Togather.Asia is the Asian Kickstarter plus IndieGoGo hybrid that services the regional crowdfunding gap
Faced with initial difficulties while raising funds to have their first book published in print, Bryan Ong, Mark Cheng and Jake Ong saw this an opportunity to create a platform that will help to more individuals in Asia realize their own exciting projects by providing them with crowdfunding site, ToGather.Asia.
I got in touch with Bryan, CEO and Founder of ToGather.Asia as well as author of motivational book ‘It’s I’MPOSSIBLE’ to find out more about this YES! funded Asian Kickstarter site.
Bryan Ong、Mark Cheng、Jake Ongの3人は、最初の本を出版するために資金を調達しようとした時、最初の困難に直面した。3人はこれをチャンスだと思い、より多くのアジア人がおもしろいプロジェクトを実現するための支援サイト、クラウドファンディングのTogather.Asiaを立ち上げた。
ToGather.AsiaのCEOで創業者、そして啓発書「It’s I’MPOSSIBLE」の著者でもあるBryanに連絡をとり、YES! Startupが支援したアジアのKickstarterサイト「Togather.Asia」についてさらに話しを聞いてみた。
ToGather.Asia is the Asian Kickstarter
Togather.Asia is the first Asian crowdfunding platform that enables creative individuals to get their ideas started and funded by offering rewards in return for to those that pledge with a small monetary amount. First made popular in the United states by sites such as, Kickstarter and Indiegogo, the founders decided to bring the concept of online crowdfunding over to cater to the Asian community’s interest.
ToGather.Asiaはアジアで最初のクラウドファンディング・プラットフォームで、プロジェクトのクリエーターが、小額の寄付をしてくれた人に報酬を提供することで、アイディア実現のための資金を集めることができるサイトだ。クラウドファンディングはKickstarterやIndieGoGoなどのサイトによって、まずアメリカで人気となった。そこで、ToGather.Asiaの創業者らはオンラインのクラウドファンディングというコンセプトをアジア地域にも導入することにした。
“Local crowdfunding platforms based in Asian countries are seeing a rising trend of project creators and pledgers based in Asia. Furthermore, existing major crowdfunding sites are largely dominated by projects based in the US or European countries,” says Bryan. With this two observations, the team came to a conclusion that there is a crowdfunding gap in Asia that needs to be filled. With that in mind, ToGather.Asia was set up to focus on projects based in Asia.
For a start, ToGather.Asia’s features and mechanics are pretty similar to Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. ToGather.Asia uses Paypal as their official payment system and adopts a ‘keep-what-you-raise funding’ model that was inspired by IndieGoGo. As the name implies, keep-what-you-raise means that even though the funding goal of 100 percent might not be reached at the end of the campaign period, if the project creator confirms that the money raised is enough to realize the promised rewards, the money still changes hands to the project creators.
Apart from the similarities in features and mechanics, Bryan adds that the only differentiation at this moment is the targeted geographic region and the nature of projects stemming from the many countries in Asia.
The Asian mentality towards crowd funding
From the perspective of project creators, Bryan thinks that majority of Asians are still pretty unaware of crowdfunding. Thus outreach, awareness and education is important for the project creators in Asia. There is also the misconception where project creators are afraid that their ideas will be stolen once they list their project up on a crowdfunding platform.
クラウドファンディングに対するアジア人の考え方
プロジェクトクリエーターの観点から見れば、アジアの大部分の人がまだクラウドファンディングについてあまり知らないとBryanは感じている。だから、アジアのプロジェクトクリエーターには、サービスの積極的な紹介、認知度を上げること、そして教育が重要となる。また、プロジェクトクリエーターがクラウドファンディングサイトにプロジェクトを載せるとそのアイディアが盗まれてしまうという誤解もある。
As for pledgers (‘crowd funders’), the team felt that at this point in time, where crowdfunding is beginning to take its root in Asia, Asians are more conservative and skeptical in putting their money to help support another person’s project. A lot of confidence needs to be built through transparency and traction. However, the team is confident that with time, there will be more Asians who are willing to pledge to crowdfunded projects.
Plans ahead for ToGather.Asia
Asia is a very big market. For now, the team is only targeting a few countries and slowly acquiring users and project creators. To achieve this, the team is working very hard to actively reach out and target local communities in these countries.
ToGather.Asia has also recently partnered with Figure8 agency, a company that focuses on bringing Southeast Asian music bands to the international spotlight, to help a critically acclaimed Indonesian indie music band realize their mini-concert tour in Europe. Since then, the company has raised US$510 from 23 pledgers in six days. Although its still a distance away from their funding goal, the team felt that this is a good start for crowdfunding in Asia.
