Harnessing the Crowd: How Ventures ‘Bounce Back’ from Failure

While crowdfunding success stories such as the Pebble smartwatch receive the most press attention, it is often overlooked that most crowdfunding campaigns are not tales of triumph; in many crowdfunding categories, 80% of ventures fail to meet their funding goals. Crowdfunding failure matters: Ventures do not get any of the aimed-for funds and the failure signal stands as an indelible public record that damages the ventures’ future resource provision prospects. Indeed, venture capitalists consider crowdfunding failure a “death sentence”. Additionally, failure increases crowd
adaptation pressures, further straining the venture's limited resources.