created by developers who do not understand how to value their proposals. When it turns out that the product has been underestimated, and customers are willing to pay for it more. In 2003 the company presented a new Playmobil toy - a “Noah's Ark” (Noah's Ark play). The toy was sold out in two months. At that time it was possible to buy the game on Ebay for 33% more than the original price tag. Another example of this error was the luxury SUV Audi Q7, launched in 2006 at the price of €55 000. The Audi was planning to sell 70,000 units, but in the first year, the demand was about 80 000. The demand curve clearly indicates that the vehicle must have been priced at €58 000, which would have brought in an additional income of €210 million. In addition to the obvious signs like a deficit of goods, what are ways to learn that you have fallen into this trap? Think about it, if only one sales team could easily fulfill the plan for the implementation of a new product. You can experiment with the price and it is quite possible you will get additional income, which was hiding behind this error. 3. Hidden Treasures: products that can not be started This is the case when products are inspired by the brilliant ideas which are of value to the target audience but are not recognized by senior management. This is often resulting from insufficient communication between the company and customers. Crowdholding does not allow companies to overlook products wanted by the crowd. By connecting the public with companies to co-create, businesses will no longer miss out on such opportunities.  One of the most famous "treasures" concealed by Kodak. In the distant 1970s, a young engineer Steven Sasson (Steven Sasson) invented the original technology underlying the digital camera. However, Kodak «hatched" this discovery for 21 years, as a result, lost a significant market share. Meanwhile, today the digital camera is in every smartphone, and the company declared bankruptcy. Hidden treasures are found in today's business almost as often as the first two errors. Top management is blocking them, because of being afraid to lose reputation or not understand the market potential. There are several conditions that help to discover hidden treasures. This occurs most often during the changes and reorganization of the company. For example, when adjusting the business model, the transition from offline to online sales, from analog to digital products or from hardware to software. It is necessary to consider every opportunity which came to light during these changes. Otherwise, your "treasure" will be presented by competitors. 4. Walking Dead In science fiction, those who have already died and then came back to life are called zombies. However, these creatures live in the world of business. Zombies - those products that "died" after entering the market or have been released already dead. This is a response to a question that no one asks or a wrong answer to the actual question. Segway as a form of personal transport - one of the most famous zombie products. In the first year (2001) have been sold far less than the 50,000 units sold (this figure predicted by its inventor). Segway though is an attractive way to travel on the sidewalk, but its price is too high - from $ 3000 to $ 7000. Google Glass is also an example of a zombie product. The headset is made in the form of conventional glasses, it was intended to be a smartphone in a new guise. The product appeared on the market in 2012, worth $1500 and answered a question, which none of the customers asked. In 2015, Google announced the end of sales of the gadget. Sometimes companies and innovators are so focused on their designs that create a new reality, not taking into account the laws of the market. Zombie-products appear in cases where developers overestimate their attractiveness for customers and segment the customer base. If they take into account the opinion of customers and their (un) willingness to pay for the product at the beginning of the development process, it could be time to correct course, to change the price or even give up the idea before you invest a lot of time and resources into it. That is exactly what Crowdholding is doing by connecting the crowd and businesses at the initial stages of product research & development.  How to avoid mistakes? The most important aspect in the development of a new product is to discuss pricing policy involving target customers long before the moment when the team begins to prepare technical plans. These discussions must focus on the precise definition of the functions that customers really care about, and the price they are willing to pay. Ironically, 80% of companies do not include such discussion in its business practices in the early stages of product development. It was found out during a survey conducted in 2014, involving 1,600 companies in more than 40 countries around the world. In fact, they are just developing a product, releasing it to the market, while the price is adhered to the end of the process, unaware if it is worth the effort and whether customers will pay. These companies are looking to monetize an idea without any real evidence that this is possible. This is the best recipe for failure, and this is the reason for the failure of two-thirds of new products.  Have you got something to add to our story? We, at Crowdholding, are happy to hear your feedback. Learn about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

The biggest challenge which an organization always come across is a lack of resources. The most important resource which an organization requires is Human Resource. As a business, you can connect with potential candidates on Crowdholding, see them in action and after make the most informed hiring decision.  Competent, Problem solving and efficient human resource is the basic requirement of every sort of business. No matter is it a sole proprietorship or a company. On the other hand, the recruitment of efficient human resource is also a very important and sensitive job. When an employee is hired, it is expected to tell him almost every single detail of his department, so if the exact human resource will not be hired, than it may hurt the organization or the secrets of a company might get leaked.  Modern HR practices suggest that recruitment of employees for a smaller organization is equally important to the bigger organizations. HR experts are of the opinion that recruitment of employees for small organizations is an even difficult task as compared to the well-established organizations. The reason is those small organizations can’t take risk of any kind of mismanagement from any employee. It can’t afford any kind of loss. They don’t want to incur recruitment cost again and again. Crowdholding minimizes hiring costs by allowing you to pre-assess and work with candidates before an actual hire is done. If Crowdholding does not seem like the right option, there are certain things and tips which an HR manager need to have in mind while recruiting any person for the organization.  The 1st thing an HR manager need to keep in mind is that he must need to define the job requirements. He must need to be clear about the job requirements, so that advertisement about the vacancy could be communicated to the audience in a compelling way. Next while conducting interviews, the HR executive of the company need to make sure that he must analyze all the answers of the applicant in accordance and requirement of the job. One major problem which HR managers of small organizations faces is that it is difficult to find the person who is compatible with the organizational environment, rather than been competent for the job. So, after screening all the applicants, the most compatible and competent person is hired. But nowadays, there’s a trend spreading in small organizations that they use to hire people on a probation period. The organizational managers use to analyze the performance of that employee throughout probation period. If the performance is satisfactory, the employee has been offered a full-time job. Furthermore, companies use to hire internees for such purposes at very low salaries. But once that intern completes his degree or diploma, he’s been offered a full-time job. Another method which companies use to acquire while hiring any person is that they outsource the recruitment process to different recruitment agencies like Adecco, Randstad and likewise. So there are different steps available for an HR manager to follow while recruiting any employee. The World is progressing at a drastic pace. Businesses are becoming tough and competitive. It’s not easy for organizations to survive the modern cruelty of business without acquiring the best human resource available in the market. So all of the above-mentioned methods and techniques been practiced nowadays are a better choices for HR managers to acquire so that they can give their best to their organization.  We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch through our website or email us at hello@crowdholding.com Learn more about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

Internet Technology has enabled everyone to access every kind of information with just one click. Earlier it was not an easy job to do monetary transactions from one back to another or from one part of the world to another. However, using Software technologies and Internet Technology, with the help one single click, money can be transferred and collected within a minute. One such currency is Crowdshare offered to the crowd in exchange for their ideas and feedback.  Nowadays people have started businesses using internet technology. The e-commerce industry is progressing at a rapid pace. Ebay, Amazon.com and likewise are the biggest example of this kind of business. So a business can’t be done without monetary transactions and if someone is doing e-commerce-based business then how will he do monetary transactions? One method is to use an intermediate financial institute like any Bank. Another method which is very common nowadays is using bitcoins. Bitcoins are also known as Internet money or digital money. Crowdshare has its conversion rate. Once the crowd share is entered, it will convert to its exchange rate with a dollar and then from a dollar to the currency of the individual receiving that money. So digital experts have devised a term for crowd share and such kind of things, known as Crowd Currencies. Sharing economy is a term which is used to describe a situation where one can access and use the shared human resources without conducting monetary transactions. Still sharing economy model don’t bound the monetary transactions. Keeping this in view, the concept of crowd currencies has been evolved. Crowd currencies are also one of the applications of this concept of sharing economy. The reason is that bitcoin technology can be accessed by anybody working on any online platform. Banks and other financial institutes also facilitate the transaction of bitcoins. The process is very simple, the person who want to deal in bitcoins on any e-commerce platform. He just needs to purchase bitcoins at an exchange rate of dollars using his bank account. After that those bitcoins can be used to do shopping on the internet. Such kind of facilities has been termed as Initial Coin Offering (ICO) by internet economy experts.  Let’s have a look at some of the advantages which ICO, bitcoin and crowdshare system provides. The 1st and foremost benefit which it provides is that it allows you to generate the required finance for any new project. It is easy to transact the money from the stakeholders working in a different locality, by using Bitcoin. Next, this is very helpful for those businesses which are small or starting their ventures. Crowdshare system in Crowdholding allows them to reach their target customers directly. These startups can promote their online businesses and ultimately it will help to reach the customers and customers might use it to buy the products.  One disadvantage which has been faced by ICO is that lack of trust. Generally, the e-commerce businesses have been facing the problem of trust. Customers want to spend a big amount of money on a product which they can feel and see in front of his eyes. So the customer may get reluctant to purchase and use ICO, bitcoin or crowdshares. ICO, bitcoins, and crowdshares are modernized form of currencies. They have been used all over the world, particularly on online forums. Still, it needs some time to capture the entire market because a customer is the ultimate reality of any business. The trends may get change at any moment, so this industry must be ready to face any kind of change in trends, mind, and hearts of customers. We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch through our website or email us at hello@crowdholding.com Learn more about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

Teamwork is probably the most common practice which we see at different phases of our life at different occasions. No matter if you are working in an office on a deal, working on your university project, managing any event and likewise, everywhere you need a perfect team to carry out that work. Gather or join a team on Crowdholding and collaborate with people just like you.  Even at your home, you need a collaborated effort with your family to run your home in an efficient manner. So when a group of people works together to carry out any project while collaborating with one another is known as Team Collaboration. Life is full of ups and downs and at any stage of the project, a team member might face any personal trouble, then it will affect the efficiency of the project. Thus considering such kind of difficulties, business experts devised out a new concept known as Mass Collaboration. According to it, a project is divided into its modules and bits of each module are assigned to different team members who work independently. Information Technology has opened barriers of communication which were faced people a few decades ago. Furthermore, internet technology is a big advancement in this industry. Nowadays, there are several websites and software are available which can be used as a medium of communication. Skype, Facebook, WhatsApp are all examples of mediums of communication. Nowadays, in corporate sectors, usage of such software has increased to a great extent. These mediums are used for virtual communication by team members to collaborate with one another. Inter-organizational, inter-departmental and inter-team communication used another name in their jargons list to name these tools which are Collaboration Tools.  Mass collaboration is different from the old organizational concept of Mass cooperation where it was essential of all teammates to gather at one single place to carry out any project. On the other hand, modern day organizations have started to inject the concept of Mass collaboration. Its purpose is to empower their marketing personals. For example, joining crowdholding with an idea for the new product line and collaborating with the crowd to co-create it. Furthermore, by following Mass collaboration marketing company of the consumer goods is allowing their employees to keenly analyze and to eradicate all those processes which are reducing the efficiency of the organization. So this will allow the organization to be more innovative and ultimately will increase the sales of the organization. The business potential of mass collaboration is increasing day by day because of the efficiency it provides to the employees. The employees manage their time for online communication but after that, they use to do work according to their spare time. The concept of Freelancing has also arrived from the concept of Mass collaboration. Nowadays, a freelancing industry is growing at an enormous pace. Students & professionals are earning a lot of money through freelancing. And on Crowdholding, they can now also get a gig or work part-time on revolutionary startups. Rather a majority of the people have started their part-time business through Freelancing platforms.  The concept of Mass collaboration is a great development in the business world. Collaboration tools usage has also increased. This collaboration has opened the doors of many other business ideas. Mass collaboration is the need of the hour for the modern day organizations who needs to collaborate among their branches at different locations.  We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch through our website or email us at hello@crowdholding.com Learn more about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

It is very important to know about the details of alternative finance options so that they can find the right option for the investment in their company. There are many financial terms that the common man must understand to get the maximum benefit out of his small company. In this Crowdholding article, we are going to tell you about some of the major alternative finance options that are equity based sharing and crowd share crowdfunding.  In general, equity means that the company or startup provides shares of ownership to the investor in having a deal with him that he will invest the money in your firm. While on the other hand, the Crowdshare or revenue based sharing is also done. In this type of investment, the investor does not get any ownership right of the company but he is involved in sharing operating profits. This is done as a deal on return on investment.  Having huge capital resources is the basic need of the startups and similarly, they also do not want to waive their ownership rights at any cost. In such circumstances, the revenue sharing investment deal is the best alternative to get the financing for the company to meet the needs. The revenue sharing program never demands to be dependent on investors nor it risks the personal assets as collateral that is often done while taking loans.  Crowdfunding is the act of subsidizing a venture or wander by raising money from a large number of people. Crowdfunding is a type of crowdsourcing and of alternative finance. In 2015, it was evaluated that worldwide over US$34 billion was raised this way. In spite of the fact that the idea can likewise be executed through benefit event,  mail-order subscriptions, and different strategies, it is currently frequently performed by means of Internet-intervened registries. This advanced crowdfunding model is by and large in view of three types. These three types include the groups or individuals who support the idea, the project initiator that is the one who has initiated the project and the third one is the moderating organization that provides a platform through which the two parties can have a deal.  Further, the crowdfunding is also divided into equity-based crowdfunding and nonequity based crowd funding. The equity crowdfunding is similar to the equity based investment in which few percentage of ownership rights is shared with the investors in return for the capital and nonequity based crowdfunding is based on some type of reward in return on the investment. This reward could be of multiple types depending upon how the deal is done.  Profit sharing and revenue sharing based investment is the best alternative finance options available for the small businesses. In this way, the start-ups and the investors both get the things they wanted to have.  We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch through our website or email us at hello@crowdholding.com Learn more about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

All over the world, businesses have been categorized into three types. These are Sole Proprietorship, Partnership and Company. No matter, what type of business you’re part of, the customer is the ultimate reality of any business. Are you aware that Crowdholding allows you to connect with an engaged community that co-creates and then buys the products they helped build?  If you’ll not be having loyal customers, you can’t think to flourish your business. So it’s very important to keep your customers intact. For this purpose, discounts are offered, different promotions are launched and likewise. When the customer comes to the shop, to purchase, he offers his time, energy and money. While in return, business tries to provide the required products and services. Thus this mutual collaboration between the customer and the business or organization is known as Co-creation. This concept of co-creation came into practice in late 90’s with a different name known as experience economy. At that time, customer use to acquire the experience instead of purchasing any commodity. Later on industrial giants like Starbucks, Dell, Lego, and Unilever practiced this concept and gave it its required fame. This concept has revolutionized their sales and it also rang a bell among those who were experts at the market studies. Later on, in 2004 Venkat Ramaswamy and C.K. Prahalad of Michigan University used the term Co-creation for the 1st time to describe the collaborative effort between customers and organizations. It is easy for big companies like Starbucks to practice Co-creation by allocating special time, energy, focus and budgets just to gain an increase in sales. If the business is not old and big like Dell, rather it is a small one, than there might be a possibility that this business may not be able to practice Co-creation. Crowdholding makes sure that is not the case by making it easy for small businesses to co-create with an engaged community. On the other hand, it is also very important to retain the customers in such a competitive environment. So according to experts a small business can flourish or excel among its competitors by creating an innovative environment. If the organization is flexible and welcomes changes and innovation, only then it can survive in the modern day competitive world. Furthermore, only then it hope and practice Co-creation. Facebook is the best example to study this. Facebook was launched by Mark Zuckerberg and his friends at a very small level, but the idea was new and creative. That idea now made him one of the richest person on this planet while co-creation rate of Facebook is currently topping the charts. Another example is Blank label which is a small business and allows its male customers to do customization of their shirts. From collar to shoulder and fabric to buttons, each and every thing can be customized. Thus they are also practicing co-creation. Business environment has become highly competitive nowadays. You can’t survive without constant innovation and creative ideas. No matter, what’s the size of your organization. Additionally you need the topping of co-creation. In order to implement an environment of co-creation many steps can be taken. Companies, can introduce discounts, promotional campaigns, interesting advertisements, Crowdshares and likewise, just to engage the customers in them. Once the customer is engaged into your products and services, now the time come to introduce efficient salesmen to do the selling and make your business flourish. We are interested in your opinion and feedback regarding the crowdholding concept. Get in touch through our website or email us at hello@crowdholding.com Learn more about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

It is anything but simple to explain the relationship between IT (information technology), small businesses and the Co Creation Phenomena. But there is no doubt that they have been really helpful for the growth of small businesses over the years. Crowdholding combines all three connecting the crowd and entrepreneurs to co-create, allowing them to give feedback and ideas for future revenue. In this article we will try to explain this topic the best we can, by doing some references to many articles related to this matter.  During the 1990s, notions of the extended enterprise and the boundaryless organization encouraged managers to broaden their search for efficiencies and discover ways of creating value from their supplier network and beyond. Starting in 1995, the Internet further invigorated the corporate pursuit of efficiency, this time expanding it to include all the activities directly involving or affecting the company–customer relationship. Still, throughout this evolution, the assumption that internal cost efficiency is the source of value creation has remained unchallenged. CO CREATION PHENOMENA How do companies co-create valuable experiences with consumers? The traditional company-centric view says: (1) the consumer is outside the domain of the value chain; (2) the enterprise controls where, when, and how value is added in the value chain; (3) value is created in a series of activities controlled by the enterprise before the point of purchase; (4) there is a single point of exchange where value is extracted from the customer for the enterprise. The consumer-centric view says: (1) the consumer is an integral part of the system for value creation; (2) the consumer can influence where, when, and how value is generated; (3) the consumer need not respect industry boundaries in the search for value; (4) the consumer can compete with companies and small business for value extraction; (5) there are multiple points of exchange where the consumer and the company can co-create value. In the customer-centric mass production and marketing of automobiles, for example, suppliers provide raw materials, components, subcomponents, and systems to manufacturers, who create value by assembling these inputs into vehicles. Consumers actively decide what vehicle to buy, but companies decide what their choices will be. Cars are sold by dealers acting as intermediaries for the automakers. For companies reliant on this scenario, value creation is defined solely by extracting profit from end consumers. Consumers appreciate and expect efficiency when it improves their experience with a product or service. But most of the time, managers are so preoccupied with operating efficiently that they don’t even think about value in terms of the consumer’s experience. (See Exhibit 1.) Ask yourself: Do you as a consumer of a digital camera think about the complex sourcing patterns and logistics that the manufacturer has to deal with, or are you thinking about the fun you will have when you bring the camera to the beach to record your children’s first ocean swim? Because companies have historically controlled all business activities involved in the co creation of the things they sell, it is their view of value that is dominant. Indeed, the consumer typically has little or no influence on value created until the point of exchange when ownership of the product is typically transferred to the consumer from the firm. This is true whether the consumer is a company or an individual. Now consumers are challenging this corporate logic of value creation. Spurred by the consumer-centric culture of Crowdholding — with its emphasis on interactivity, speed, individuality, and openness — the consumer’s influence on value creation has never been greater, and it is spreading to all points in the value chain. (See “The Five Powers of the Connected Consumer”) The 3 Powers of the Connected Consumer and information technology Before the Internet liberated information technology, companies could do everything — choose materials used in products, design production processes, craft marketing messages, control sales channels — with no interference. Now, consumers exercise their influence in every part of the business system. Nevertheless, companies should welcome, not resist, the consumer powers detailed below. 1. Information Access. With access to unprecedented amounts of information, consumers have knowledge to make much more informed decisions. This is causing companies across industries to cede control over value creation and develop new ways of doing business. Consider health care. More than 70 million Americans have reportedly used the Internet to learn about diseases and treatment options and investigate how to get involved in clinical drug trials. Consumers now question their physicians more aggressively and participate more fully in choosing treatments. This is dramatically altering traditional pharmaceutical sales practices. In the U.S., it is driving consumer-centric “defined-contribution” health-care reform wherein companies give employees information and ask them to assume more responsibility for selecting and managing their own health-care benefits. 2. Global View. The Internet is the first single source of information that gives consumers the ability, 24 hours a day, to see what is happening around the world. That is changing the rules for how companies compete. For example, multinationals are more exposed to consumer scrutiny of product price and performance across geographies, which means those businesses have less latitude to vary the price or quality of products sold in multiple regions. But it also means companies have more information to sharpen global strategies. New competitors and potential partners for large companies are also emerging in the global marketplace. Even poor artisans in Rajasthan, India, can sell high-quality table linen on the Web for $10 and deliver it to buyers in the U.S. in about a week, and for one-tenth the cost of comparable linen in the United States. 3. Networking. Consumers naturally coalesce around common skills, interests, and experiences. The Internet amplifies this by encouraging an unparalleled ease and openness of communication among perfect strangers. Indeed, “communities of interest,” where individuals confabulate and commiserate without geographic constraints and with few social barriers, exist all over the Web. People participating in a chat area may know nothing more about those they’re chatting with than the interest they share. The power of consumer networks is that they’re independent and based on real consumer experiences, not what the company tells them they will experience. Have you got something to add to our story? We, at Crowdholding are happy to hear your feedback. Learn about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

It is a commonly perceived notion that corruption exists because of a prevalence of corruption amongst politicians, however, corrupt governments only breath because they are receiving a constant supply of oxygen through corrupt institutions. Be an engaged citizen and help Crowdholding to raise awareness and make a stand against Wall street. Watch a 1-minute video to understand how.  Most of the US citizens do believe that there is existing corruption in the financial system, but they do not have the accurate approximation of corruption due to the lack of an idea about the corrupt institutions propagating corrupt financial structures. One of the key player in stealing the American Dream is Wall Street and its prevailing corruption, and if you want to know how wall street is corrupt read below for 5 reasons why Wall Street investment practices are becoming fraudulent: Price Manipulation: Price manipulation is a known corrupt investment practice and several whistle blowers came forward with evidence suggesting that investment institutions in wall street have openly been manipulating gold and silver prices and regulators are not doing anything about the corruption.  Lack of Accountability The accountability and transparency regulations to hold corrupt officials of wall street accountable are becoming increasingly weaker. For example, Joe Cassano who was responsible for bringing down AIG was never prosecuted for his corrupt practices.  Back Door Deals Companies with ties to the US government have openly been making back door deals that are against their clients’ interests, however, those companies are functioning freely without any consequences and one such example is the corrupt practices of Goldman Sachs. Accounting Tactics  It is believed that major banks of wall street are employing accounting tactics to hide the size of their balance sheets at the end of reporting periods, to avoid tax and legal implications. But is the government doing anything about it? Well, not that we have heard of.  Invasion of Privacy Credit card companies are believed to be employing invasive data mining techniques to predict their clients’ behavior. Invasion of privacy of clients is unlawful, especially if they don’t know about it. However, it seems like we don’t much about our privacy invasion but the regulatory institutes sure do, but the biased favor given to wall street bankers by the corrupt government practices is giving the freedom of corruption to wall street institutions and there is a need for effective regulation.  Wall Street bankers have been able to earn huge sums of money through corruption and fraud due to the lack of accountability and transparency in the system. The corrupt values and tainted practices of wall street and corrupt government need to be regulated, and one of the ways to do that is to inform the general public on how their American Dream is being stolen without them even being aware of it.  Be an engaged citizen and help Crowdholding to raise awareness and make a stand against Wall street. Watch a 1-minute video to understand how. 

Economy joint consumption in the near future may reshape the market of services and user attitudes towards idea of ​​owning something, say researchers and founders of companies in the segment sharing economy. Even to the extent that the corporate conglomerates turn to sharing revenue with the crowd on Crowdholding in exchange for ideas and feedback.  There are three roots of the sharing economy - the development of the Internet, which includes in more and more people from different backgrounds and countries (with the main direction of growth - developing countries and quite poor population), economic crises and rebellion of Millennials against the accumulation and ownership of unnecessary objects. The term was born in 2010 during one TED conference. At the heart of the sharing economy is the idea that most things owned by a person, are not used most of the time, so why not share? These things include a car (hence the genus ridesharing services like BlaBlaCar or Uber), housing (AirBnB), things (OLX) and even knowledge (meant tutoring services and the provision of services, but seems a bit far-fetched). PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that by 2025, revenues from the sharing economy services will reach $335 billion and this despite the fact that in its current form sharing economy -. It is P2P-history, which includes services that users provide to other users. And the business segment is mostly undeveloped. A radical step to change that was made by Crowdholding where the vision is to turn the corporate world into a sharing economy, connecting the crowd with entrepreneurs, allowing them to give feedback and ideas for future revenue.  Learn about Crowdholding by watching a 1 minute Youtube video

This year, Crowdholding launched a crowdsourcing platform that also allows sharing future revenue with the crowd. Crowdsourcing has become BIG, so big that a St.Louis startup uses crowdsourced workers to write messages and pretend to be your Boyfriend or Girlfriend of choice. How does that work? Read more The Internet was obsessed with Invisible Boyfriend/Girlfriend, which allows the users to “build” a significant relationship with whom they engaged in conversation via text messages. According to the founder, who said the platform was created for people who wanted “social proof” that they were into a relationship, i.e., for an individual who wanted to pretend as if they were getting some while they were not. An individual created more than 70,000 invisible girls. When they (people) started chatting with their new invisible lovers, they assumed initially it was a chat boot, but after a few conversations via text messages, they will later realize they were talking to a human being not ghost. The service is powered by thousands of crowd-sourced workers. It was surprisingly easy to get a job in crowdsourcing with the start-up in St. Louis which provides invisible boyfriends and girlfriends. The participants only need to input their details such as names, address, and make deposits via PayPal account on the platform.  Crowdsource has over 200,000 “micro-workers” around the world who do tiny tasks for tiny amounts of money. Most of the crowdsource jobs involve writing product descriptions and doing Google searches for a few cents. Crowdholding allows you work on more complex issues such as the marketing and business development, allowing you to give ideas and feedback for future revenue. Learn about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video.  In order to qualify for the “Be the Boyfriend” and “Be the Girlfriend” jobs, an individual person will have to take a 40-minute copywriting test to checked the understanding of the basic grammar.  When you are dating an invisible person, the crowd-sourced worker on the other side who picked up your messages will only be able to see your last ten messages the two of you have exchanged via text message. So the ten messages after this conversation, “Margo” will have forgotten that Quentin ever confided in her that an important person in his life was dying. It’s like dating the lead character in Memento. There are no awkward first dates to woo your partner when you’re an Invisible. A sound grasp of a noun-verb agreement is all you need to prove you’re a good virtual lover. (I’m a wordsmith by trade so I managed to pass it.) When playing the role of an invisible, it will be strange and, due to the five-minute timer on every message. After just a few conversations, it will become clear that people weren’t just using this as “social cover.” A lot of communication on the Internet with friends more on Facebook than anywhere else. One can understand for having deep feelings for someone on the other end of a text conversation.” But after a while, it will start feeling like a game, rather than a relationship. “After signed up, one will understand that it was a distributed companionship platform but one may be willing to suspend his/her disbelief as much as possible and just go with it”. After a while, Quentin could feel the people playing Margo swapping out. He’d exchange texts with someone cool and clever, but then she would disappear and be replaced with someone boring. He’d figured out the magic trick, and the mystique was gone. One that contacted Invisible Girlfriend’s customer service chat line to ask, “How will I know I’m talking to a woman?” it will be discovered that the crowdsourcing service matched workers to messages by gender. Crowdholding connects the crowd with entrepreneurs to co-create, allowing them to give ideas and feedback for future revenue. Learn about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

Crowdsourcing is fostering a new age in creative, ethical, and environmentally sound designs from largely unknown talent looking to make their name. New small private brands and designers can collaborate with the crowd on Crowdholding to effectively create a community around their brands.  It’s not just new brands and designers that can use crowdsourcing; it’s a tool employed by even the most established designers in the fashion industry.It also allows customers to shop for quality practical designs with a clear conscience and even invest in new lines and enterprises. For the designers at large retailers, handing over creative control to the consumer is unrealistic, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t uses for crowdsourcing in this segment too.  A winning combination of crowdsourced opinion (which will guarantee garments stocked will be popular!) and gamification, without having to alter the design process. Crowdholding takes this process one step further, by also reimbursing the crowd for their ideas with future revenue from the fashion garments they helped co-create.  In the competitive world of fashion, more aspiring designers hoping to be the next Alexander McQueen or Vivien Westwood are finding a financial support and voice for their projects through crowdfunding. Indeed, crowdfunding is steadily changing the world of fashion, but not just by enabling more designers to have their work noticed and financed. It is attracting new and creative designs, and is even generating a focus on ethically produced and eco-friendly pieces that are not always found in the high-end fashion industry. “A fashion designer’s mission is to create something the public needs or wants before they even know it. If suggestions are part of the mix, they are coming from a Creative Director, a Buyer for a store or a trusted colleague. Information from a stranger, though kind enough to pay in advance for merchandise down the road, is not necessarily the voice a designer is likely to take as gospel.” Cameesa, bought by Zazzle, offers freelance designers the opportunity to gain recognition for their work whilst securing funding for their line. Designs are submitted and then selected by a panel who then put them forward for funding. Interested investors can purchase a t-shirt which they will receive if the design reaches its funding target, not only entitling them to their own t-shirt but also a small percentage of future sales. Any business that attempts to break up the cliquey nature of the fashion industry should be applauded. In the age of the so-called Web 2.0, the Harvard Business School pair of Gulati and Weng have recognized the importance of social media, and, more importantly, the growing need to develop tighter relations and dialogues with the consumer. With the removal of the middleman, the designer gets a greater share of their profit, and the consumer has greater access and influence over the preceding season’s designs. As with all startups, there are ifs, buts and maybes that will need to be addressed before one can say whether Fashion Stake is the revolutionary business that will really take off in a big way. Nevertheless, if the legalities can be ironed out, the company’s principles are intriguing and their ambition to try and shake up the fashion industry is truly admirable.   Example Pose: Denoted as fashion hauls meets crowdsourcing, Pose.com (and its accompanying free app) is an online community that allows their clients to follow what their favorite influencers and friends are wearing in real-time. With opportunities for users to showcase their style finds via photo uploading, geo-tagging, Twitter and Facebook, the platform allows users to get immediate feedback on what they are trying on from a community of “fashion experts”. Influencers (or posers) on the Pose platform include Coco Rocha, Rachel Zoe, the Man Repeller, Catt Sadler, Atlantic Pacific and more. Crowdholding connects the crowd with fashion entrepreneurs to co-create, allowing them to give ideas and feedback for future revenue. Learn about Crowdholding in 1 minute by watching our Youtube video. 

Over the past few years, crowdsourcing has become very popular especially for small businesses. It is basically a new type of a work process. You gather people in the form of a crowd to help you with a task which otherwise would have been performed by a single employee. Crowdholding connects the crowd and small businesses to co-create and share revenue.  It is a very goоd means of marketing today. For instance to make a company logo small business do not require to hire an agency, a freelancer or an in-house fashion designer. Instead, by using crowdsourcing they can post according to their needs and then many designers will compete to create a custom logo for your company. Crowdsourcing today is not only used for the purpose of simple graphic designing. It now has four different categories such as Microtasks, Crowdfunding, Macrotasks and Crowd Contests. The Internet and public websites are a great help in ensuring effective crowdsourcing technique. These include Wikipedia and IMDB on the top list.  Following are some of the top future trends in the crowdsourcing(Crowd Economy) to look upon as Crowdsourcing continues to gain momentum.  Firstly, curated crowds may not always mean that they will give your better output with crowdsourcing. In the earlier stage of crowdsourcing design websites, it was evident that crowdsourcing groups with large crowds delivered average outputs. The greater there is the variety of different designs available, the more difficult it would be for you to sift out the bad designs. Crowdholding deals with this by allowing the crowd to vote on the best ideas.  Moreover, as crowdsourcing is being greatly used for Microtasks various quality control mechanisms are added on the top of basic input and output level to ensure success. This will also lead to high levels of accuracy.  Crowdsourcing has not yet become an industry; rather it is one form of an undefined space. Work is being now done to standardize it and define its space bounds. Popular groups such as the Crowdsortium are the real players discussing the changes required in crowdsourcing now. Suggestions are coming in the trade association and the leaders working to define the official taxonomy of crowdsourcing. All these efforts will ensure a healthy future of crowdsourcing.  Corporate owners who have just entered the entrepreneur world are also adopting crowdsourcing. So, crowdsourcing is not at all bad for early adopters. Large corporations which use Crowdsourcing include General Electric, PepsiCo, Procter and Gamble, and Amazon. Other companies will thus be able to adopt crowdsourcing. Eventually, Crowdholding makes sure that small businesses will find it easy to adopt it as well.  Though with every passing year crowdsourcing use is increasing but still it's in an early adoption phase. Very few people across the globe know the real potential of crowdsourcing.  The top three trends in the crowdsourcing are stress crowd-currencies, customer co-creation, sharing economy. With the growing popularity of crowdsourcing crowd, currencies are also greatly used now. It also leads to customer co-creation which is beneficial for business in many ways. Crowdsourcing is playing a great role in leading to a sharing economy. Similar to as what You Tube did to TV and blogs did to traditional media peer to peer sharing trend is becoming very popular and a major disruptive force. In a few year, it will create many winners and losers. Therefore, in all ways, Crowdsourcing is a great networking marketing tool with growing potential.   Learn more about Crowdholding in 1 minute. Watch this Youtube video.

Peer to peer journalism is also on the rise since the introduction of such service. Basically, peer to peer journalism is all about the DIY platform that allows the amateurs or the individuals to share, the information or any news with the large audience. The Internet is playing an important as it now allows something like peer-to-peer book and novel writing on sites like Crowdholding. The It has the potential to change the whole landscape of this industry. There are many applications and blog websites available which are spreading the news even faster than the printing press and are bringing more radical changes in the media industry. Wikipedia, Slashdot, Kuro5hin, Everything2 and Wikiwiki are the most popular blog sites.  Peer to peer journalism is generally divided into three major categories. In this article, we would also like to share the information about these types. Check out their details below: •    Pure P2p: In this type there is no central server as peers act as clients and servers. Moreover, there is also no central router.  •    Hybrid P2P: It has a central server that keeps the information on peers and responds the requests for that information. The peers holds the great responsibility of hosting the information as the central server does not store the files. They make the central server know that what files they want to share for downloading and it also let the server know that which other shareable resources that the peers can request. Router terminals are used to identify the addresses from which the request is forwarded to the server.  •    Mixed P2P: It has the characteristics of both, pure and hybrid P2P.  Peer to peer network is made when everyone is connected through the modern technologies. In peer to peer journalism, the key question is this: what happens when connected, wearable gadgets, for example, Google Glass are cheap to the point that nearly everybody has one? At that point, any of us will have the capacity to wind up distinctly live-stream writers at whatever point we need. Whenever you feel something interesting is happening in your surrounding you can live to stream it and it will be considered as peer to peer journalism.  It's as of now ordinary to discuss national news coverage: the new time we occupy, in which anybody with a web connection can be a columnist. In any case, the genuine brilliant time of native news-casting will arrive, clearly, when a huge number of common individuals are fitted out with wearable gadgets, for example, Google Glass. How much wealthier would be our perspective of, say, the war in Syria on the off chance that we had entry to an immense number of live streams, coordinate from the contention?  The Internet and the latest smart devices are helping us to be the part of peer to peer network and play an active role in promoting the news and alerts. Blogs, live streams, and many other such things are the great source of peer journalism. We hope that this article had given you enough information that how peer to peer journalism works and what are its advantages.   Please do not hesitate in contacting us if you have any questions or concern regarding this topic. Here at Crowdholding we will be very please to bring you any helpful additional information on this matter.

Throughout the years, peer to peer service has risen practically in every field that one can imagine. The fast growth of peer to peer services is due to the benefits people have with the help of this service. We can also observe the peer to peer service in the fashion industry;Clothing startups continue the trend by co-creating directly with the crowd on Crowdholding. In this article, we are going to tell you that how it is done and how it has impacted the clothing business.  Read Like: 5 marketing strategies for attracting Millennials  Peer to peer in the fashion industry or in the clothing business works in a way that you do not buy the dress for any occasion rather you can wear it by getting it on rent. Today, we can see that the dresses are very expensive and many dresses are just bought to wear for any single special occasion. In such circumstances, everyone does not wish to pay so much money to buy such an expensive dress. Now with peer to peer service in this industry, people can easily have their favorite dress on rent and after wearing it for any special occasion like wedding, party, Christmas, or any other.  Building peer to peer network in this industry really helps the people to have a diverse range of clothing that they can wear for any event. On the other hand, money is the biggest factor and renting the dress, fashion accessories, jewelry, or any item enables them to save a large amount of money.  We would also like to share the example with you so that you can also get to know which companies are offering peer to peer services and this will make your understanding about this service in a better way. French business visionary Fiona Disegni has started a new company Rentez-Vous that permits individuals to rent their garments, and make them shifted to other’s wardrobe, and meet similarly invested people. It is just like the Airbnb for the fashion industry.  Design absolutely has the foundation for it. Her paper at the Institut d'études politiques in Rennes was in communitarian utilization. Form and advertising temporary jobs then took after at Burberry, JWT, and Asos, before she devoted herself to Rentez-Vous full-time a year ago.  "I began with a little occasion in a level in Paris with companions," she clarifies. "We'd have occasions each month, then I moved to London and began occasions here consistently.  So far the idea has been occasions based – 40 to 50 people join, pay an entry fee and bring their garments to rent or have the simple purpose to meet and browse. The rental cost is set at 15% of the original retail cost for one week's contract, which midpoints at £20. Rentez-Vous takes a 20% charge from each contract. In any case, the genuine cash originates from creators. Four or five up and coming fashion designers hire a stall at each event which gives the direct access to the customers. Rentez-Vous takes a 30% expense and, if tenants choose they need to get it a short time later, a 20% charge again from the sale. In this way, the peer to peer fashion industry works and people get benefit from it easily. Collaboration does not stop there, small fashion brands join Crowdholding and receive feedback and ideas for new collections directly from potential customers.  Please do not hesitate in contacting us if you have any questions or concern regarding this topic. Here at Crowdholding we will be very please to bring you any helpful additional information on this matter. You may also be interested in:  How to be an engaged citizen? Grow.Learn.Earn. The Crowdholding Story

Peer to peer networks have been revolutionizing every industry and it is impacting every field of life. The marketplace revolution has also been brought up by the peer to peer services. Sharing economies have been playing an important role and in this article, we would let you know that how collaborative learning is being done. There are many companies which are promoting peer to peer networks. We would like to share the examples of Uber, AirBnB and Crowdholding to let you understand that how these companies have completely changed the dynamics of their own fields.  Read also: To Own or to Rent - Trends in Sharing Economy Take Crowdholding as an example. Widely used by Millennials working or studying abroad and businesses dealing across borders, Crowdholding’s consumer-to-business platform connects the public with entrepreneurs to co-create, allowing them to share ideas and feedback for future revenue. The crowd and businesses are brought together to collaborate, innovate and share a % of future sales.  Uber is a car sharing service; one can easily request a car ride from the nearby Uber driver and he will be ready to serve you. The car service is available in just one click through a mobile application. Prior to the current circumstances, the transportation of travelers stayed to be a restraining infrastructure held by taxi organizations. In the interim, there were a large number of general drivers with their own autos going the same bearing you do and willing to give you a ride for an installment you can manage.  It was Uber that disclosed individuals how to render their vehicles into instruments, procuring to self-keep up. The service is a transportation help, installment goes straightforwardly to drivers who had enlisted with the Uber application. Not long after the application was presented, a hefty portion of cab drivers left authority employments and began to work freely.  Another huge shared service is Airbnb, it works in some comparable way. Why do one has to buy a place in a pleasant place every time he or she visits that place for any professional or for the personal holiday trip. You can now find a great place everywhere through this application anywhere in the world. A host and a visitor contact specifically on the Airbnb's site and concur on the rent cost and different terms of living.  It is evident Airbnb and Uber gave a kick–start to the sharing economy improvement. Be that as it may, we recollect that customary economy was an encouraging ground for the publicizing and advertising. In this way, the companies are now encouraging peer to peer services and networks. The customers have also taken great advantage of these services and this is the reason they prefer to use these applications rather than choosing the old and typical style. The sharing economy is changing the customer’s way of interaction with the brands.  These companies have introduced the culture of sharing economy in the marketplace and now customers are well aware of its benefits. They always look forward to their own easy rather than giving the huge amount of costs to other companies for the same level of service.  Possession of things are now considered as an out of fashion thing; customers prefer to rent out the things from people rather than buying it which can cost them much more than renting cost. From kitchen accessories to clothing, everything is now available for rent. New peer-to-peer marketplaces help people save money. Join the sharing economy on Crowdholding. Also, enjoy this nice video example of Family home holiday accommodation marketplace.  You may also be interested in:  Alternative Small Business Finance Why Mass Collaboration Leads to Unprecedented Innovation The Crowdholding Story

Nowadays, a new mindset is required to forge a highly successful competitive advantage. In the old days, being able to optimize processes in the value chain generated enough of an advantage to beat competitors, delivering faster, cheaper and more conveniently. Actually, small businesses can build an absolutely new source of productivity by letting loose the power of an engaged community through Crowdholding. It is based on the simple idea that when people collaborate, they work better, and all involved benefit from the experience.  Read also: Trends in Sharing Economy: To Own or to Rent? The relationship Co-creation is a very popular management concept and initiative or a strategy within an economic discipline to bring together customers and marketers to achieve or fulfill a specific objective which would be mutually beneficial to all. Themes of co-creation influenced the birth of the mountain biking industry. Mountain biking started as an exciting pastime activity among teenagers of the Marin County, California, in the beginning of 1970s. Nowadays, it is an $100 billion worldwide industry, as well as a form of recreation for many more.  On the other hand, innovation is creativity at its best where new ideas, new concepts or major shifts in thinking brought forward to ensure the successful continuance of an individual, organization or ideology. Coupling these two effectively could bring about very positive idea innovations, marketing innovations and technology innovations that would take any organizations placed at any level on the small business platform or even a successful conglomerate to more successful endeavors. In today’s competitive marketing environment, businesses, whether they are small business enterprises or large conglomerates, need to break the shackles of traditional marketing concepts and think out of the box and for that, they need co-creation and innovation. Brands and customers It is imperative that brands are created to keep up with customer expectations and if this relationship is not continuously maintained at the optimum level at all times, marketing strategies which would have been initiated with much midnight oil being burnt would not bring the envisaged results whatever the marketing professionals would have planned. Technology development is also the same because only if you have the right inputs would you innovate the right things that would be used by your customers and the people at large or you could be innovating something that the customers cannot use or not accepted by the relevant authorities for many different reasons. Brands need to look deeply into customer requirements and create products and services that would suit such requirements and it is to get this mix right that the new concept of co-creation and innovation comes handy.  Different marketing strategies have been initiated by professional marketers over the years, however, Crowdholding finds the perfect mix to proudly call itself a C2B (Customer-to-Business) platform for co-creation and innovation.  Selected segments of customers would need new strategies and it would be prudent to initiate new idea innovations that would bring out better results to both sides of the divide with mutual advantages.   Hence brands could consider co-creation as a close initiative to have your customers involved in the production and marketing platforms which would give a better understanding to marketing professionals to execute their work. Initiating co-creation marketing strategies Implementing innovative marketing strategies has taken individuals and companies up the ladder of success and into this equation adding co-creation as an innovative strategy should bring positive results. Marketing professionals could bring a new perspective into marketing if they could involve a wider spectrum of their customer base prior to implementing new technology innovations which would give them more inroads into their market and also the added impetus to meet the challenges of the competition that they would meet. The world is moving very fast in all aspects especially where marketing is concerned because new idea innovations are drawing every sinew to the optimum in a very competitive marketing environment.      Please do not hesitate in contacting us if you have any questions or concern regarding this topic. At Crowdholding we will be very pleased to bring you any helpful additional information on this matter. You may also be interested in:  What is Peer-to-Peer Journalism The Peer-to-Peer marketplace revolution The Crowdholding Story

As this point in modern days, we would say there is no doubt that crowdfunding has become into one of the most popular activities to raise some businesses and projects, and of course, videogames are in fact one of those industries which has been completely obtaining some cool benefits from it. For example, video game startups increase awareness and connect with potential game-testers as well as non-equity investors on Crowdholding.  Read also: The Relationship between IT & The Crowd  Crowdfunding and videogames, the best allies On a time where videogame industry seems to be a little hard to be sponsored by any company, crowdfunding has become one of the best alternatives for those game developers which are looking to have a project from a paper into their own hands. And we cannot deny it.  There is no secret that overall, many crowd-funding pitches from all around the world will fail. Yet there’s something about the crowd-funded scene that draws indie game developers and enthusiastic gamers back time after time. And that is because in the gaming world, there is that feel of “we all are brothers and we will help each other to reach a goal”. And how can you explain that? We all know that usually, games were mostly funded and even developed in a different way to which they are today, there is no doubt about it. In fact, way back when to get a video game out to the waiting gamer’s chances are you’d need a publisher. Which nowadays could be very tricky. Luckily for our indie developers, time have changed a lot. With crowdfunding came a whole new alternative finance creative freedom, believe it or not, to really get to know your target audience and even involve them in the development process, which is always a refreshing feel. Not only have websites like Crowdholding changed the way that studios fund their games and some other activities, they have aided in the evolution of game development so naturally and quickly that it’s understandable if you missed any of these. Here we’ll take a look at crowd-funding and how it’s altered the process of game development and design for the better in every platform in the whole world. Even though crowd-funding has a very long history (before the online crowd funding we know today, for toys, books, films and even military conflicts were funded via methods such as subscriptions and war bonds, as crazy as it sounds.) it’s only been in the last few years that it’s become such a very popular activity, an accepted and successful way to fund any kind of projects. Game developers celebrate crowdfunding With Kickstarter claiming only around 9% of projects fail in all the United States, it’s not surprising that more and more people are turning to this practice every day. Just in case you’re not familiar with crowd-funding and its meaning, its whole process, it’s not entirely dissimilar to pitching a project in the traditional sense in any way. You create your own pitch and post it on one of the many crowd funding sites, and that is all. Those who are interested can back your project by donating some amount of money – more often than not backers will receive any kind of rewards in return depending on how much they choose to give or pay. Rewards often include the finished product, artwork, public thank you’s or being credited for backing any product from a business. The pitch stays online for the duration of the crowd-funding and, if successfully funded the money raised goes to creating the project. It’s a simple process which allows more enthusiastic entrepreneurs and creatives to have the chance to create a product and start their business, and it allows consumers to back items, products and projects they’re interested in. Why Crowdfunding is good for videogames funding? We are sure you know that Crowd-funding is a way that developers can retain creative freedom over their content, or that is the theory. We’ve heard the stories about people in every creative industry who finds a publisher and suddenly their project is all but taken away from them, which is in fact one of the worst thing that could happen.. It happens with books, in the movie and music industries and even in games. That’s not to say publishing via traditional methods is a bad thing, but many people not only struggle to find a publisher willing to put forward the big bucks, but they are wary of potentially losing full control over their video game. In a world where the internet has made is easier for us to say what we really want to, more people are determined to create and share things that they really want to. Crowd funding is a great way to do that, although there are obvious rules and regulations that people have to take into consideration when making any kind of entertainment, generally the rules are a whole lot more lax when you’re essentially able to fund yourself. It’s not just a plus for developers, though – it gives gamers the chance to see the games they want to play and help make it a reality. It’s even changing the dev/gamer relationship for the better. Game Developers need to draw attention to their project and keep backers interested. Therefore they take to the social media sites to keep consumers involved. It’s opened up a channel of communication – if a studio in the midst of a kick starter stays tight lipped and seems disinterested, there’s less of a chance their video games will get successfully funded, so they inject themselves into the gaming community in every way possible- now it isn’t unusual to see indie studios asking for the opinions and advice of gamers and hopeful devs online. It’s given people a chance to be more involved in the whole process, and given it a personal touch for those who have handed their money over in the hopes of seeing a finished game. Yooka-Laylee with little help From Crowd Yooka-Laylee has been dubbed the ‘spiritual successor’ to the still popular Banjo-Kazooie. The 90’s platformer saw kids spending countless hours staying up too late and pulling sickies. There was something overwhelmingly charming about a bear and the bird running around bright colored worlds collecting musical notes. Fast forward seventeen years – the kids are adults and are craving our childhood games again. We’ve had similar games come our way but few lacked that magic that came along with Banjo-Kazooie. Luckily for us, some of the core team behind Banjo-Kazooie began a Kickstarter in June 2015, and raised over 2.1 Million from over 80,000 backers. Fast forwards again to EGX 2016 and we got our first look at a demo. I was lucky enough to be there and managed to get my hands on a controller. Yooka-Laylee was everything we were promised- a 90’s platformer updated for modern gamers. Different yet familiar. Please do not hesitate in contacting us if you have any questions or concern regarding this topic. At Crowdholding we will be very pleased to bring you any helpful additional information on this matter. You may also be interested in:  The Relationship between Co-creation and Innovation Co-creation between Games and the Crowd The Crowdholding Story

Non-equity Crowdfunding has been one of the best ideas for every growing business nowadays. A lot of companies have received real benefits thanks to this practice. There are two types of non-equity crowdfunding: reward-based (e.g. Kickstarter) and revenue-sharing (Crowdholding). Small businesses can raise capital by offering a % of future revenue for a certain period of time, something like a dividend. In this article, we will explain a little how non-equity crowdfunding has helped in the growing of fashion industry, and also share some thoughts regarding if this activity will keep bringing benefits over the next years. Let's start and read carefully then: Read also: Alternative Finance for Small Business IS CROWDFUNDING GOOD FOR THE FASHION INDUSTRY? As you may be thinking, fashion sales have increased by 640 percent to more than 34,000 units in the last years. But to help fuel in the industry growth, Lynn and Epstein, which are in fact two famous persons on the business in the United States, needed to raise more capital. (As a direct-to-consumer label, customer acquisition is a critical — and expensive — main point of the whole business.)   However, instead of turning once again to venture some capital firms or credits from banks, the co-founders decided to launch a campaign on equity crowdfunding platform SeedInvest, a famous crowdfunding foundation which allows companies to raise some lots of money from Internet users from all around the world.   ARE YOU INTO THE FASHION BUSINESS? HOW ABOUT TO TRY CROWDHOLDING? Over the last decades, US regulations forbid non-accredited investors — which are those with a net worth of a quantity which represents less than $1 million and who earned less than $200,000 every year for the last two years — from making equity investments in early stage companies and businesses, which are inherently risky, on the grounds of investor protection and so. (On popular crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and other ones, people who contribute funds are usually rewarded with giveaways like POP material, t-shirts, but do not acquire equity in the companies they support.) But in June 2015, in response to some hard criticism that ordinary investors were being locked out of the start-up boom of growth strategies, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) implemented Title IV of the JOBS Act, which, among other things, now allows non-accredited individuals and other companies to invest in early stage businesses. Lynn and Epstein have posted their pitch on SeedInvest in September 2015 and, so far, DSTLD has obtain a benefit of more than $9.4 million worth of “indicated interest” from individual investors and some companies. Whether or not that interest turns into actual cash remains to be seen yet: not only do these would-be investors still need to make real commitments and some other work, but DSTLD still needs to determine just how much equity investors will receive from this practice. Contrary to equity crowdfunding, crowdholding gives small business access to capital without loss of control, allowing them to share future revenue instead. Crowdholding allows your best customers to participate in the brand story in a really profound way. They can be evangelizers of the product.  There is no doubt that crowdfunding is in fact a powerful concept to make grow your business But one that has rarely worked in practice for fashion labels aiming to crowdfund their growth and so. Indeed, while most of the companies are projected to raise $34.4 billion in crowdfunded investments in 2015 and 2016 respectively, according to research and advisory firm Massolution, just a sliver of those companies which are using crowdfunding operate in the well-known apparel sector. Of the 93,546 projects successfully funded on Kickstarter since the platform launched amongst some others, only 3,163 (or 3 percent) have been fashion-related or have any relationship with the fashion business world. And while the success rate of technology-related campaigns (20 percent) is actually lower than that of fashion-related campaigns, believe it or not (24 percent), technology projects have successfully raised a total of $297 million, which is significantly more than the $59 million raised by fashion projects from all around the country . But for many proponents of the idea and approach, Title IV of the JOBS Act — and, more recently, Title III of the same regulation area, passed by the SEC on October 30, which makes it even easier for early stage startups and some little companies to raise money from non-accredited investors — have changed the prospects for non-equity crowdfunding in fashion business world. To be sure of all of this matter, not everyone is pleased with the new rules of growth strategies in the United States. Companies wishing to raise under $20 million dollars will have to submit to review or be reviewed by US state governments and Crowdholding is concerned that these authorities will charge a big amount of exorbitant fees and bottleneck the whole process. New rules for crowdfunding, which are set to go into effect on January 29, 2016, have undoubtedly created an incredible new momentum for both crowdfunding platforms and individual companies and businesses aiming to crowdfund their expansion and keep growing. Should crowdfunding be a little bit less regulated? There is no doubt for us that crowdfunding is one of the best ideas to expand a business nowadays. The thing is that this is turning into something bigger than expected in the first place, and now there are a lot of laws and regulations for the whole practice. Maybe the thing is to regulate this operation so a lot of companies could join on it (or decide not to do it) without being in the middle of an unfair game. We think crowdfunding must be free from a lot of those regulations. In fact, crowdfunding aims to ask for the help of a lot of possible new customers from all around the world, by asking for help with an outstanding advertising campaign. Of course, there is a lot of people out there who does not want to be into the fair game, and maybe that is the cause and reason for a lot of new regulations for crowdfunding nowadays. Please do not hesitate in contacting us if you have any questions or concern regarding this topic. We will be very pleased to bring you any helpful additional information on this matter. You may also find interesting:  Revenue vs Reward Based Crowdfunding Revenue vs Equity Crowdfunding The Crowdholding Story

In the turn of the decade new and more exciting ways to attract investors has come about. Likewise to every old-fashioned way of doing things, turned upside down by Millenials, the way we invested isn't the same. It's way easier than before to get investors and funding for your startup or project idea. In comparison to how it was just two decades ago, where you had to pitch to a group of maybe 10 investors amongst a round table, finding hungry investors is simple and just with a click of a button, the right platform you can get funded for nearly everything. Not only businesses you can get funded for school, your ideas, or passion. The limit of collecting funds from anyone isn't there anymore.   Read also: Equity vs Revenue Crowdfunding In the midst of this crowd-funding trend came about two different ways of collecting money from investors/backers. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss the differences between the very popular reward-based crowdfunding (e.g. Kickstarter & IndieGoGo) and the new concept of revenue-based crowdfunding (Crowdholding). 1. Reward-based Crowdfunding Reward-based crowdfunding is a way of collecting funds to fulfill an audience needs or wants with little to no reward. Sometimes companies/inventors will give away a small stake in their companies/project profit to the backers that give away the most. However, most of the time there isn't any reward involved. Often people back a project because of its uniqueness or for the interest in the project. Sometimes the creators will give away a prize or something significant towards the process for donating, but mostly that's all you'll be receiving.  2. Revenue-sharing crowdfunding  Revenue sharing is alike to the original concept of investing. You place forward some funds to help start their project/company and as a reward, you get a return from future sales. Instead of stocks/equity, you will receive a small portion of the company's revenue for a short period of time. Similar to collecting a royalty, but instead of a permanent percentage until a company reaches a goal you will be collecting the company's money no matter if the goal is reached or not. It's very controversial and some companies find it counter-intuitive and evil However, revenue sharing is particularly attractive for businesses with seasonal sales, when you business is good, you pay back more, when sales are slower, payments will go down as well. Revenue sharing make the investment process more simple, as it does not deal with the complexity of equity, as it the investors are not owners of the business.  Let’s look at an example. Company “Bobo’s” is a restaurant that has been doing business for 2 years with 100,000$ in the last 12 months revenue and an average annual growth rate of 5%. The restaurant’s owner believes that the community of customers and supporters that the company has created, represents a potential capital source and many of its customers would be thrilled about helping the business grow. Bobo’s is looking to make some improvements to its restaurant, which will cost 50,000$. The owner of Bobo’s turns to the crowd for raising capital, promising they will be paid back for 5 years or until they multiply the crowd’s investment by 1.25x Amount Invested. This motivates the crowd to play an active role in the restaurant’s activities. They will be directly contributing to the performance of Bobo’s y advocating the brand and continuing their relationship. Bobo’s will benefit from healthier revenue growth and a more engaged customer base.  Which is better? When comparing revenue-sharing crowdfunding to other methods for raising capital, a business must find the most attractive option for their particular case. Companies need to consider the speed of underwriting, motivation of the investor base, flexibility of payments and no personal guarantees. If all these factors are attractive, then it would logical to use revenue-sharing crowdfunding over reward-based crowdfunding.  There a ton of comparisons I could throw out to try to alter your opinion, however, knowing which is best is based on your position. If you're an investor you would like revenue-sharing more than reward-based crowdfunding, but if you're a company you will like reward-based crowdfunding more. It's very simple logic and it's easy to understand why this is true.  Conclusion There are thousands upon thousands of alternative ways of gaining capital for your business but revenue-sharing is the newest and upgraded version of crowdfunding. Depending if you're an investor or the CEO of the company, can lead you to the decision of either reward-based or revenue-sharing crowdfunding. To find the right structure for raising capital, the business needs to have a strong understanding of the business performance. Nevertheless, both ways of crowdsourcing funds are spectacular and will stick around for years to come as long as there are platforms for it. You may also be interested in: Alternative Finance for Small Business Blockchain Technology & Crowdfunding The Crowdholding Story And also remember, best of luck with your business!

The digital revolution has changed the media and music industry in the past 10 years. You probably heard of these effects during the early 2010's and late 00's with the death of the newspaper and the death of music labels. These extreme changes not only affected the artists and music publications, but it also affected the people that receive the information: like fake news and artists raising the price for their music. Unlike 20-30 years ago when controlling the distribution of something like music and news was easy, the media has to discover new ways to confirm their publications to avoid forgery. Read also: Revenue vs Reward Based Crowdfunding Even though the music and news media hasn't fully adapted to these changes with artists still losing millions and fake news being bigger than ever, we are entering another revolution. This revolution includes the use of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. You might rarely hear about this now, but I guarantee by this time next year Blockchain technology will be the hot word and both the news and music industry can both profit.  Why Blockchain technology changing the music industry can be good? Blockchain technology is produced by cryptographic hashes making it completely irreversible and forge-proof. These applications don't have any forum of a 'middleman' and can be completely created by the artist. Each music piece can be bought in a completely unique identification number giving you total ownership of that number. This means that you can't share this with friends since it can be lost and not taken back. This might lead to some resells in the virtual space, but the original artist can still profit from it. This what makes blockchain so exciting it's like a virtual piece of property that you own online through your computer. It's also the reason why so many artists in the music industry are beginning to implement blockchain technology to their selling platform. Blockchain technology is an illegal downloader worst nightmare and it's coming fast. How can Blockchain technology change the media industry? Blockchain technology can disrupt any current established technology and forms of entertainment, but one industry you wouldn't expect it to change is the media industry. The media industry felt the digital revolution the hardest. Thousands of media companies (mainly local) shut down all operations because they couldn't keep up with the massive digital changes, and much more are still trying their best to trash outdated ways of publishing. And if you remember in the late 00's and early 2010s you would hear about a media company shutting down operations due to people not reading the news. With this being said you would think that a new revolution could hurt the media industry instead of help. Luckily, the implication of blockchain technology could actually help media publishers.  Blockchain technology can be shared within a community of other people that uses the same blockchain application. This can prevent copyright and forgery for subscription based entertainment. It could also stop fake news from spreading; confirmed subscribers in the blockchain community can state if the publisher actually published an article on a specific subject.  How can Blockchain change these two industries? Blockchain technology is unavoidable and will be the biggest forum of technology ever! It's the next gold rush in digital media and will alter the landscape. We don't have any idea by how much of a change it can create but it will be huge; there is no doubt about it. It might be a little bumpy at first , like with all changes, but it will get better once these two industries adapt. You may also be interested in:  Jobs of the Future Blockchain & Crowdfunding The Crowdholding Story

Blockchain technology is revolutionizing a ton of industries and is disrupting the world as a new form of currency. There are thousands upon thousands of different uses for Blockchain technology from stocks, a new way of banking, and even black market deals. People have taken notice of the new emerging technology and in one way or another have implemented it into an also somewhat new way of funding companies: crowdfunding. So how does this process works? Read also: Revenue vs Reward based Crowdfunding How does it work? Cryptocurrency, the currency that is mainly used with blockchain technology, is unforgeable and harder to be stolen than paper currency. Alike to buying stocks in a company, startups have the ability to create their own cryptocurrency; this currency can rise and fall depending on the company's performance. Unlike traditional ways of platforms like Kickstarter where funders wouldn't get anything in return (except for a few hats and samples of the product) companies can now sell their own cryptocurrency to backers. This means that there can finally be some sort of reward for the investment of backers money. These investments, or Crypto equity, can make some of the backers a ton of money and possibly make them rich. Which is why many startups are now adopting this wave of crowdfunding into their company.  Cons?  Even though this new revolutionary way of crowdfunding is currently the trending topic and have everyone head over heels for it, there are some aspects that still needs working out. One of these cons is the randomness of cryptocurrencies prices for example Bitcoin and Ethereum. Cryptocurrency prices are primed for overnight spikes and drops which make it unreliable. However, the price spikes can increase the value of the cryptocurrency by nearly 600%. Meaning that backers can literally make over $400 in their sleep in the moment of a big purchase or your company value increase. Then again, backers could possibly lose all their money in one night just from one bad mistake with your company. Unlike stocks, there aren't any financial advisers, yet, so you have to make most of these decisions on your own. This can lead to very quick and impulse selling.    Pros: Blockchain technology is the most secure form of payment ever. It allows both the investor and company to profit from an exchange. This is excluding the thousands of new companies that will emerge offering new and exciting services incorporating Blockchain and crowdfunding technology. No longer will you have to pay a small % fee of your money when you can simply pay a small % of your very own cryptocurrency. Companies like Kickstarter and Indiegogo will actually profit from this innovation. Instead of losing money from not taking a percentage, Kickstarter and Indiegogo can actually gain money from all of the different cryptocurrencies from different Kickstarter. It can be a wise investment these cryptocurrencies that these companies can create is unlimited, (for now), this can lead to up to million dollars of profit for these companies.    The future is near. Blockchain technology and the implication of blockchain applications in crowdfunding companies can change the industry forever. This can lead to a new gold rush of investors and probably a new tech bubble. This new exciting method of crowdfunding is coming really soon with companies already implementing this tactic and finding success! This can very well change the course of investing forever. You may also be interested in:  Blockchain in Media Industry Jobs of the future The Crowdholding Story

Crowdsourcing is probably one of the most divisive subjects in the marketing industry. Producers show powerful interest in it and are progressively dependent on it, whereas organizations have often regarded it as a risk or that it has little impact. Not amazingly, though, almost every content revealed creative crowdsourcing shows it as “the end of agencies."  Indeed, for the content marketing industry, crowdsourcing symbolizes a sea modify of the same scale than the appearance of electronic programs did several years ago, and it is about to change the way we do content marketing. Read also: The Peer-To-Peer marketplace Revolution The Increase of the Start Enterprise "Opening up" - under types such as co-creation with clients, crowdsourcing or open advancement - is now a boardroom subject, and one of the most regular top five main concerns among International 1000 organizations. The conventional workers/providers/clients/firms design is booming towards a more open and collaborative technique where the limitations are blurry.  According to McKinsey, 90% of professionals are willing to get clients engaged in co-creation. Even Gartner forecasts that by 2017, over fifty percent of customer innovations in content marketing will resource 75 % of their customer advancement from crowdsourcing alternatives.   Collective Intellect Will Trump Content Creation Crowdsourcing made a name for itself with contests like the Doritos Accident the Extremely Dish movie competition. While such video content writing will keep growing, I see more and more brands recognizing that the ideal value of crowdsourcing also depends on what crowd does best:  offering combined intelligence. Continually, when crowdsourcing suggestions for service or to express the understanding of a product, we see great styles and solid tracks growing from the variety of content provided by members. Nowadays the smart promoters are using "Content Marketing" as the next growing trend. There is no doubt about the proven reality that content promotion is an awesome method to look in the market and reach out to the visitors. Moreover, these days clients have given a set back to the traditional ways, this change in the attitude of customers has improved the role of content in promotion even more. Creating content for promotion While developing content, you need to take care that whatever you have created is appropriate and useful. This is what distinguishes the rubbish existing on the web and the well suitable content. The beauty of content promotion is that it is a non-interrupting promotion. It is not the direct marketing of merchandise and services, instead of throwing them directly, you provide information about your items and services that create our probability more brilliant. The main substance of this whole technique can be found at one point that if as businesses and companies, we provide consistent and continuing useful information to customers. This tactic is being used by the big companies like 'cisco' Systems, Microsoft, P&G, and David Deere. Content Marketing: Is not a Cake Walk! However, doing creative marketing is not always easy. The promoters and marketers present on thousands of sites in the net world cannot create the best content due to high competition. Everybody else is looking for developing original content every day. So, it becomes very important to ensure that you can develop such prepared to be in the game. You may also like;  The relationship between co-creation & innovation Crowdsourcing Trends 2020 The Crowdholding Story

Stealing time There is an inherent fear that the jobs of the future would not have the same flavor that we experience today or have been doing for so many years in the past. What flavor are we seeking from our future jobs?  That is the biggest question that we would need to answer to ourselves because we have been waking up and going to our respective jobs with the idea as to how we could steal a few minutes from work today. Read also: Make a Brand Your Brand Stealing man hours is the biggest drain on every country’s economy and on a worldwide basis if this amount is calculable it would be Trillions of dollars, gone down the drain of un-productivity. Anyway, there should not be much panic and alarm that should be prophesied because there would be many chores that robots would take a long time to replace and the need for human hands would still be needed.  Conflicts Then there is the perennial problem of conflict of interests between the management and the workforce where the politically powerful unions launch strikes at the drop of a hat, just to make a flimsy point. There are instances that these strikes have gone out of control and where there has been a colossal loss of life and property that have occurred and in some cases creating unprecedented situations that have brought economic ruin to the companies. Automation Job automation brought a new dimension to how products were manufactured in assembly lines and elsewhere where human hands were discontinued and with robots taking jobs depriving humans of attending to the process of manufacture. In this case, there were no adverse issues that the management faced with regard to the whole process and also robots were willing to work 24x7 all 365 days of the year without a day off as a break but only when they packed and had to be repaired to get back on track. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that job automation would only bring productivity back to the envisaged optimum levels that has dropped in the recent past without anything being done about it.   Some percentage of the workforce especially the unskilled and semiskilled would be affected quite badly if everything that is done around us would be done by robots hence this could be one very good reason for the younger generation to concentrate on acquiring new skills and to stay ahead of this very alarming situation. A new way in which younger generations can gain working experience and broaden their skill set is participating in co-creation projects directly collaborating with entrepreneurs on Crowdholding.  It is very unlikely that the change to a robot driven the world would come very soon, though we are researching with every conceivable possibility it is still a few decades away even may be a hundred years or more. It is the drastic drop in productivity that has made the world to get up and take stock of the situation and bring about a better economic environment. Job automation is the answer to the future and what it would hold a century from now is anybody’s guess because without such a course of action the world would not progress as fast as it wants to.   You may also be interested in:  Why co-create - a message to the crowd! Crowdsourcing Trends 2020 The Crowdholding Story

No equity, no loans, only money Raising capital Businesses need startup capital and along the way, if they plan to expand their operations they would need an infusion of capital to do so too. If the current stakeholders in small businesses are unable to chip in with the required finance they would need to look elsewhere to raise the needed capital. Going to a bank for finance would generally entail some collateral acceptable to the respective institution to be deposited before a loan could be approved. Without them banks are constrained by financial regulations to lend to any business because the banks are responsible for it, hence they cannot take risks when they lend. Read also: Revenue vs Equity Crowdfunding Alternative funding In such context, small businesses that are flourishing and need to expand would have to seek Alternative Finance of which there are many options that they could raise such funding from and which would be low risk for the prospective investors as well as for the small businesses themselves. Revenue-sharing crowdfunding If the small businesses have a wide and loyal customer base that could be one area that they could look for alternative finance and which is referred to popularly as revenue-sharing crowdfunding. Getting together loyal customers is an integral part of the growth of smallbusinesses and raising money without loss of control by using revenue-sharing crowdfunding. Loyal customers would also tend to increase their commitment to the business by proactively engaging in purchasing what they need and even acting as silent marketing agents for the business promoting the business among their friends and other acquaintances. The revenue share option gives flexibility to the business without the sword of Damocles hanging over it, where you commit to paying back prospective investors from the revenue that is generated from the small businesses. In this context when the revenue is high for a particular month you pay more and when business drops you pay less and the investors are not bothered what profit you make but only concerned what the monthly revenue is because their return on investment is limited to a percentage of revenue. This is a major advantage for small businesses as they are not under undue pressure financially to ensure that fixed monthly payments are made without default to settle the finance received in raising capital. Profit sharing In the case of profit sharing unlike in revenue sharing, there could be a very slight twist where you would need to disclose profit margins to the prospective investors and they would be party to confidential information that the original stakeholders would like to keep for themselves. The other would be that the investors would be more concerned about what profit the small businesses are making rather than the business itself because their return on investment is tied to the profits generated.      Revenue-sharing crowdfunding secures a comfortable growth base for small businesses without having to give up control over the ownership of the company. Crowdholding.com is the first revenue-sharing crowdfunding platform.  You may also be interested in:  Benefits of co-creation for small businesses Creative Marketing Through Crowdsources Content The Crowdholding Story

What business is all about! You need two hands to clap and indeed clap well you can when you hit your palms together to give that loud noise we like to hear when being encouraged by others. Read also: Why Become an Engaged Citizen? Likewise business needs an encouragement from the crowd, a small boost of creativity and collaboration that benefits both the public and the small businesses. Forbes mentions that the average failure rate of startups is around 90% of all businesses fail within 3 years. Apart from some silly or even bizarre mistakes, the main reason for failing small businesses is that the crowd is not satisfied with what the businesses have to propose. It is the satisfaction of these mutual needs that carries the businesses through the years. Getting to know about what exactly are those needs is a completely different topic, though. There is little way for the public to contribute directly to the product development processes in small businesses. However, collaboration with external stakeholders is an inevitable step that small businesses need to take in order to become a hero in their industries. Crowdholding is the first to deliver the means for collaboration between startups and the crowd. Read further about co-creation.  Tired of traditional marketing? The modern world requires old marketing communication to step back and give way to creative marketing tactics. We are all talking about an innovative concept to directly involve customers and consumers in designing the product or service that would be provided to them. This is what we now call Co-creation - a word that has brought immense interest to those seeking new ways to bring their products and services to their customer’s domain. This concept was generally born after the success that community-based service projects became success stories due to the involvement of all those who made up the big community.  Professional marketers tried the same concept with their marketing strategies and saw that when their customers helped to co-create a product or service it became accepted and met the planned objectives at the end of the day. Today companies have identified that to be in business and continue in the very competitive environment they need to think out of the box and traditional marketing initiatives need to be kept aside and implementing more innovative and aggressive strategies is the order of the day. Co-creating to satisfy your needs When customers and companies see the advantages that they would accrue in creating value through the process of co-creation of a product or service that the company is planning to sell. The crowd can purchase the co-created products as they satisfy their needs and would also be beneficial for the small business they helped grow. When companies and customers or users sit down and try to build and co-create a brand that would be acceptable to the customer. Apart from, bringing profits to the company, it is would also deliver very positive social results. Before planning to launch a startup whether it is company or product launch, customer inputs are imperative today because out there no quarter is given or taken and is so severe that it borders on nothing short of the cut-throat competition. The crowd can gain experience and also create products/service they need by co-creating with small businesses, getting rid of the necessity to bombard you with ads on every web page. Try co-creating with small businesses on Crowdholding. You can also be interested in:  Think Tanks and Benefits The link between co-creation and innovation The Crowdholding Story

If we are to analyze and study how academic and corporate thinktankers benefit from what they acquire at their workplaces and also away from it we may need to exactly see what all this fuss is about think tanks, especially in our modern and fast-paced academic and corporate environment where nothing is constant for long but is always an ever changing scenario. Read also: You should know this marketing trend In the academic arena, it is generally senior and junior Think Tanks working together with the junior Think tank carrying out instructions under the strict purview of the senior to achieve the set results which are generally either a study with previously achieved results or a new project to find new evidence on a known presumption. Here the junior Think tanks stand to benefit from the vast experience and knowledge that the senior would inculcate and from it, the juniors would also pick up some positive signals and construe them into their own perspectives and have a better understanding of what is to be achieved and also what would be achieved. In the academic field, the challenges could be limited because it is invariably rare that they would work alongside with a third party who would also bring out some positive and also negative signals to drastically change perceptions of the final results. In a corporate environment the same is totally opposite with the senior Think Tanks placing the challenges right on the laps of the junior thinktankers and encouraging them to pursue and achieve corporate objectives and here most of the junior think tankers would have to deal directly with third parties to collect data and analyze them to bring out results which could be entirely contrary to what the objectives envisaged could have foreseen. The junior Think Tanks get to work more independently in a corporate environment and the challenges could be very demanding and would need to keep their wits about them if they are to achieve the final results as they would be more exposed to third party influences. Comparing the two both environments though a distinct difference is seen it still provides immense exposure to pursue very high goals that the junior Think tanks would have never experienced before. The one factor that both groups would happily take home with them would be the immense work experience that they would have been exposed to during the whole exercise. Working in a very competitive environment would make young thinktankers into forces to reckon with when they are unleashed into their respective professional careers as they would have gained the knowledge and experience needed to tackle any demanding situation. They would also have the required experience to work in a networking environment where data, information and much other communication and information technology disciplines are available to help collate available information and analyze qualitative and quantitative substance to come up with the best answers to a specific problem, whether it is academic or corporate. Young 'think tankers' are the future and they should be encouraged to give their bit to the field that they are engaged in if the world is to see progress as it should in the future for everyone’s benefit. You may also be interested in:  Empowering Global Citizens Why Co-create? The Crowdholding Story

When we talk about 'global citizenship education' we are talking about a form of civic learning that directly involves the student’s active participation in projects that will address global issues of political, economic, social and environmental nature. Two main elements of global citizenship education are global consciousness, which is the moral or ethical aspect part of global issues, and global competencies, or skills that are meant to enable learners to compete in the market of global jobs. The global citizenship education promotion was a response by governments and NGO's to regional economic blocs, supranational institutions, development of information and communications technologies. These promotions have been more collaborative and globally oriented to approach global citizenship education. Read also: Benefits of engaging in Think Tanks The main hope or goal is to advance ongoing efforts in global citizenship education, the depth to access as it advances the conversation on global education topic and that it will provide resources that will allow collaborations at large scale among the teachers in developing tools needed to offer learning opportunities to our students. There is hope that by enabling the most extensive forms of skill by others, including building on and repurposing curriculums will invite collaboration among many teachers and other educators, students as well, who, together, will build new curricula and other resources that are instructional, using ideas to offer. Teachers, students, and the crowd submit feedback and ideas on Crowdholding to improve digital education websites likeTutorland and Angloville. The hope in colleagues from other countries will also be inspired to translate into other languages and to build make it relevant to others. Technology provides us one of the most important opportunities and it is to offer us unprecedented forms of collaboration among teachers and students worldwide. We hope that these choices taken will support collaboration that will lead to a collective intelligence, as well as communities of teachers will co-create professional knowledge about how to empower in the best way for students becoming global citizens.  There is another important element of the student-centered participatory nature of global citizenship education and it is that student, through their engagement with other students through social networks so they can create their own ways of global citizenship through dialogue, through action and through learning. This is an important element, as an example, the activities of grassroots organizations which involve teachers and students in projects that will address very important global issues such as trade rules, deforestation, and human rights. The opportunity to improve education is now. It could not be postponed. It is very urgent indeed. Goals that are sustainable were adopted by world leaders at the last general assembly of the United Nations, they provided an aspirational vision of how to help construct a poverty free world, with more social inclusion, with prosperity, without violence, and with more sustainability. These precise goals actually provide direction into educating students to help improve the world. There are risks of not doing this and they are also very clear. We are reminded daily by the news about violence and the many challenges to peace which remain in communities all around the world. Help raise awareness about the need to improve education through collaboration and co-creation of new ideas. We, at Crowdholding wish to inform the public about the opportunities the crowd can create by collaborating to improve education. You may also be interested in: How to be an Engaged Citizen Why co-create with entrepreneurs? The Crowdholding Story

The world famous street for financial fortunes to be made and lost is right at the heart of New York City in Lower Manhattan. An eight-block street that holds the key to the world’s financial secrets too, with the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, the New York Mercantile Exchange, New York Board of Trade, and a host of other financial entities that make it the most valuable bit of real estate under the Sun. Read also: The Year Capitalism Could Have Changed The New York Stock Exchange has made many so called investors to lose all their lifelong savings having taking chances that do not exist to provide a realistic return on what you invest. It is nothing but a bit of Las Vegas in a smaller area but unlike chips moving away from investors here numbers just vanish making investors poorer than when they walked in through those hallowed doorways with their savings. On the contrary, it is the middlemen and women who have filled their pockets with the commissions that come their way at the expense of those who gamble away their savings and sometimes more than what they could have bargained for. It is for this that most who have returned empty handed after walking with hope and confidence that they could make it big by taking on the established systems call this place the Evil Wall Street. Evil it is no doubt because more people have lost in comparison to those who have made it big walking in and out of Wall street. It is well known the world over that wallstreet reeks of corruption, underhand dealings we call as insider trading and every other ill that they financial world has to contend with when the stakes are high and this street it is very high. Evil Wall Street has not only taken gullible investors up the garden path but has created a bigger problem by creating social issues directly as a consequence of the corruption and illegal actions of a few. A few wrongdoers have been charged, indicted and thrown in the slammer but there are more who have been smart enough to have their fingers in the pie but have still to have been found wanting to such an extent that they are still free from possible prosecution.       A bribe here and a bribe there is the norm when one has to move a few millions here and there so it is all in the game of snakes and ladders where one wins one day and the other recoups today’s loss tomorrow, hence it is one very big corrupt family at work and if one tries to deviate from the norm he or she is sent as sacrificial lamb to the slaughter. Statistics show that only about 0.01% of companies who are genuine in commitment make some headway and that does not reflect success as envisaged. The new binary options with the use of automated robots doing what they think should happen is another disaster waiting in the wings to being blown out of proportion. You may also be interested in:  Wall Street vs Crowdholding Corruption on Wall Street The Crowdholding Story

ys a significant role for Small business. Co-creation as the word is already showing his meaning to combine either with the company or with some individual to work on the same platform. Through the co-creation, it helps to bring the individuals, coworkers or companies as well. It helps to increase the customer satisfaction, individual experience, and enhancement market performance. The value is created when a customer uses his experience using a product-service proposition. Co-creation is playing its roles in many fields which include the technology as well. Read also: Co-creation in the Fashion Industry When the co-creation technology innovation comes into the technology, it brings the giant companies or groups on the same platform to work on such a project that can help the human beings in their daily life and it helps to decrease their problems as well. Co-creation is also very necessary because it tells which step we have to take next. There are many ways of co-creation you may also involve the customer to help them in testing their brands. Moreover, when then co-creation occurs it generates unique ideas that help to make a unique product. A firm should persuade its clients to present their thoughts. In any case, getting commitment is entirely hard because most clients are much occupied and scarcely think about the organization's call. If you are facing the problems, then you announce that specific problem into the crowd whoever has a solution of this problem that person will be rewarded. It can also bring more volunteers to actively participate in development and maintenance of a product. Open source is applied when you want to develop a specific software. I would like to say it is clear many companies give importance to idea innovation in co-creation. It also gives a chance to customers to design their specific product of their desired shape and color. By applying such thing the sales of that brand increases day by day. It is useful for digital product and the services. Day by day their customers start becoming their ambassadors. When such thing happens the customer satisfaction increases about that brand or gadget. With the help of co-creation, a company can make a direct linkage between their brands and customers. They gave their comments about the product that helps to customize the design or low down the idea of the product. So, Co-creation is becoming a necessary element in this fast growing world of technology that benefits the customer satisfaction and promotes the bond linkage between the customer and the industry as well. Finally, I would like to say that co-creation play a significant role in every field of life particularly in technology. Co-creation is fundamental need of small business. Companies can take steps toward development with the help of co-creation. If you are facing the problems, then you announce that specific problem into the crowd whoever has a solution of this problem that person will be rewarded. So, according to my point of we must use co-creation technology for our business development and improvement. You may also be interested in:  Benefits of co-creation for small businesses How co-creation leads to innovation The Crowdholding Story  

The Relationship Co-creation is a very popular management concept and initiative or a strategy within an economic discipline to bring together customers and marketers to achieve or fulfill a specific objective which would be mutually beneficial to all. On the other hand, innovation is creativity at its best where new ideas, new concepts or major shifts in thinking brought forward to ensure the successful continuance of an individual, organization or ideology. Read Also: How Co-Creation Boosts Startups. Coupling these two effectively could bring about very positive idea innovations, marketing innovations and technology innovations that would take any organizations placed at any level on the small business platform or even a successful conglomerate to more successful endeavors. In today’s competitive marketing environment, businesses whether they are small business enterprises or large conglomerates need to break the shackles of traditional marketing concepts and think out of the box and for that they need co-creation and innovation. Brands and costumers It is imperative that brands are created to keep up with customer expectations and if this relationship is not continuously maintained at the optimum level at all times, marketing strategies which would have been initiated with much midnight oil being burnt would not bring the envisaged results whatever the marketing professionals would have planned. Technology development is also the same because only if you have the right inputs would you innovate the right things that would be used by your customers and the people at large or you could be innovating something that the customers cannot use or not accepted by the relevant authorities for many different reasons. Brands need to look deeply into customer requirements and create products and services that would suit such requirements and it is to get this mix right that the new concept of co-creation and innovation comes handy. Different marketing strategies have been initiated by professional marketers over the years and it has been safely assessed that what is good for the goose may not always be good for the gander. Selected segments of customers would need new strategies and it would be prudent to initiate new idea innovations that would bring out better results to both sides of the divide with mutual advantages. Hence brands could consider co-creation as a close initiative to have your customers involved in the production and marketing platforms which would give a better understanding to marketing professionals to execute their work. Initiating co-creation marketing strategies Implementing innovative marketing strategies has taken individuals and companies up the ladder of success and into this equation adding co-creation as an innovative strategy should bring positive results. Marketing professionals could bring a new perspective into marketing if they could involve a wider spectrum of their customer base prior to implementing new technology innovations which would give them more inroads into their market and also the added impetus to meet the challenges of the competition that they would meet. The world is moving very fast in all aspects especially where marketing is concerned because new idea innovations is drawing every sinew to the optimum in a very competitive marketing environment. You may also be interested in:  Challenges for Small Business which co-create Co-creation in the fashion industry Co-creation in Tech Sector

Small Business challenges There is no distinction between a small business or big business when a product from either has finally arrived on the shelf and standing there to be picked up by a customer who would have had access to all the information he needs to have about which product he would prefer or on the contrary he would not have that information and would depend on what he could assimilate at the point of sale. Big businesses would have the financial clout to mount aggressive and creative marketing campaigns which small businesses would not have. Read also: How are co-creation and innovation linked?  Small Business opportunities Though adequate financial clout could be a disadvantage that small businesses face they could overcome it by directly involving their targeted loyal customers to help co-create products and services and tailor make them to suit specific customer needs. This would small businesses the advantage that they would need to get the better of the big businesses and to get their products and services to be preferred over those of the bigger competitors. This is because the inputs that have gone into the product development have been through the direct involvement of the targeted customers who have helped to develop the product or service. New product innovation Co-creation is a new and progressive concept in creative marketing and has proved in many cases as a strategy that is working towards better understanding between the seller and the buyer providing opportunities for both to mutually satisfy themselves profitably and fulfilling a need respectively. New product development is a great opportunity for effectively creating value based products and a small business bringing in their customers to be involved. Co-Creation The involvement of targeted customers or consumers in the product development process would immensely help the final product or service to be more consumers oriented hence on the market shelf it would have better chances of projecting what advantages it could provide the customer than a product that has not had customer inputs in development. It is this aspect that has brought collaboration between the companies and the customers to a new level of understanding with the objectives of both interested parties being met at a much lower cost. The companies would spend less on market research with the positive help from their customers to co-create the product that they themselves would be the ultimate users. Creative marketing This new innovation has brought creative marketing to a new playing field with every business big and small reining in their customers and getting their feedbacks to bring products tailor made to suit specific customer needs. In an era gone buy traditional marketing was more or less groping in the dark looking for answers without being fully aware what is in store for their product or service after they had launched it with a big hue and cry. Today this has changed and companies are able to seek out customer preferences and give customers products and services that would fit their needs with effective co-creation strategies. You may also be interested in:  Challenges for Small Business which co-create Co-creation in the fashion industry Co-creation in Tech Sector

Advances in fashion production technology have had a massive impact on the industry. Once the source of the gorgeous, unique apparel is becoming more and more easily available, for example, everyone can be an individual. However, what does this mean for the future of fashion? Who are the front-runners in this new revolution? How does the fashion industry prepare itself to meet the new and increasing requirements of millennial? How do they work current models and players? Besides, what will go popular and what will stay niche? Read also: Co-creation in the Tech Industry To match with London Fashion Week, our latest community will discover the increasingly collaborative connection between customers and suppliers and discuss how mass customization and co-creation are on the rise, helping manufacturers to create a connection with their buyers, and making their product innovation more suitable and respected. Fashion companies choosing for such a technique will be able to better guarantee preservation and long-term buying interaction by appeal to main value relationships. Compared with various other divisions, the fashion industry has stayed mostly low competition a field in this respect, mostly depending on traditional promotion indicates. Instead of push promotion and segmented focusing on strategies co-creation indicates to incorporate customers into the value growth sequence. We have some examples of how the operation of co-creation can be efficiently applied to various business areas. As will be suggested, market performance in the fashion industry will become mostly reliant on the understanding of affiliate customers who highly and amorously recognize with the business. As a result, promoters will be confronted with a completely different set of difficulties to position a product in the industry. The main task then becomes how to recognize these groups, how to interact with them in an efficient conversation as well as how to take advantage of their experience and data with a brand's items. By counting the understanding, criteria of this process in the perspective of the fashion industry this we have tried to extend the opportunity of fashion promotion towards describing an alternative strategy for getting back customer commitment. Design/methodology/approach Co-creation was recognized as an important element for the successful incorporation of the business DFE into the international fashion market network. Within relationship promotion, the idea innovation of co-creation focuses on buyer experience, impact, and power in the growth and brand value. However, present appreciative of co-creation insufficiently describes the growth of the brand fashion product, demanding study of the idea using the based idea. The results of this analysis emphasize how these SMEs react and react to the presentation of their product identification through the co-creation procedure as they try to find to introduce and grow their brands within the international fashion marketplace. Originality/value We have identified the impact of market stakeholders to the crowd on the operation of fashion product co-creation. Additionally, by determining the process by which the business DFE navigates improvement their selections to the market’s network, and reacts to the understanding of the firm’s product identification, the impact of the discussions throughout the co-creation process. When most of the designers work mutually in the fashion industry, they produce the latest and most innovative design in the market. You may also be interested in:  How co-creation and innovation fit? What are the benefits of co-creation for businesses? The Crowdholding Movement

Everything that happens in the world, from politics to Wall Street - it is all a game and manipulation. It is said that all the people in the world can be divided into two groups: the first are those who play and know about it; to the second - those that are playing, but do not realize it. To get the list of the second group needs to understand the real situation, the balance of power in the world, to be able to analyze cause-effect relationships that accompany every significant global event. What stops you from being aware of the game and actually play it to your advantage? Read further and get to know what Crowdholding is doing to raise awareness about hidden practices on Wall Street There is a twitter account Goldman Sachs Elevator, that belongs to a man, who is in his words, close to Wall Street. His name is John Lefebvre. In this tweet he collects quotes allegedly heard in elevators at the Office Exchange. Arrogant and sometimes simply introduce yourself to funny statements that reveal the true nature of stock brokers: "Bulls" earn money "bears" make money, and what about "pigs"? "Pigs" get slaughtered. Therefore, if you do not know the rules of the game on the global stock markets - there is nothing there to for you. Teach a man to fish and he will once again vote in favor of the one who promises to give him the fish. Every phone call I begin with the words: "My phone almost sat down and may turn off, so come on quick." Wall Street is one of the key players in stealing the American Dream with its prevailing corruption. Maybe it's hard to compete with Wall Street, but this article is a start to show how not just cynically invest your life savings away. The following paragraphs disclose social issues on Wall Street. Read also: How capitalism could have changed  1. "Hold" often means "sell" Citigroup Bank has recently been fined $ 15 million for the labeling certain shares as "hold", but communicating to a separate group of customers they have to sell them. Analysts have found at least six shares, in which wealthy clients of Citibank opened short positions. The Securities and Exchange Commission analysts often have to repeat themselves that their share recommendations are based only on private and personal conviction. Sometimes, this creates a problem for banks, but their task - to find buyers and sellers at a certain price of the shares. In addition, it is necessary to please important clients with access to a variety of information, that is what creates the disparity. Part of the problem lies in the fact that the big banks do not want to offend the same companies who are their regular customers. And so "hold" does not always mean to “sell”, but we must be careful and pay attention, if any bank has done the underwriting in a company - if so, it may mean just mean “sell”. 2. "Much of what we say - only noise" How to disguise the meaning of the recommendation to "hold", Wall Street also likes to say in the jargon of the other concepts that make investment more difficult than it should be. Much of this "esoteric" terminology refers to technical analysis. Simply put, not all statements made on Wall Street, should be taken literally. Sometimes analysts deliberately confuse participants with their mysterious assumptions. In addition, concept such as diversification also frequently appears in speeches of experts and are not confirmed under closer examination. The tactic to spread investments across different asset classes proved to be necessary to reduce the risk, but this is connected to loss of revenue. Warren Buffett, for example, rejects this strategy and will invest most of the money in Berkshire Hathaway shares, financial companies and manufacturers of consumer goods. 3. Half of us (and you) should do it wrong In every transaction there is a winner and a loser. While some circumstances may make a transaction advantageous for one side, it will be disadvantageous to the other. The shares will be either ahead of or lag behind the market. This is the nature of the markets, in the end - they adapt to the perception. If every investor believes that it is time to buy the stock and wait until the price reaches an equilibrium point, in any case, will begin debate on its future direction. Adopting investment strategy via Crowdshares - one of the best ways to ensure the long-term accumulation of wealth. Warren Buffett said: "I believe that the long-term investments - is the result of trust and this approach will be superior to the ones used by the majority of investors - whether pension funds , institutions or individuals. And here is where Crowdholding presents an opportunity for the crowd to be directly involved in trustworthy relationships with companies, contributing to a transparent culture and superior opportunities for financial and societal benefits. We need to ignore the chatter, keep the minimum costs and to invest in stocks as if you have been on farm and could not always watch the news. You may also find interesting:  What illegal practices does Wall Street use? Citizen Engagement changes Wall Street The Crowdholding Story

What does it take to make a brand your brand? To really be able to influence a startup’s new inventions and brand strategy? In today’s customer-empowered society, co-creating and collaborating with the crowd is essential to the future growth of small businesses. And for bright inventors and innovators, crowdholding.com is the chance to work on cool inventions and make them your brand! Value co-creation platform like crowdholding.com is a must for businesses not wishing to get left behind! If you want to make a brand your brand, start by collaborating and co-creating with startups to drive customer-centric innovation and marketing. When you share a common passion and interests with a startup, the opportunity to lead product innovation is worth more than the investment of time and energy. Crowdholding is a unique digital community devoted exclusively to the crowd, a place where people can express themselves in a spontaneous and authentic way, without being baited into false fronts for selling or promoting brands. Are you tired of traditional thirty-second commercials and products developed exclusively by in-house R&D teams? Join Crowdholdingto shift the business mindset from “one-size-fits-all” to a customer-centric model of value creation Be a crowd hero and influence a startup’s strategy, build a personal brand or get hired. Read also: How co-creation stimulates innovation Influence Startups Influence startups Product and idea innovation should not be seen as something the company does on its own with its proprietary R&D resources, but as an activity, it attempts in collaboration with other stakeholders involved in its ecosystem. You are no more a mere spectator and now have the opportunity to use your initiative and resources to impact every stage of a startup’s lifecycle - in sourcing raw materials, packaging, manufacture, distribution, consumer use - Crowdholding involves you in the full experience. Build a personal brand If your goal is to build a personal brand, position yourself as a professional and a great thought leader, get involved with startups and get your opinion to be considered as significant. When you collaborate and co-create on Crowdholding, you a acquire a constant self-education and personal brand building tool. A personal brand can be useful to anyone who wants to change the world, to better themselves and others. Get Hired Crowdholding can also be a place where you connect with a potential future employer and eventually join startups as their first employees. In order to build a reputation on Crowdholding, it is necessary on the one hand, to accumulate “proof of your personal brand” (for example, the number of project awards received, reviews and recommendations and so on) - and, on the other hand, stand out from the crowd by being unique and unusual. One smart thing to ask yourself is: How do you derive value from what companies produce? It’s also an effective way of asking: What influences a company’s business - the product or the customer? We are focused on persuading businesses to rethink their marketing and idea innovation processes because the dynamics of value-creation changed. The key point is that if value-creation is to be effective you need to get involved in a startup’s ecosystem! You may also be interested in: How Tech Businesses co-create What do Fashion Startups do with co-creation The Crowdholding Story