Here are two solid examples of people raising money creatively.
The Million Dollar Home Page and the Red Paper Clip.
http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/
Sold each pixel for $1 each. The page become newsworthy, the idea virus spread, the site had the traffic and so people paid for the eyeballs.
http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/
Created a blog and swapped his way to a house.
Google both these ideas and you’ll see the exposure they generated. We’re taking a conceptual lead from these in other areas of our start up, namely brand awareness.
Granted their raising wasn’t to fund a start up, but who says you can’t take a creative lead from these to fund yours?Keep your equity and create brand awareness of yourself and your start up surreptitiously.
Here’s the kicker, it has to be original thinking. The Blue Paper Clip isn’t going to work.
You can just imagine a FMCG response to a red paper clip idea – predictably either something cheaper or bigger for the same currency value but an inferior version all the same.