Written by Allee Manning for Mashable. Originally published on October 3, 2017.
“Alex Fine, CEO of the sextech company Dame Products, knows better than most just how effective crowdfunding can be. Last year, her tiny startup made history with the first sex toy ever to be featured on Kickstarter.
….
I’ve had enormous challenges raising funds,” said Cindy Gallop, a sex radical and entrepreneur whose latest venture is Make Love Not Porn, a “social sex” video hosting and streaming site. Both Kickstarter and Indiegogo – which allows for the crowdfunding of sex toys but not anything to do with adult video – shot down her requests to appear on their platforms.
So she turned to iFundWomen, a lesser-known crowdfunding site, which welcomed her campaign with open arms. So far she has raised less than $54,000. That’s something she attributes to a simple phenomenon: “fear of what people will think.”
“We don’t get the network effect that is a prerequisite for successful crowdfunding,” she says. “Success requires a large number of people publicly rallying around something. Some people who have funded us on iFundWomen have written to us and said, ‘I love what you’re doing. I think it’s fantastic and I donated this much, but please don’t publish my name anywhere.’”
Read the full piece about the unique challenges of crowdfunding a #sextech start-up, on Mashable.