Key Factors for Project Crowdfunding Success: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Crowdfunding is a response to the financing problem of innovative projects in an environment of severe economic crisis. Its competitive advantage lies in its independence from banking institutions and the distribution of risk among a certain number of funders. Since its inception, the number of successfully completed projects has grown to a point where it has started to suffer a downturn that puts its sustainability at risk. This study concerns this particular period of downturn, in order to identify attributes that characterize it, and to define behavioral stereotypes that may be associated with new projects. On a wide data set from sufficiently contrasted projects, and through the use data mining techniques, we extracted the most influential factors in determining the success or failure of the projects, that will subsequently be grouped together using clustering techniques. Six groups of projects have been identified, each with their own characteristics that define them, two of them clearly guide the projects to success and another one allows the modification its characteristics to move away from failure. This achieved strategy allows us to estimate which potential group would be the result of a new project.