26th International Association for Management of Technology Conference - IAMOT 2017

Crowdfunding is a way to make new ventures and enterprises become financially viable, through small payments made by individuals, since the beginning of the 21st century. It emerged from the concepts of crowdsourcing and microfinance, and only due to the evolution of the internet to the so-called Web 2.0. Since its inception, crowdfunding platforms have already distributed billions of dollars throughout the world. Not only businesses have been getting funds from the crowd, but scientific research as well and even from specific academic crowdfunding websites. The possibilities brought by this kind of financing are many, but they used to be limited to great disruptive ideas, which imposes two challenges: having such ideas in a regular basis and getting fund continually. This difficulty was solved with the advent of Patreon, a crowdfunding company, created in 2013, that allows people to be patrons of content creators. With monthly payments, Patreon allows these content creators to remain financially viable and free of editorial restraints, producing knowledge or entertainment. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to discuss how crowdfunding has been evolving and how the public is motivated to become patrons of online content. To do so, an investigation of secondary data on crowdfunding history, evolution and benefits to companies and content producers and creators was conducted. After that, 14 in-depth interviews were undertaken with crowdfunders of web-based content in pursuance of comprehending them and why they pay, monthly, to these creators. In addition, a netnography of four patrons-only online communities was conducted, as a way to understand these patrons as groups, as well as individuals. Results show that this kind of crowdfunding, as seen in Patreon, is a growing market filled with possibilities, with an audience interested in helping content producers and small business to thrive. Individuals that partake in this practice have interest in feeling like co-creators, as well as belonging to something larger, being part of a community. They feel involved with the producers and want to be closer to people they look up to. Some consider the payment a donation, some consider the price for a good service from a source they trust and whose content they enjoy. Either way, they believe they are helping someone who needs and deserves funding to keep producing. In an online environment, these patrons also accept receiving less than they pay for, being satisfied with the social benefits of funding the project, whatever it may be. This topic’s relevance is twofold. First, crowdfunding, and specially the Patreon kind of crowdfunding, is a growing business that is yet to reach its full potential and became truly widespread, for creators, entrepreneurs, people seeking new and innovative products and services and even for investors, since it is possible to buy equity through crowdfunding after the J.O.B.S. (Jumpstart Our Business Startup) Act was signed in the United States. Second, Patreon and other crowdfunding platforms can now also be seen by the academics as a way to fund research, with less bureaucracy and more editorial freedom, which is a reason itself to bring this matter closer to the scientific community, helping them to understand how to use this new possibilities.