Crowdfunding enables you to pre-sell hundreds or thousands of units in a set period which helps drive larger volume orders with manufacturers. Larger orders generally decrease the cost per unit and increases your margin. Pre-sales are ideal because you don’t need to worry about massing an inventory. All you need is a working prototype and a great marketing plan. You can include your backers in the product development cycle and iterate before investing in manufacturing.

Once you deliver a successful crowdfunding campaign, you have proven that there is a high demand for your product which will help your close larger volume deals direct with retailers or expedite potential licensing deals or even sell your company.

Crowdfunding is not just for cash poor startups. It is the best way to validate a new product, build a community and see revenue within a few months. By creating a crowdfunding campaign, you go through the invaluable process of looking at your business from the top level—its history, traction, offerings, addressable market, value proposition, and more—and boiling it down into a polished, easily digestible package.

One of the best things about online crowdfunding is its ability to centralize and streamline your fundraising efforts. By building a single, comprehensive profile to which you can funnel all your prospects and potential investors, you eliminate the need to pursue each of them individually. So instead of duplicating efforts by printing documents, compiling binders, and manually updating each one when there’s an update, you can present everything online in a much more accessible format, leaving you with more time to run your business instead of fundraising.