Creativity is a top quality of many successful entrepreneurs. These five women business owners are taking this trait to new levels of silly, beautiful and clever fun, selling everything from kaleidoscopic fabrics to delicious shaved ices to nerdy apps. One is even offering photographic odes to abandoned chairs. Read on to learn more about their colorful products!
Check out these 5 women-led crowdfunding campaigns:
1. A New Locale for a Crafty Entrepreneurial Woman (via Indiegogo)
The Business: Cherrywood owner Karla Overland is a fabric maven, and her Brainerd, Minn., business is renowned among avid quilters. After years of success with the signature “suede” look and feel of her products, she’s eager to move her business into a bigger, safer and more efficient new home. She has already bought building using bank loans, and the team is chipping in (with some help from grants) to renovate. But Cherrywood still needs help to realize its dream.
The Money: Mere hours remain for this campaign, which hopes to raise $30,000 before the day is done. Though it may not happen, Overland and her team of awesome women will still receive some money, thanks to Indiegogo’s Flexible Funding option. The funds they do generate will be used toward getting Cherrywood into a new and improved space.
2. A Beautiful Tribute to Abandoned Things (via Kickstarter)
The Business: Self-taught photographer Andrea Carroll, who is based in the U.K., is using her artistic talents to document places and things that have been forgotten over time. Now she wants to publish an “Unloved Chairs Zine,” featuring a collection of abandoned chairs and buildings she found while traveling Europe between 2007 and 2009. The finished product will be 34 pages long and contain “28 gloriously sad-looking and unloved chairs” discovered during her wanderings. She just needs help getting it to print.
The Money: Carroll initially set a goal of the equivalent of $622, which has already been met and exceeded. She has until August 23 to generate as much money as possible, all of which will be used to cover printing costs for the final physical product.
3. Healthy Fuel for an Active Life (via Plum Alley)
The Business: Catherine Walsh of Yummari, a Boulder-based, healthy-snack business, is working on what she refers to as “food for driven people.” After being diagnosed with celiac disease and while training for her first half-marathon, the New York City native learned about the nutritional benefits of natural foods from runners in the Copper Canyon of Mexico. Inspired, she founded her company — and now she wants to take things to another level.
The Money: The funds raised by Walsh’s campaign — she hopes to earn $10,000 in all — will be put toward bringing manufacturing operations to Colorado, improving recipes, updating packaging and earning organic certification. Already above the $8,000 mark, the campaign has 16 days remaining to meet or exceed its goal.
4. Hawaiian Treats for a Southern Sweet Tooth (via Kickstarter)
The Business: Alabama business owner Rebecca Davis has been running her Hawaii-inspired venture, Ono Ice, as a pop-up stand since its inception. After three years in business, she’s ready to put her work — and her hand-crank block ice shaver — on wheels so folks beyond Birmingham can learn exactly why “ono” translates to “delicious.”
The Money: By or before August 23, Davis hopes to raise $24,500. She has already cleared $5,000, but still has quite a ways to go. If she’s successful, she’ll not only get a truck, but also extra prep space to craft new specialty and sugar-free flavors.
5. An App for Finding Your Fellow Geeks (via Indiegogo)
The Business: Community is an important part of life for most folks — even if what that term means and what communities look like varies from person to person. For Michelle Jensen, the creator of Nerd Out, community is about bringing together folks who are passionate about all things geeky. Jensen, who is “a blogger, a fangirl, a cosplayer, and, most importantly, a nerd,” plans to do just that by building an app that will be the worldwide “one stop shop for all nerdy events.”
The Money: Nerd Out is seeking an ambitious $10,000 in a campaign that ends in less than a week — though, thanks to Flexible Funding, Jensen will be able to put whatever amount she ultimately raises toward paying developers to work on the app.
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Want to be featured in The Story Exchange’s Crowdfunding column? Drop us a line and tell us about your campaign at [email protected].
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