The master of crowd funding. Simon Middleton of Shackleton.

With traditional streams of funding for small businesses and start-ups having all but dried up, entrepreneurs are looking for alternatives to get their projects off the ground. Crowdfunding has become a bit of a business buzz-word, when it comes to raising revenue, but does the concept really work?

The short answer is YES! Where the banks are failing, ‘real’ people are seeing the potential in innovative business ideas and putting their money where their mouths are. The basic premise is that anyone with a business idea, invention or innovation can open a account on one of the many crowd funding websites and then pledge rewards for a certain level of investment. These pledges are usually pre-orders of the product they are trying to fund. If, after a set amount of time the entrepreneur reaches their anticipated level of funding then they receive that amount. However, if they fail to achieve the requested level of funding then they receive nothing. Simple.

A great by-product of Crowdfunding is that is tests a products potential market. However, success is not just down to how great the product is. There is also a great deal of reliance on how well those behind it are able to promote their funding campaign. Arguably this is a pretty good litmus test of a businesses potential to succeed long term.

So what does this mean for British manufacturing? Well, we have had contact with many British manufacturing businesses that have gone down the crowd funding route, some successfully and some not. The masters of crowd funding at the moment seem to be Shacklton who have just completed their 2nd round of money raising. First they succeeded in raising nearly £50,000 bring their British made banjos to market and most recently they raised over£33,000 for their Ernest Shacklton themed clothing label.  Other British manufacturing businesses to benefit from crowd funding include; Michelle Reece of Fire Faerie Designs who raised £4,000 for her handmade jewellery business and Dereks who raised £2,500 in order bring their unique backpack designs to market.

Playpress are looking for funding now!

One business currently trying to raise funding is Playpress. They have designed a creative play toy they intend on making in the UK. If you want to fund them click here.

For those that have a business idea then crowd funding might just be the route to enable your dreams to become a reality. You are going to have to get out there and do some serious promotion… like anything, nobody is just going to give you the money. And if you want to help some good old entrepreneurship, while also getting your hand of some fantastically innovative products, then take a look through some of the crowdfunding websites and get investing.

Please let us know about your experiences with crowdfunding in the comments below.

US food giant Kraft bought British institution Cadbury in a hostile takeover in January 2010 for $11Billion, following much public outcry and various campaigns to save it. Soon after the deal was struck much of the production was moved to Eastern Europe making 400 people redundant despite promises at the time to save British jobs. These actions (by the famed makers of plastic cheese and ‘what the Americans’ call chocolate) delivered a further blow for UK manufacturing and, dare I say, Britain’s economic heritage.

Now there are revelations that the recipe for a long held British favourite has changed forever. Yes, the humble Creme egg is losing it’s Dairy Milk shell in favour of plain old milk chocolate.  There is perhaps a small mercy that the gloop in the middle (whatever that stuff is) is going to remain unchanged.

Of course in the grand scheme of things this small change to the choccy on an overly sweet treat is at best a minor betrayal by the current owners of Cadbury, especially given their history with the brand. However, the Cadbury story does need to serve as a warning of what can happen when a much loved British institution is taken into foreign hands. We cannot rely on those overseas business owners to have any real sympathy with their new employees or the brands place in our collective consciousness.

In the interest of balance, foreign ownership has proven to be beneficial for British brands. Take Tata’s takeover of Jaguar Landrover for instance. A company now employing more people in the UK than ever before and has gone from strength to strength under their control. That being said if other more convenient or economical options rise can we trust them to support Britain?

This post is not supposed to be a rant against foreign ownership of once mighty UK businesses, although it might come across as such. It is more a warning that if we do sell our brands to foreign owners we cannot then expect those owners to operate under the sale same duty of care for us. The profit and loss sheet is likely to lead decisions over community, heritage and  tradition.

Ok, so there is a bit of a leap to suggest that the current Creme Egg-gate is symptomatic of UK brands falling into foreign hands but  I would like to final word to be by a very talented lady that has summed up the thoughts of the nation in song….