IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/infosf/v20y2018i2d10.1007_s10796-016-9723-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Project description and crowdfunding success: an exploratory study

Author

Listed:
  • Mi (Jamie) Zhou

    (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University)

  • Baozhou Lu

    (China University of Petroleum)

  • Weiguo (Patrick) Fan

    (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University)

  • G. Alan Wang

    (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University)

Abstract

Existing research on antecedent of funding success mainly focuses on basic project properties such as funding goal, duration, and project category. In this study, we view the process by which project owners raise funds from backers as a persuasion process through project descriptions. Guided by the unimodel theory of persuasion, this study identifies three exemplary antecedents (length, readability, and tone) from the content of project descriptions and two antecedents (past experience and past expertise) from the trustworthy cue of project descriptions. We then investigate their impacts on funding success. Using data collected from Kickstarter, a popular crowdfunding platform, we find that these antecedents are significantly associated with funding success. Empirical results show that the proposed model that incorporated these antecedents can achieve an accuracy of 73 % (70 % in F-measure). The result represents an improvement of roughly 14 percentage points over the baseline model based on informed guessing and 4 percentage points improvement over the mainstream model based on basic project properties (or 44 % improvement of mainstream’s performance over informed guessing). The proposed model also has superior true positive and true negative rates. We also investigate the timeliness of project data and find that old project data is gradually becoming less relevant and losing predictive power to newly created projects. Overall, this study provides evidence that antecedents identified from project descriptions have incremental predictive power and can help project owners evaluate and improve the likelihood of funding success.

Suggested Citation

  • Mi (Jamie) Zhou & Baozhou Lu & Weiguo (Patrick) Fan & G. Alan Wang, 2018. "Project description and crowdfunding success: an exploratory study," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 259-274, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:infosf:v:20:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s10796-016-9723-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s10796-016-9723-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10796-016-9723-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10796-016-9723-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rajagopal, 2014. "The Human Factors," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Architecting Enterprise, chapter 9, pages 225-249, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Parhankangas, Annaleena & Ehrlich, Michael, 2014. "How entrepreneurs seduce business angels: An impression management approach," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 543-564.
    3. Chan, C.S. Richard & Park, Haemin Dennis, 2015. "How images and color in business plans influence venture investment screening decisions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 732-748.
    4. Ana Suárez-Vázquez & José Quevedo, 2015. "Analyzing superstars’ power using support vector machines," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 1521-1542, December.
    5. Li, Feng, 2008. "Annual report readability, current earnings, and earnings persistence," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2-3), pages 221-247, August.
    6. Mollick, Ethan, 2014. "The dynamics of crowdfunding: An exploratory study," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16.
    7. Zhuoxin Li & Jason A. Duan, 2014. "Dynamic Strategies for Successful Online Crowdfunding," Working Papers 14-09, NET Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mi (Jamie) Zhou & Baozhou Lu & Weiguo (Patrick) Fan & G. Alan Wang, 0. "Project description and crowdfunding success: an exploratory study," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-16.
    2. Chan, C.S. Richard & Park, Haemin Dennis & Huang, Julie Y. & Parhankangas, Annaleena, 2020. "Less is more? Evidence for a curvilinear relationship between readability and screening evaluations across pitch competition and crowdfunding contexts," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    3. Jermain C. Kaminski & Christian Hopp, 2020. "Predicting outcomes in crowdfunding campaigns with textual, visual, and linguistic signals," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 627-649, October.
    4. Yang, Jialiang & Li, Yaokuang & Calic, Goran & Shevchenko, Anton, 2020. "How multimedia shape crowdfunding outcomes: The overshadowing effect of images and videos on text in campaign information," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 6-18.
    5. Chan, C.S. Richard & Parhankangas, Annaleena & Sahaym, Arvin & Oo, Pyayt, 2020. "Bellwether and the herd? Unpacking the u-shaped relationship between prior funding and subsequent contributions in reward-based crowdfunding," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 35(2).
    6. Seyb, Stella K., 2022. "Red flags and rave reviews: Explaining too-good-to-be-true crowdfunding campaigns," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 69-78.
    7. Chien-Sheng Richard Chan & Haemin Dennis Park & Pankaj Patel, 2018. "The effect of company name fluency on venture investment decisions and IPO underpricing," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 1-26, January.
    8. Sardar Muhammad Usman & Farasat Ali Shah Bukhari & Huiwei You & Daniel Badulescu & Darie Gavrilut, 2020. "The Effect and Impact of Signals on Investing Decisions in Reward-Based Crowdfunding: A Comparative Study of China and the United Kingdom," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-20, December.
    9. Anglin, Aaron H. & Short, Jeremy C. & Drover, Will & Stevenson, Regan M. & McKenny, Aaron F. & Allison, Thomas H., 2018. "The power of positivity? The influence of positive psychological capital language on crowdfunding performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 470-492.
    10. C. S. Richard Chan & Annaleena Parhankangas, 2017. "Crowdfunding Innovative Ideas: How Incremental and Radical Innovativeness Influence Funding Outcomes," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 41(2), pages 237-263, March.
    11. Jascha-Alexander Koch & Michael Siering, 2019. "The recipe of successful crowdfunding campaigns," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 29(4), pages 661-679, December.
    12. Jascha-Alexander Koch & Jens Lausen & Moritz Kohlhase, 2021. "Internalizing the externalities of overfunding: an agent-based model approach for analyzing the market dynamics on crowdfunding platforms," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 91(9), pages 1387-1430, November.
    13. Tuo Gladys & Yi Feng & Wang Wenxin & Sarpong Solomon, 2020. "The Second Round Resource Acquisition of Entrepreneurial Crowdfunded Ventures: The Relevance of Campaign and Project Implementation Performance Outcomes," Entrepreneurship Research Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 1-21, July.
    14. Kovacs, Attila, 2018. "Gender Differences in Equity Crowdfunding," OSF Preprints 5pcmb, Center for Open Science.
    15. Allison, Thomas H. & Davis, Blakley C. & Webb, Justin W. & Short, Jeremy C., 2017. "Persuasion in crowdfunding: An elaboration likelihood model of crowdfunding performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 707-725.
    16. Naomi Moy & Ho Fai Chan & Benno Torgler, 2018. "How much is too much? The effects of information quantity on crowdfunding performance," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(3), pages 1-15, March.
    17. Etienne Schraven & Elco van Burg & Marco van Gelderen & Enno Masurel, 2020. "Predictions of Crowdfunding Campaign Success: The Influence of First Impressions on Accuracy and Positivity," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-16, December.
    18. Michael J. Ryoba & Shaojian Qu & Yongyi Zhou, 2021. "Feature subset selection for predicting the success of crowdfunding project campaigns," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 31(3), pages 671-684, September.
    19. Lukas Maier & Christian V. Baccarella & Jörn H. Block & Timm F. Wagner & Kai-Ingo Voigt, 2023. "The Legitimization Effect of Crowdfunding Success: A Consumer Perspective," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(4), pages 1389-1420, July.
    20. McSweeney, Jordan J. & McSweeney, Kevin T. & Webb, Justin W. & Devers, Cynthia E., 2022. "The right touch of pitch assertiveness: Examining entrepreneurs' gender and project category fit in crowdfunding," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 37(4).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:infosf:v:20:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s10796-016-9723-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.