The Recipe of Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns: An Analysis of Crowdfunding Success Factors and Their Interrelations

Abstract

Online crowdfunding websites are multi-sided platforms that offer project founders the possibility to publish their project ideas, to address potential investors, and to ask for funding. The successful funding of crowdfunding campaigns is important for founders, investors, platform operators, and diverse interest groups as well. As a consequence, research has already shed light on some success factors of crowdfunding campaigns, but the interrelations between the success factors have been neglected so far. Building upon previous research in the field of crowdfunding, investment decision making, and signaling theory, we propose a research model to explain crowdfunding success considering success factors and their interrelations. Our findings reveal that not only the factors themselves but also their interrelations are important to explain funding success. Our results are highly relevant for the stakeholders on crowdfunding platforms in order to prepare and identify successful project proposals.