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Almost anyone who has a Facebook account has seen a post in which someone asks for help remembering the name of a song, asks to borrow a truck, or asks who is interested in buying a couch. Whether these posters realize it or not, they are crowdsourcing, and applying one of the most natural online platforms to do so.
Facebook’s valuation and business model are based on the fact that it draws out a user-generated web of people and their interests. It is essentially an advertisers/marketer’s dream and something that organizations spent years crudely trying to construct using surveys and expensive studies. That brings us to whether or not crowdsourcing via Facebook applications offers an ideal environment for your new product. Overall it is very well suited for this task and has been a definite game-changer, but it is not without its caveats.
Pros
One Billion People
We probably do not need much detail here – it has the largest sustained user base of any account-based company ever. To be fair, the true figure for daily engaged users is around 600 million, but whatever. We can not ignore that there is a staggering number of users on Facebook.
Open Graph
Through Open Graph, Facebook has given developers the ability to leverage the detailed relationships that it has spent years building organically. When launching a product, the level of segmentation can be as broad or detailed as desired and in either case will likely be exactly what a startup is seeking.
Successful Monetizing Model
Many Facebook applications have been lucrative and have demonstrated that people have a willingness to part with dollars while on the network. For a platform that combines crowdsourcing with crowdinvesting, this makes it ideal for raising capital. Though crowdinvesting obviously involves less impulse decision than crowdfunding in that it represents a true financial risk, crowdinvesting is meant to involve less deliberation than traditional investing. Any organization that raises funds online is faced with the challenge of presenting donation options when donors are most likely to give. This principle applies to Facebook monetization as well and its users have never shown themselves to be stingy.
Cons
Facebook is a Moving Platform
Any developer on Facebook must deal with the fact that platform does not belong to them – Facebook calls the shots and if it decides to change a major feature, the developer must adjust to it. While this might cause momentary disruptions on the application, developers can use Facebooks support network to quickly adapt changes and get things up and running again.
Access to High-Profile Contacts
While Facebook is the leading social network by far, if you traced through certain interpersonal networks for the average user you may find a certain social uniformity. It will include many potential users, but may not allow access to high professionals from other industries than startup tech.
However: Through APIs of other networks, such as LinkedIn, this social uniformity can be dispersed and access to mentors and potential backers can be offered. In the case of UFOstart, such contacts can be invited without imparting personal information. By offering contributors the option of anonymity users can leverage both: the crowd of friends and family on Facebook and high-potential, selected supporters from other networks.
If you want to find out more about how to crowdsource your business needs via a unique Facebook application named UFOstart, contact us. What do you think are other benefits or drawbacks of building your product as a Facebook application?
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Join our first "Global Crowd Network" for Lean Startup funding! Connect with facebook on www.ufostart.com and calculate your Startup Value. Interested in how you can leverage the power of the crowd for your startup? Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter!
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