You've no doubt heard of Kickstarter, the popular online crowdfunding platform. Now Kristan Wheaton, a Mercyhurst University professor, has developed “Quickstarter,” a tool to identify and help potential entrepreneurs conceive successful crowdfunding campaigns.
Quickstarter is to Kickstarter what entrepreneurs are to “pre-entrepreneurs,” Wheaton’s term for individuals with ideas and skills who haven’t yet “made the mental leap to entrepreneurship.”
Under Quickstarter, Wheaton and his students form support teams to provide pre-entrepreneurs with targeted assistance needed to move the project forward. The help might come in the form of copywriting, public relations, graphic design, social media management or video production. If crowdfunding is successful, Quickstarter will direct the entrepreneur to appropriate resources to advance their idea.
Three projects are already underway with funding from a Mercyhurst Academic Enrichment Grant. Now, a $10,000 investment from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Central and Northern Pennsylvania will enable five more Quickstarter projects through June 2015.
“Quickstarter, which is basically just my plan for supporting crowdfunding campaigns and increasing the likelihood of their success, is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs in the Erie region who need specific kinds of technical support to launch their ideas and potentially turn them into real business opportunities,” explains Wheaton.
There is also a larger mission in mind. Citing a March 2014 report, “Northwest Pennsylvania’s ‘entrepreneur problem’ is a simple one. There aren’t enough of them,” says Wheaton.
The lack of entrepreneurs and a workforce skills gap, “exacerbate the so-called ‘brain drain’ as both young college graduates seeking relevant skills to build their resumes and entrepreneurs leave the area. To remedy this, the No. 1 recommendation of the study…was to improve the entrepreneurial culture and generate additional deal flow — in short, increase the supply of entrepreneurs. Quickstarter addresses this recommendation directly.”
Wheaton has laid out a strategy for scaling up Quickstarter with the goal of supporting 100 successful projects over three years.
Source: Kristan Wheaton, Mercyhurst University
Writer: Elise Vider
