Interview with Fabien Nizard and Paul Weber, the two co-founders of NUBS the new regional crowdfunding platform for Luxembourgish projects that will be launch in a couple of weeks. They are currently looking for interesting projects to feature on the platform that will run a reward-based crowdfunding model.
You’re launching the crowdfunding site NUBS in a few weeks, can tell us a little bit more about that new platform?
[…] NUBS will provide a funding and viral marketing platform for new projects in Luxembourg.
Yes sure. We are currently creating a regional crowdfunding platform for Luxemburgish projects, businesses and organizations. NUBS will run a reward-based funding model, meaning that the crowd will receive non-financial rewards in exchange for their contributions (products, services, etc.). So the funding model is very similar to other large crowdfunding websites, but we will distinguish ourselves by two key characteristics.
First, we want to focus mainly on regional projects that have a local presence in Luxembourg. This regional focus has two main advantages. Most importantly it will provide the opportunity to smaller projects to tap the crowdfunding market as they cannot raise sufficient attention on the more global platforms. And as a side-effect it allows us to tap a more diversified crowd compared to traditional crowdfunding platforms. We for instance want to reach a crowd of different age groups solely by word-of-mouth and offline marketing. Compared to our larger competition, we are not limited to online marketing.
Secondly, we want to push for more crowdsourcing. We are convinced that someone that contributes financially to a project wants to help intellectually in the development process as well. As such we are setting up a real social network where project creators can interact more easily with the crowd and get feedback, ideas, help, contact persons, etc.
So in a nutshell, NUBS will provide a funding and viral marketing platform for new projects in Luxembourg.
What is your business-model and will you stay in Luxembourg?
With only natives in the team and no local competition, Luxembourg really is the ideal location for us to start.
We will earn a fixed provision on any funding raised through our platform. Evidently we do not charge the provision if a campaign does not achieve its minimum funding goal. It’s true that the Luxemburgish market is quite limited in size and profitability, but we see this as a test-center for our business model and the perfection of the technical part. With only natives in the team and no local competition, Luxembourg really is the ideal location for us to start. In mid- to long-term we want to try to expand by replicating the platform in other cities.
What types of projects do you want to highlight on your platform?
[…] we want to help young businesses raise some funding, but we are not limited to business projects and want to promote a broad diversity of regional projects on the platform.
When people hear about crowdfunding, they often associate it with the start-up scene. Of course we want to help young businesses raise some funding, but we are not limited to business projects and want to promote a broad diversity of regional projects on the platform. There will be social, artistic and sport projects. This can include a music band that wants to raise some funding to organize a concert or a sports team that is organizing a tournament. On the business side we are also hoping for many projects in the gastronomy sector; this can be a new bar or a one-off event like a party. We are definitely open to discuss any ideas!
Thank you Fabien.
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