With the recent collapse of first to market fan-funded model sellaband.com questions around the actual viability of such models need to be examined. TMV has always been a staunch supporter of fan-funded models and will hopefully continue to support them. So does the announced bankruptcy of Sellaband herald a new wave of fan-funded models going-under? TMV certainly do not think so. However we do believe that it does necessitate an honest assessment of whether focusing just purely on music is enough to sustain such models over the long-term.
Second fan-funded model to market Slicethepie announced a few months back that one of its artists managed to successfully make a 386% return on investment for the artist and their investors. Yet was that the only key success to come from slicethepie? Nobody has heard much from Bandstocks. Perhaps the fact their has been no United States based fan-funded start-up does signal that particular markets view that such models are a non-starter?
However, TMV did recently come across a quite dynamic US focused fan-funded model called kickstarter.com. The key differentiator from all the purely music focused fan-models is that Kickstarter allows you to “source the crowd” for investment in any arts or arts business related venture across the music, film, art and literature sectors.
