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Freelance film maker, Damon Meade. - Source: Close Up -
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Entrepreneurs may no longer need to head to banks or investment agencies to come up with funds for their bright ideas.
A new method of sourcing money direct from the general public is helping thousands around the world get their projects off the ground.
Crowdfunding is a relatively new, collaborative way of raising funds to help an idea become reality.
Freelance film-maker Damon Meade needed to raise $14,000 in order to produce a kiwi surfing film.
"I'm not one to talk things up but I think it could potentially be really good," he told TV ONE's Close Up.
But like a lot of Kiwis, spare cash to fund his idea was hard to come by. "I don't know if the bank would even give me a loan," he says.
So Meade has been using the crowdfunding website socialbacking.com in order to raise funds.
His project has almost 200 backers and reached his target of $14,000 just after it featured on Close Up.
Win-Win situation
In crowdfunding, individuals or businesses will donate a defined amount of money for a specific cause in exchange for various rewards.
But Meade says it's not easy money and has been a lot of hard work. "I might have underestimated the campaigning."
Ash Lomberg, co-director of socialbacking.com told Close Up with crowdfunding "people are not having to give away equity or pay back loans, and with backers they get to be early adopters and see projects first."
Crowdfunding is huge in the United States. Website Kickstarter launched in 2007 and since then has raised about a billion dollars in projects.
And Kiwi film-maker Taika Waititi used the method to help raise funds to distribute his film Boy in the United States.
Lomberg says charities are getting into the new phenomenon and after the Olympics there's even talk about using the method to help fund our elite athletes.
"I think it's really important to keep funding these athletes, there's been a lot of talk about who got funding and who didn't," he says.
Socialbaking.com went live last month and takes 5% of the total funded amount for all projects.
The website's rules stipulate that all backers receive their money back if the project does not reach it's target.